Mayfly

1. CHAPTER ONE

Second bank, first row, first locker.

Pin: forty-five, eighteen.

Same as always.

Not once in the past thirteen years has it ever changed. It’s a combination I know more intimately than any living soul.

Pressing enter, the door pops from its lock with a metallic clang. Inside, as I knew it would be, is the same brand and style of black leather satchel that awaits me in perpetuity. And just like always, it's stocked with many things I'll likely never use.

Taking the bag out, I drape the long strap over my shoulder and accept—even before I begin—that this time won’t be any different from the last. Or the one before. Or the one before that.

The satchel feels like a lead weight as I force myself to walk outside the station, but you'd never be able to tell by looking at me. And people do look. Some with curiosity, others with indifference. It’s London, after all. No one really sees anyone here.

Tomorrow morning when I make my way back to St. Pancras Station, the hole that’s been inside of me for as long as I can remember will still be as gaping as it is right now.

As void as it was last week in Warsaw. As fucking cavernous as it has been since I first hoped that stamping out someone else’s light would make mine shine a little brighter.

Fuck this life.

If only I had the balls to do something more permanent. To innately understand the purpose of my suffering and to die happily with no regrets. But that would take far too many pieces to fall into place, and fate has been an ever-loving cunt to me thus far.

Stepping towards the Pelican crossing that cuts the A501, I watch the thick London traffic whirr past for several seconds.

The city’s breath, just as cold and unwelcoming as ever, brushes against the nape of my neck.

My right hand balls into a fist and my fingers feel the strain of my black, Saint Laurent driving gloves as some twat in a cheap suit pushes past me to press the button—its surface a petri dish of filth—not realizing he’s done me a favor.

Those extra moments he would have waited had he not pushed through are worth far more to him than anything has ever meant to me. And, as I study him in my peripheral vision, I can tell by his faux leather briefcase just how true that is.

Straightening out, he looks back at me, and in less than a second his glare of annoyance snaps to an oh fuck, I shouldn’t have done that nod of his head.

If he knew what I’m capable of for the right price, then he might be legitimately scared instead of just questioning which firm or brokerage I work for, and who I may influence.

Men like this may just be an even bigger waste of space than I am.

The sun has barely risen, and he’s already plotting whose ass he can rub his nose in.

“Good morning,” he says, looking down at me like his height advantage actually counts for anything.

“Is it?” I ask flatly, stepping out onto the road just as the crossing alert begins.

There’s an art to blending into the ordinary while carrying out the remarkable. And as I head south on Argyle Street, I stare straight ahead as the man veers to the right, noting everyone and everything that crosses my path towards Piccadilly.

When I reach Russell Square, at the exact moment I take my first step on the path that cuts right through the lawn, I feel the satchel vibrate. Pushing up the left sleeve of my suit jacket, I check my watch as though I didn’t already know it was half-seven.

Moving to the side of the path, I take a seat at one end of a bench.

Crossing my legs, I rest one arm along the back of it, just missing the shoulder of a mother in workout gear fussing about in a nappy bag.

Using my other hand to unzip the satchel and locate the phone inside, I notice her reflectively straighten her back then relaxes again once she determines I’m not a threat.

And why aren’t I?

Because she knows a designer suit when she sees one?

Or is it because she wants me to move closer?

It almost makes me smile that she thinks her whole process went undetected, when I could have slit her throat and already be exiting the park before she has enough self awareness to know what the fuck just happened.

So I guess she’s lucky I don’t actually have a lust for blood.

Not hers, anyway. I’ve never killed a woman and I don’t plan on starting today.

Pressing the green rubber button on the Nokia burner phone, I hold it to my ear. And with no greeting offered, I wait for the voice that keeps me in this purgatory, but is also so familiar that I've been clinging to it week after month after year.

“Always so full of conversation first thing in the morning, aren’t we?”

“Mmm,” I hum into the receiver.

“How does it feel to be back ho—”

“Fuck you.” I cut Marius off, only to have him chuckle back at me.

“If I’d told you where the job was, you’d never have taken it. So best to offer you more money than you can say no to and leave a ticket for you at the station.”

“This better not turn into a bigger job.”

“That's why I've got my best man on it. You’re in. You’re out. It’s why I love you.”

“Fuck you, you Romanian bastard.”

“Hey, hey. No need to get personal… But go on,” he continues after a long pause. “Why don’t you say you love me, too? It might make you feel better.”

“Why don’t you tell me where the fuck I have to be now instead of forcing me to play your stupid games?”

“Because no matter how much I trust you, you’re still a wildcard.”

“We’re done here,” I grunt with bitter obligation as I stand—the satchel already back over my shoulder as I continue the journey I’d started before Marius’s little check-in.

“You know I’ve arrived, so I better not hear your voice again before ten o’clock tonight.

And fuck you again for sending me here.”

I have the back cover of the phone pried off within a second, because if I don’t end the call, there’ll be a scene. And when I cause a scene, people get hurt.

Tearing out the phone’s battery pack, I shove it in my jacket pocket.

After fishing out the SIM card, I toss the empty phone and case into the final rubbish bin I pass when exiting the park.

Crossing onto Montague Street, the British Museum and its tall cast iron fence flanking me to my right, I snap the SIM card in half inside my pocket.

Then, as a bus full of early morning tourists pulls up at the museum's main gate, I stumble into a passerby and drop the satchel in the gutter. Apologizing, I step into the gutter to retrieve the bag—tossing the broken SIM into the stormwater drain in the process. A jogger stops to ask if I’m alright, and with a reassuring nod, I take the battery pack out of my other pocket and dispose of it into the rectangular metal bin of a passing street cleaner.

CCTV might be a pain in the ass, but at least it makes me thorough.

With the exertion of feigning politeness behind me, I crack my neck, dust my gloved hands together, and breathe out Marius’s bullshit.

He may be all I have. But that still doesn't mean I owe him shit.