The traffic noises outside the eighth floor window echoed around the empty office building as lights flickered on and off in the apartments and offices up and down the inner London City street. Inside, only the faint sound of a hoover pushed around the floor by an elderly dark haired man in a black cleaning company branded polo shirt and dark blue workman’s trousers, occasionally shunting the steel foot of a table, bothered the darkened figure hunched over a laptop in the corner of the open plan office.
Crumpled bits of paper, empty coffee cups and sandwich wrappers littered the desk and over flowing waste paper bin down by the side of the desk, much to the annoyance of the elderly cleaner, who periodically shot irritated glances towards the sound of furious tapping on a laptop keyboard. Shaking his head, the elderly cleaner resumed his hoovering, unable to comprehend the need for young people to work such late hours having no life. It wasn’t like that in HIS day, when he buzzed around the halls of this vibrant and decorated newspaper and media company, which had covered most of the major breaking news stories of this century. The old man’s mind wandered back to the times when he wore the snappy, expensive suit and ran through these corridors he now hoovered, helped by his glamorous and attractive assistant as he worked hard to break the latest news stories.
The figure, outlined only by the lights shining in from the large window which looked down eight floors and onto the hustling, bustling street below as late night shoppers, yuppie drinkers and police patrol cars, leant back in his new black reclining ergonomic office chair, and stretched his arms high above his head, groaning as he felt the soreness in his back, shoulders and head increase. He turned to his second screen and adjusted the large double black monitor arm, to which were fixed two Pro Display computer monitors, and used his black wireless mouse to scroll through volumes of high-resolution black and white images of a man loading a car with suspiciously large military bags.
Ian Hawking stretched again as he got up from his desk and wandered over towards the small roof terrace adjacent to his desk. He swiped his Cryptag ID across the small black panel on the wall and waited for the LED to turn green before sliding the large patio door open and closing his eyes, feeling momentary comfort from the cool breeze which engulfed his face. He pulled a semi-crushed packet of Marlborough Red cigarettes from his pocket and lit one up, exhaling extensively before sliding one hand into his pocket and walking casually over to the edge of the roof terrace wall to gaze down at the traffic below.
He thought it unfair that life around him should just carry on, regardless of his pain and the fact that his world had all but stopped. For the last week he had been on annual leave, drunk and living off take-away food while he resigned himself to his living room sofa, in a deep and pitiful cavern of self-pity and grief. All he could think about at first was his own sorrow, merging into jealousy, back to sorrow again, unable to muster any other form of emotion. He was void from caring about work or deadlines or news stories. He refused to watch the news because news, as he knew all too well, moved on quickly but he didn’t want to move on. He didn’t want to see what would happen tomorrow, he wanted to remain in this moment, this turmoil and grief because it focussed his mind on the one thing which was the reason for the grief in the first place; the unnecessary, untimely and ultimately unfair death, of Marie King.
Weeks had passed and, once he had emerged from his pit of self-destruction, he had changed. He was no longer the bumbling, clumsy and annoying idiot journalist he realised people saw him as. Now he was focussed, driven and determined. He wanted nothing of other news stories, breaking news, or the new spot at ‘Sky News at Six’ he had been working towards and always dreamed of. He refused any other assignments passed his way, and had turned off and destroyed his freelance business mobile. All he could see now was one man, the man HE claimed was responsible for Marie King’s death. One man who, whether deliberately or accidentally, caused the death of his wife because of his own, selfish, childish and antagonistic actions which had put her in the direct line of fire for any repercussions which may be visited upon Mark.
Ian Hawking didn’t care anymore that Mark King didn’t even recognise who he was. He didn’t care about the laughter, the jokes, the humiliation Mark visited on him every time they met. He didn’t care what he had to say to the public and to Mark’s superiors when he made an official statement to Hugo Lever, claiming Mark was mentally unstable, and providing evidence, photographic evidence ‘proving’ Mark was the antagonist against the two gardeners innocently sat outside his home every morning before beginning work. He had given up caring about the fact that he had provided them with photographs to prove that the two individuals Mark got into a fight with in the black four-by-four were simply going about their daily work schedule, nor about the legitimacy of their employment with Government Municipal Services, or the copy of the contract he had gotten hold of and had verified to prove their employment status; all this whilst he had sat a few inches away from where Mark King had worked and became the architect of Marie’s death and Hawking’s destruction. He didn’t care any longer that Mark had the welfare and security of the entire country on his shoulders when he was prosecuting Azidi, nor the fact that Mark didn’t seem to acknowledge the responsibility of putting this man away for life before he could kill, maim and destroy countless other lives and had fluffed it.
All Ian Hawking cared about now was Mark King. And he was going to make him pay for what he had done. The only thing that mattered to him now was getting Mark King, in any way that he could. Wherever Mark King went, he would be there to witness it and, when the moment was right, he would strike at the very heart of the man who had robbed him of the only thing he really held dear in his life since university. And he was going to enjoy it.