One of Us Is Dead

5 October 2021, eleven months earlier

Pelting rain, howling wind and darkness. The forecast had delivered its promise of foul weather, with bells on — and it had been well worth the wait. Ten days of repeatedly returning to this spot on London’s Bond Street at the same time every weekday evening — 6.16 p.m. — watching, learning and then waiting for the right conditions.

A tall man, he wore a dark tracksuit with the hood up, and clutched a small, weighty black velvet bag. Weighty because it housed a brass knuckle duster. He had long ago named this bag and its contents Uncle Johnny. And Uncle Johnny often served him discreetly and well.

Unseen in this maelstrom of weather, he waited a few yards down the pavement from the doorway between a dress shop and a shoe shop, from which Darius Sacher would emerge more or less any time now, as he did every weekday when he wasn’t away on business or holiday, and he wasn’t away at the moment.

The rag-trade tycoon had made his small fortune from copying the latest fashions at the Paris and Milan shows and getting them made in factories in China and out across the UK’s major low-cost fashion retailers within weeks. He had a personal wealth in excess of £7 million, yet every weekday night the tight bastard caught the bus to Trafalgar Square, then hurried to Charing Cross station to catch the 18.46 train to Tunbridge Wells with his season ticket.

Tightwad Sacher could have afforded a taxi, or even a chauffeured limousine, for God’s sake! A crowded bus and a rammed train every night — what was that about? Sacher didn’t know it, but he had made a big mistake. He had gifted his son, Zach, £250,000 on his recent twenty-first birthday. The money had been to set him up for life and give him a head start. But not content with that chunk of cash, Zach was angry that there would be no further inheritance from his father, who was now engaged to be married next year. Married to a woman Zach despised. His father had made it clear that she would be the sole beneficiary in his will once they were married. Hardly surprising that Zach, who had hired him, was hacked off. Anyone would be.

Oh yes, it was just such a perfect evening! All the pedestrians had their heads bowed against the rain or were fighting the elements with their umbrellas — and mostly losing. None of them hurrying past, thinking about a pint in a pub or their centrally heated living room or cosy kitchen, even cast a glance at the figure sheltering in the doorway of a fashion brand emporium.

Darius Sacher was coming out now! Yes! There he was, caught in the street lighting and in the passing headlights of a black cab, shaven head and bright red spectacle frames, wearing a natty overcoat with a velour collar, battling the elements to open his brolly, then turning right and heading up Bond Street in the direction of Oxford Circus, towards the bus stop.

He began to follow, quickening his pace, so that within a few yards he was right behind him, unseen and unheard. Waiting for the right moment.

And as if the same god that had answered his prayers about the weather tonight had now arranged for the right bus to come along, he saw a blare of headlights and the hulking shape of a double-decker looming out of the rain and wind-lashed darkness, travelling down the street at a pace.

He drew towards Darius Sacher and then, just seconds before the bus was level, he ducked under Sacher’s umbrella and whacked him hard on the right side of his head with Uncle Johnny. Hard enough to have killed him, although that wasn’t necessary — just a precaution. The massive sideways push he gave the already unconscious man, straight off the pavement and directly in front of the bus, was actually all he needed to have done. But he liked to make sure.

He heard the slither of the bus’s locked tyres on the wet tarmac.

Heard someone scream. Then someone else.

He briefly looked at what was left of Darius Sacher, lying on the wet, black, glistening surface, half his entrails spread around him. Then he broke into a jog. Jogging was good. It was just under three miles to the Airbnb in Westbourne Grove where he was staying. But he ran a further three miles once he was there. It felt so good to be out running, and with a job done!

But not as good as it would feel tomorrow when the second payment of £50,000 from Zach Sacher landed in his Panamanian bank account. He had no doubt it would. For insurance he had recorded all of Zach Sacher’s instructions about killing his father.

Or — as the man in the hoodie, jogging happily through the foul night, preferred to call it — simply facilitating a very tragic accidental death.