Chapter 40
TOM
I don’t breathe so much as sip the air in tiny, panicked teaspoons.
Hide under the desk. Not with my dire lack of flexibility.
Pretend to be an IKEA coat rack. Ridiculous idea.
Fake medical emergency. Collapse, whisper “diabetes,” hope for mercy.
All useless.
My body enters DEFCON Glitter status — gay panic so pure it could power a disco ball.
With seconds to formulate a plan, I do the only logical thing: I become one with the wall behind the door. There’s a sliver behind its hinged side—ridiculous for a man of my height, but I flatten myself into it like I’m auditioning to be a poster.
The handle turns.
The door swings inward, stops a whisker from my nose. If I exhale, the game is up. I hold in all bodily functions, including the ones that make life worth living.
A figure leans into the room, weight shifting on polished floorboards. I can see the edge of a forearm, a knife blade catching the light.
A knife. Fantastic. Because what this moment was missing was cutlery-based jeopardy.
“Jesus, Sam!” James barks from behind the door.
“Fuck!” Sam’s voice.
“Christ, what the fuck are you doing wandering around the house with a knife?”
“I heard a noise,” Sam grinds back, breath quick. “I thought someone was in the house. Your car’s not here.”
“I had the car in for a service,” James says, tone flat and irritated. “I was having a lie down.”
A nap. Of course. The one time I break into a house I stumble into a power-snooze-kitchen-slasher crossover.
Their voices shift away. I keep my cheek pressed to the cool wall and listen to footfalls. My legs have discovered advanced trembles. I silently negotiate with my calves. Please stop. I will hydrate better. I will buy magnesium. I will stop drinking coffee as a personality.
“I’m heading out,” James says.
“Where?”
“Post office.”
Post office. Somehow that sounds more ominous than “underground vault” or “secret lair.” Only a true villain pops to the post office after a nap.
A few seconds later, pipes clank. A rush of water. Sam’s shower spits to life, the sound thick as rain on a tin roof. Steam ghosts out along the upstairs landing. He’s in the bathroom. Knife presumably put down. Or maybe he showers with it. Who knows with him.
This is my moment.
I ease the door a fraction wider and step out, trying to move like a person who is not currently made of maracas. The office looks exactly as I left it—screen dark, chair at a guilty angle. I slide the memory stick deeper into my pocket until the rectangle digs like a talisman.
Twenty-five video files.
Twenty-five little bombs.
Back door. No cameras on the back path.
Outside, I breathe, re-plant the key under the pot with the kind of care reserved for ancient relics and scoot through the bushes.
On the pavement, my head is a radio changing stations every second. Go home. Watch the files. Call Craig. Go home. Post office—James—post office.
The memory stick digs again, reminding me I have twenty-five tiny reasons to leave.
But curiosity is my most toxic trait, after pastries.
I glance up the road and there he is: James, hands in his pockets, face calm, walking like the street owes him rent.
I follow at what I hope is a casual distance.
We drift onto the main road. Daylight has that Bristol autumn brightness that feels slightly suspicious, like it’s hiding rain behind its back. James moves with purpose. I move with panic.
We cut through the side streets, past Victorian terraces with doors the colour of expensive moods, until the trees begin to thin and the Downs open up ahead — wide, windy, smugly picturesque. The kind of place people go jogging to prove a point.
The grass is still damp from earlier rain, that silvery kind of damp that soaks into your shoes and your soul.
A woman in a puffer jacket throws a ball for a golden retriever who clearly identifies as upper middle class. Cyclists zip past with the sort of aggression only achievable through Lycra. A man jogs by wearing shorts that feel like a personal attack on my eyesight.
James strides on, unbothered. I follow a good fifty metres or so behind him.
We pass an elderly man walking a dog that looks like a footstool with eyes. The man nods politely. I nod back, trying to look casual, as if I’m not halfway through a light espionage mission disguised as cardio.
And still, we keep walking.
Definitely not towards a post office.
No, James is heading for the south side of the Downs — the part that overlooks the gorge.
My phone vibrates. Craig. Finally. I stare at his name and let it go to voicemail because obviously the worst time to be sensible is the exact moment sense calls you.
The landscape opens out into wind, space and drama. The Clifton Suspension Bridge stretches ahead, all graceful arches and bad decisions. Below, the Avon Gorge glints dully.
James doesn’t even pause to admire it, which somehow makes it worse.
He walks right to the edge near St Vincent Rocks, where the ground slopes down in patches of scrub and limestone.
It’s quieter here. The joggers have thinned out, replaced by couples taking photos and teenagers pretending not to vape.
The wind picks up, sharp and metallic. It tugs at my coat, my nerves, my common sense.
James stops, checks his watch, then looks down the path leading to the viewpoint.
Someone’s already there — waiting.
A face I recognise.
Phil.
Craig’s husband, Phil.