I wondered how they’d got on after arriving in the UK and I hoped that they’d managed to build a new life for themselves. I picked up the knife and opened it, looking at the blade. There was nothing special about the knife but I wondered how special it had been to the man. I gave his family water when they needed it and he had given me the only thing of value that he had. In this million-pound apartment in the West End of London, this was probably my most valuable possession.
I replaced the knife and looked again at the photo of the girl, her partner and their child, Jeremiah. Happy smiles at the camera; made possible only by the extreme violence of a group of soldiers willing to compromise their souls in exchange for others.
I spend a fair amount of time sitting on the wide windowsill in my swanky new flat staring out of the window at the people going about their lives below. Today it’s raining and I watch the water trickle down the glass as I contemplate for the thousandth time the events that brought me here.
I still find it difficult buying clothes that fit, and getting a haircut is still a stressful experience but it’s a small price to pay for a comfortable bed, a hot shower, a fridge and a cooker. And a TV.
For no real reason I walk into my new bedroom and open the wardrobe. I climb in and sit on the floor, pulling the door shut.
I close my eyes and try to recapture the feeling I used to have waiting for the hotel cleaning staff to finish for the day so that I could shower and sleep in a warm bed. I couldn’t do it; that part of my life was gone.
The past year had been the worst year of my life. I’d never been so depressed and scared in my life; to the point where there had been times when I really didn’t care if I lived or died. Any yet, there’s a part of me that wonders if it was the worst part of my life or whether it was the start of my life.
Before this I’d existed, relatively safe and isolated. That part of me is gone now and the speed in which it went probably attests to how shallow it was. Despite the misery and stress of the last year I feel as if I’ve finally lived; that my life had some purpose. I mattered and that scared me a little because, as nice as this new life is, nothing much has changed for me now. I still have no purpose but now I’m aware of it. What will I do? What’s the next step? I have no purpose at the moment and, worse than before, I’m aware that I have no purpose.
So I climb out, feeling a little stupid for sitting in a wardrobe, microwave some pasta and plop down on my new sofa to watch The Simpsons.
As Homer prances around his bedroom in a Mr Plough jacket, my phone buzzes as a text message arrives.
It is probably Claudia confirming her arrival time for dinner next Thursday and I absent-mindedly pick up my phone and scoop up another forkful of pasta. I glance away from the TV to read the message. The pasta never makes it to its destination and slips off the fork and into my lap.
I don’t notice the mess because my attention is fixed firmly on the phone. It is from Roche.
I read it again to try to make sense of it: “Tel Aviv, Israel. Pack a bag.”
For the first time in my life I said, “Fuck.”
COMING SOON…
Watch out for the next in the Matthew Hawk Series, autumn 2017.
Hawk's Cross Page 24