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was slippery with blood. I was shaking; my heart was in my throat; I felt dizzy. I fell to my knees and tried to breathe. It took a moment for the adrenalin to sink. My arm was throbbing and warm now, but the numbness was going. I stepped over the mess and walked back to the hallway, to where the other man was lying on the floor. He wasn’t moving. I flicked on the light and closed the front door.
    The bloke on the floor was young, in his twenties, with shaved blond hair. He was big, like a body-builder, too fresh-faced to have been in many fights. He’d crashed backwards into a low table. There was a hole in the plasterboard where his head had hit. His neck was twisted around, blood trickled from a gash above his eye. His breathing was shallow, his face a grey, washed-out colour. I thought maybe his neck was broken. I didn’t need to worry about him, so I went back to the kitchen. The man there was older and smaller. There wasn’t much else I could make out. He lay face down in a thick and deep crimson pool of blood and gore. I pushed my boot into his face enough to move it around. His eyes were open. He wasn’t breathing at all.
    I went into the bathroom, shucked out of my jacket and ripped off my shirt. My gun clattered to the floor. I’d forgotten about that. I looked at my right shoulder in the mirror, flexing it, rubbing it, moving my arm above my head and around. The skin was already discoloured where a bruise was breaking out, but nothing was broken. A pain moved through my head and, for a second, the world went dizzy. I splashed cold water on my face then went into the bedroom and grabbed a leather travelling bag. I went from room to room, packing essentials, some clothing, some dried food.
    I left the flat to get some stuff I’d stashed under the landing floorboards. Below me, Akram’s grandmother stared up, eyes wide, hands clasped before her. She was terrified. She said something I couldn’t understand, then turned and scuttered back down the stairs. I ripped back the carpet and pulled up a floorboard. Beneath it lay a black plastic bin bag, taped up to form a package the size of a hardback book. I grabbed the bundle, replaced the floorboard and carpet, and went back into the flat. I opened the package and poured its contents into the leather bag: a Smith and Wesson M10 .38 Special, two boxes of cartridges, one for each of my guns, a silencer for the Makarov, and £5,000 in twenty- and ten-pound notes.
    I put the travelling bag by the front door and looked around the flat. It was no bother to dump my old life. There was no point wiping the place down. I could spend hours trying to clear all traces that I’d lived there and still miss something. Besides, they’d still get my DNA. No, I had to go, leave it all behind. The flat was under a false name, anyway. I hadn’t used my real name since I’d left the Paras. So long as I didn’t get caught, I’d be okay. I’d have to lie low, though, go to ground for a while. I needed a new car. If, as I thought, these were Cole’s men, my car would soon be known.
    Back in the kitchen, I checked through the dead man’s pockets. I pulled out £500 in new fifty-pound notes and £100 in used twenties, a key ring with various keys, including one for a car, and a bank card in the name of Brian Dirkin. I took the money and the keys. I considered taking whatever vehicle this Dirkin had used, but that would be as hot as mine once his body was discovered, and from the look on Akram’s grandmother’s face, that wouldn’t be long.
    The boy out in the hallway hadn’t moved. I stood and looked at him for a moment. He had a black tribal tattoo on his upper right arm. Something tweaked at the back of my mind and I felt as though a far-off part of me was crying out a warning. It was like a horror lurking.
    I crouched down and searched his pockets. There was a condom, a penknife and, as with Dirkin, £500 in fifty-pound notes and £100 in twenties. There was something