In his reflection he saw the proud glint of accomplishment deep inside his eyes, and that caused him to smile, something he didn’t do too often.

He brushed his teeth and then stood under a warm shower, washing meticulously from his head down, before using a brand new razor blade to shave off every strand of hair from his body, including his head, a ritual he repeated every morning. When he was done, he dried himself and returned to his bedroom.

From the wardrobe he retrieved the only two items that hung there – a dark suit and long-sleeved white shirt. The tie rack on the back of the wardrobe door held a single black and white striped tie. There was a solitary drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe. It contained one pair of white boxers, a pair of black socks and a large plastic laundry bag. He slipped on the boxers and got dressed, then took the bed sheet, the pillowcase and the cover sheet and stuffed them into the laundry bag, together with the clothes he’d been wearing the night before.

He walked into the living room, grabbed a red pen and a loose sheet of paper from the bottom drawer of an old two-drawer cabinet, and took a seat at the wooden table that faced the window.

The man barely had to think about what he wanted to write. He’d gone through it in his head a thousand times, until he had it worded perfectly, just the way it needed to be.

Once he was done, he carefully folded the note in half and slipped it into a brown paper envelope. This time, the note wasn’t addressed to the mayor, or any other politician. He didn’t need to use the same trick again because this time he knew exactly who to address it to – Detective Robert Hunter, LAPD Robbery Homicide Division.

‘OK, Detective,’ he said in an angry voice. ‘Let’s see how good you really are.’

Thirty

Despite leaving San Francisco International Airport fifteen minutes late, US Airways flight 667 landed at Los Angeles International Airport exactly on time, at 08:55 a.m.

Tom Hobbs had been the lead flight attendant on the fully booked, one hour and twenty-five minute flight, and he had struggled through every second of it. By the time the flight touched down, Tom’s brain was turning to mush.

He staggered through the airport, pulling his inflight case behind him. He felt tired, hungover and nauseated, but the worst was now behind him. Or so he thought.

Tom slipped on his sunglasses and stepped out of the building into another scorching hot summer’s day. Outside he paused for an instant, trying to decide what to do. He had driven to the airport yesterday morning. His car was parked at the Central Terminal Area parking lot, building 2A, but he was in no state to drive. He felt shivery, his headache was now so intense it could wake the dead, and he hadn’t eaten anything yet; courtesy of the cocktail of drugs he had consumed overnight. Finally, deciding to listen to reason, Tom chose to leave his car where it was and take a cab home.

The almost ten-mile trip from Los Angeles LAX to the house he shared with Sharon in Venice took the cab driver just under half an hour. Twice Tom almost asked the driver to pull up by the side of the road. The stop and start motion, due to traffic lights and road congestion, brought him to the verge of being sick, but somehow he managed to hold it all in.

‘You OK back there?’ the cab driver asked, checking Tom through the rearview mirror. He was sloshing on the backseat with his head propped against the window, his eyes closed.

Tom’s reply was barely audible.

‘Buddy, you all right? Do you need me to stop? You don’t look so good.’ The driver asked again, this time reducing his speed.

Tom forced his eyes open. ‘No, it’s OK. I’ll be all right.’ His voice sounded hoarse and fatigued. ‘I just need to get home and get some sleep.’

‘Rough night?’ The driver followed the question with a dubious smile.

Tom saw it, and didn’t like it.

‘No, just bad food. I’ll be OK once I get home and get some sleep.’

The driver didn’t make any more small talk, but stepped on it and kept checking on Tom via the rearview mirror every couple of minutes. The faster he got to Tom’s address, the better. The last thing he wanted was to have to clean up puke from his back seat.

Tom stepped out of the cab and squinted at how bright the day seemed, even through his dark glasses. The glaring light made him feel sick again. He took an enormous deep breath, hoping that that would be enough to keep his nausea at bay.

‘I’ve gotta stop partying like this,’ he said to himself as he started toward the house. But that certainly wasn’t the first, and probably wouldn’t be the last time he’d recited those exact same words. The flesh was weak, he had admitted to that many times.

As he paused before his front door, his stomach roared so loudly he thought that maybe his large intestine was now devouring the small one. But despite how hungry he felt, Tom would think about food later. All he wanted right now was to collapse in bed and sleep until tomorrow morning.

He reached for his key and slid it into the door lock. His stomach roared again, this time louder and for longer, making him curl over a little with pain. OK, maybe he would have to eat a candy bar or something before heading for bed, just to try to calm the storm brewing inside his belly.

Tom tried rotating the key, but it didn’t move.

‘Hum!’

He tried a couple more times.

Nothing.

‘What the hell?’ He twisted the doorknob. The door was unlocked. Tom found that very strange. They never forgot to lock the door, not even when they were in the house. Venice wasn’t the most secure neighborhood in LA.

‘Sharon,’ he called, pushing open the door.

The first thing that hit him was the smell, an odd combination of putrid and bittersweet that seemed to rip its way though his nostrils before lodging itself at the back of his throat, choking him and making him gag. He felt a drop of bile come up through his esophagus and spill into his mouth. For some reason, instead of spitting it out, he swallowed it back down.

Tom squeezed his eyes tight behind his shades. The smell had also made his eyes water. He took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes.

‘What the fuck? Sharon?’ he called again. Had she left a whole chicken outside the fridge in this heat?

He coughed a couple of times before finally looking up and into his living room. His eyes were still half blurred, so it took them a few seconds to refocus.

For a moment Tom hesitated, his tired and confused brain struggling to make sense of the grotesque images his visual nerves were sending in. Reality had just morphed into the sickest nightmare he’d ever had.

‘What?’

His whispered voice caught in his throat as a rush of adrenalin took over his body. It fired bullets of uncontrollable fear down his spine and into his heart. Bitter bile shot back up from his stomach but this time it wasn’t only a drop, and this time it would’ve been impossible for Tom to swallow it all back down.

Sick exploded out of his mouth before he collapsed on to the floor and into the pool of blood his living room had become.