‘Never. I’ll always owe you, as you probably know after seeing my daughters. Be lucky, man. And if you change your mind about the job, just holler.’

Tom smiled once more and watched Mike stroll off towards Highgate Hill without a backwards glance.

Tom finished his coffee, dumped the cup in the trash and began his light jog back home through the bustling Camden streets.

Once home, he flicked through his iPhone, went to the app store, downloaded Snapchat and created a basic profile. He figured a bit of banter with Mike’s kids would be quite amusing, so what was the harm?

He showered quickly, dressed in a clean pair of jeans and a white polo shirt and pulled his shoes on, getting ready to go to work. He’d been moved from the main office into the proactive team and he had a planning meeting at 9am.

A tone he didn’t recognise from his phone indicated some activity required his attention. He picked it up and saw that he had a Snapchat message. It took him a few moments to familiarise himself with the new app but soon it came up with a message from ‘Mike B’.

He opened the message and stared at the image in front of him.

Michael Adebayo was pictured, a haunted look on a face which now sported a long, unkempt beard. He wore orange overalls and leg and wrist restraints and had clearly lost a great deal of weight. His sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes radiated desperation and hopelessness. A ‘No Smoking’ sign behind Adebayo was underwritten in Cyrillic script. The picture suddenly disappeared into thin air as quickly as it had appeared, to be replaced with a text message which simply said, ‘Bad things happen to bad people.’

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