Each time had brought back memories. Each time had made him hate the man more. Which was why he smirked to himself now, as he watched the report of Longman’s murder with grim satisfaction.

I hope the bastard suffered, he thought, for what could be the hundredth time that day.

The pleasure was short-lived, banished in a moment by the familiar stabbing pain in Blunt’s gut. It distracted him from his enjoyment, just as it distracted him from everything else. It was not a constant pain. Sometimes it went away. Sometimes the drugs worked. But mostly it was there, crippling and mocking in equal measure.

He gritted his teeth and forced the pain from his mind as best he could. He would not allow it to destroy this moment for him. He had so very little left. He would at least enjoy today.

The diagnosis had come a year before. Bowel cancer. Six months at most. But here he still was, twelve months later. Alive and kicking. Well, alive at least. Something had kept Blunt going. Not family, of which he had none. Not friends, of which he had just as few. And certainly not hope for the future; Blunt had sold his law firm before his illness and had retired to the Suffolk coast alone. What future was there?

No. It had been none of these things that had kept Blunt alive. It had been God, he now realised. God – or whatever the higher power was – had kept Blunt here long enough to see Longman’s violent death.

Blunt looked towards his wall. The clock hanging upon it read 3.10 a.m. He no longer kept normal hours. He just slept when the medication made him. And when he did sleep it did not matter where. Blunt had slept in his armchair much more than his bed in the last few months. If anything, that was a relief. The effort of moving from seated to standing was becoming more than he could take.

The medication did not control his bladder, however. Blunt’s bowels had rebelled against him. They were slowly killing him. But right now his need to urinate was a more immediate problem.

He climbed to his feet. Slowly. Painfully. The closed door of the living room was perhaps ten feet away, give or take. Blunt could make that distance, but any further would have been a problem.

He took a few moments to regain his breath. Just getting out of his chair was getting much harder, he realised. The beginning of the end.

Still, I beat Longman.

The first steps had to be steady. A stumble could be fatal. Blunt knew that, and so he took a few seconds more before moving. Right foot first. Slowly, but not so slow that he would lack momentum. One step. Two steps. Three steps. The door came closer with each. Four. Five. Six. Closer still. Seven. Eight. Nine. The door was in reach. Blunt put out an open hand as he took the final two steps. He gripped the door handle and rested his shoulder onto the frame. To take the weight that now threatened to fall.