By July the following year, David had been watching Steve Penderhurst for eight months.
He enjoyed it.
This had taken him some time to admit. At first he called it curiosity, then research, then preparation. Eventually there seemed little point lying to himself. Following Steve was the best part of his day. In the early months there had been notebooks, dates and times, until repetition made them unnecessary. Steve's working life now existed in David's memory with the dreary precision of a railway timetable.
Steve arrived between half past eight and quarter to nine, parking in a side street and walking the remainder to his office. On the way he crossed the same road. At lunchtime he generally crossed it again, bought something to eat and returned; after work he crossed once more on his way to the car. Three or four times a day, Steve Penderhurst presented himself to the crossing. David varied his observation points and kept his distance. Steve knew his face. One sighting could be coincidence, two unfortunate, three enemy action.
There had been, during those months, an attempt at another life. David applied for jobs, revised his CV, wrote careful covering letters and even bought a new shirt for a video interview. He expected a penalty for the conviction and was prepared to absorb one. What surprised him was how enthusiastically the penalty reproduced itself. Two promising interviews cooled when the conviction emerged; another employer required a clean driving licence. Then came the peculiar modern silence in which companies demanded your employment history, references, personal philosophy and several hundred words about your enthusiasm for joining their family before deciding you did not merit an automated rejection.
Eventually David stopped applying. There were jobs somewhere, certainly, and further opportunities to begin again at reduced altitude, but the idea had lost its appeal. He decided instead on a shortened timeline as a civilian. He had enough money left to survive for a while.
And, increasingly, he had Steve.
For the first time since 6 May last year, David possessed an advantage. Steve had known everything about him: conviction, employment, assets, marriage, finances. Lawyers had dismantled David's life and arranged the pieces on tables, and Steve had profited from what they found. Now the arrangement was reversed. David knew when Steve worked, ate and left; where he parked; which sandwich shop he preferred; even that on wet days he sheltered beneath the pharmacy awning until the crossing changed. Steve, meanwhile, moved through his days believing them private.
David found this delightful.
Sometimes he watched Steve reach the crossing and thought: Not today.
Steve would cross safely and continue on his way.
David had let him.
That was how he came to think of it. He could have acted months earlier, but surveillance had become too pleasurable to surrender. Once Steve was dead, the secret advantage would disappear at precisely the moment David exercised it. So he savoured it.
During the same period, he began talking to himself. What started as Steve will get what's coming to him became Steve Penderhurst will suffer, repeated morning and night until anger acquired the reassuring regularity of prayer. Later came Steve Penderhurst will know what it is to lose everything, and eventually:
Steve Penderhurst will be hit by a car.
David had read about affirmations and manifestation. He didn't particularly believe in either; the universe, in his experience, had shown little interest in taking instructions. He repeated the words anyway. They pleased him.
By August the sentence had become:
Steve Penderhurst will be hit by a car at the crossing.
The date came in a dream.
David remembered almost nothing else about it. There had been a building he didn't recognise, some people whose identities disappeared on waking, and amid the usual dissolving rubbish of sleep, one thing of peculiar clarity:
17 November.
The date meant nothing. No birthday, anniversary or appointment attached itself to it. Yet it felt settled. Not important, exactly.
Correct.
That morning David added it to the words.
On 17 November, Steve Penderhurst will be hit by a car.
Soon the date and event became difficult to think about separately. The wording hardened with repetition: Steve would suffer; Steve would be hit at the crossing; Steve would suffer real injuries. Eventually:
On 17 November, Steve Penderhurst will die.
There remained the practical inconvenience that David was banned from driving. A private seller thirty miles away solved this with an old saloon, twelve years old, scratched along one side and cheap enough not to attract attention. David gave a false name and paid cash; the seller's interest in administrative detail diminished markedly once the money appeared. The car was delivered to a rented lock-up on the edge of town. David didn't drive it on the road, although he visited periodically to start the engine and ensure it intended to cooperate when required.
By October there was little reason to watch Steve anymore, though occasionally David did so because he missed the pleasure. Steve would appear; David would observe him from a distance and think Not today. Another evening granted.
There were contingencies. Steve might be ill on 17 November, work from home or take leave. Other pedestrians might be crossing with him, in which case David would abort; he wanted Steve alone, as he was perhaps eighty per cent of the time. Strictly speaking, the seventeenth was merely the green-light day. If circumstances were wrong, there would be another.
Yet these contingencies felt increasingly ceremonial. David planned for them without believing they would be needed.
Steve would be there on 17 November.
More than that, he would be alone.
David didn't know how he knew this. Perhaps repetition had hardened prediction into memory. He no longer felt he was waiting to discover what would happen on the seventeenth.
He knew.
On 16 November, David watched Steve one final time. He saw him arrive for work, leave for lunch and return. Late that afternoon Steve emerged from the office, waited for the signal and crossed towards the side street where his car was parked.
For nearly a year, the man had been living inside a secret.
Tomorrow he would find out what it was.
That evening David ate at home, watched television and checked the weather.
Dry.
The car was waiting. The route had been rehearsed hundreds of times.
Before bed, David stood in front of the bathroom mirror.
Tomorrow, Steve Penderhurst will be hit by a car.
He considered his reflection, then corrected himself.
Tomorrow, Steve Penderhurst will die.
Tomorrow was 17 November.