He hid outside in the cold night air, still as a statue, head cocked back slightly, peering through the narrow glass panel in the door, trying to make sense of what he could hear. The muffled voice of another person in the flat? No: a radio presenter and gentle music.
The coast was clear.
Jamil Malik was asleep on the sofa with just a dim light for company. The anticipation of what he was about to do to him felt like sexual arousal. He’d waited long enough. Silently he turned the handle, pushed open the door, heart racing slightly, hands damp with sweat, eyes firmly focused on his prey. He moved forward on to the threshold, aiming the beam of light at Malik’s face.
Malik sat up, shielding his eyes, his voice hardly audible.
‘What do you want? Get out of my house!’
Lowering the torch, he reached deep into his pocket and drew out his weapon, touching Malik’s lips with the tip of the barrel to silence the cunt. It worked. A sharp intake of breath was followed by irrepressible weeping and a patch of piss growing big around Malik’s crotch.
He gestured for him to kneel on the floor. Malik did as he was told, joining his hands together, pleading for his life as a carriage clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight.
Perfect.
His forefinger began to squeeze the trigger, then he swung round as he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He relaxed again as a toddler padded across the carpet, rubbing his eyes with one hand and trailing a threadbare teddy along the floor behind him with the other. Panic seized Malik. He tried to push the boy away, but the child clung to him, alarmed by the tears running down his grandfather’s face.
Malik pleaded for the boy’s life.
‘Kill me! Kill me!’
He smiled.
There was a God, after all.
‘What’s your name?’ He spoke the words gently, bending down, gesturing for the toddler to join him. The boy blinked, still wary of the stranger. So he made a silly face until the child began to giggle, his little milk teeth gleaming in the torchlight. ‘Come, see what I’ve got. Bang, bang.’ And then to Malik: ‘Let him go, and he lives.’
Malik understood. He released his grip, allowing his bony fingers to slip from the child’s pyjamas. But still the boy hesitated. And then, as only a child can, he slowly came round and walked towards their guest, his innocence and trust plain to see. Malik was praying now, praying for all he was worth.
The sound of his prayers – any prayers – was like a red rag to a bull. He wanted it to stop, but he knew yelling at the old man would alarm the child.
And still Malik prayed aloud, hands joined, eyes closed.
His anger rose, then fell away as Malik’s prayers faded into the background, replaced by others more terrifying than he could ever have imagined, spoken by a voice that transported him back to a room, equally dim and dingy, to a mother forcing him to his knees to beg for the Lord’s forgiveness for his sins.
He tried to focus on Malik’s hands, but he could only see hers.
She was yelling at him now, her hands parted from prayer, raised high above her head. Blows rained down on him as he cowered, defenceless.
And then he saw the red mist. Rage took over as he remembered that Malik and his mother had once been close friends. And suddenly he knew what to do. Turning the weeping child round to face his grandfather, he placed the gun in his tiny hand and guided his fingers on to the trigger. Applying gentle pressure, he felt the child’s body jerk backwards as the gun went off. Malik fell and the boy ran to him.
Job done, he placed the calling card on the floor . . .
And walked away unperturbed.