Three Lights on a Match
On the first he shoulders the Bren
On the second he smiles
On the third he pulls the trigger
And then he smiles again
(Anon.)

You don’t see the man in the ghillie suit.

You don’t see him because he casts no shadow. There is no silhouette. He has natural cover to his front and natural cover to his rear. His ghillie suit is the same colour as the foliage he’s concealed in. It breaks up his human shape. It has no straight lines. Nothing glares and nothing shines. The grasses and ferns he has stitched into the suit sway with the wind.

You don’t see the man in the ghillie suit because he doesn’t move. Not even his eyes. He doesn’t eat and he doesn’t drink. He doesn’t take comfort breaks. He craves a cigarette, but he doesn’t have one. He hasn’t washed for days. There are no soap or deodorant smells to spook the wildlife. They crawl over and under him as if he’s part of the landscape. It’s like he isn’t there. He might as well be invisible.

You don’t see the man in the ghillie suit.

But he sees you . . .

Chapter One
Blencathra House, Central London

There were twelve people in the police media room and that was ten too many.
Only the man and the woman needed to be there. The other ten were as welcome as professional mourners at a funeral.
The woman looked at the man, saw the grief on his face. She made a decision. ‘Everyone out,’ she said quietly.
She didn’t need to raise her voice. She never did. The room went silent. The only sound was the crack of knuckles as the man clenched and unclenched his fists. He didn’t know he was doing it.

‘We have just as much right to be—’ one of the ten started to say before being nudged into silence by a colleague. He pointed at the woman’s expression. It said: Don’t mess with me. Not today.
They left their seats and trooped out of the room. They glared at the man as they passed. One of them, a guy called Peter Jameson, deliberately shoulder-barged him. Stared, willing him to react.
The man didn’t. Jameson was angry. They were all angry. The man didn’t blame them.
Jameson tried again. ‘This is your fault,’ he said. ‘She’s dead because of you.’
The man continued to ignore him. Didn’t even glance in his direction.
‘Out!’ the woman snapped.

Jameson left the room, slamming the door. The room fell silent again. The woman took a moist towelette from her bag and wiped the back of her neck. She passed a fresh one to the man, but he made no move to take it.
Despite the brutish heatwave the country was experiencing, the police media-room windows were closed. Heavy drapes covered them. It was how it was now. People suffered the discomfort. Put up with the heat. Over the last three months they had got used to it. Keeping your windows closed and your curtains drawn was the new normal. As were untended gardens. Tarpaulin screens at petrol stations. People walking in zigzags instead of a straight line. No one went outside unless they had to.
Not any more.

The man had sweated so much his suit was as wet as a sponge.
He was unshaven and had red-rimmed eyes. It looked like he hadn’t slept for weeks. His cheeks were shrunken, gaunt. His face was monstrously calm. Detached, almost. If he’d returned from a war zone, he’d have been described as having a thousand-yard stare. The only sign of his rage was the clenching and unclenching of his fists.

‘It’s on,’ the woman said. She reached for a remote control and unmuted the television that was mounted on the wall. It was already on the right channel – Sky News. The anchor was called Finlay Scott and the carefully worded statement he was about to read had been drafted by the woman not forty-five minutes earlier. It had been released to the media to catch the two o’clock news. It would be repeated on the hour and be the lead story on the six o’clock and ten o’clock shows that night.

Finlay Scott cleared his throat and began reading. ‘I have breaking news – police have just released the name of the twentyfirst person to be killed by the sniper who is terrorising the country. The woman, who worked for the National Crime Agency’s Serious Crime Analysis Section, has been named as civilian analyst and the youngest-ever recipient of the Fields Medal, Matilda Bradshaw.’

At the back of the room, Stephanie Flynn, the woman holding the remote control, stared at the screen in silence. Like she couldn’t believe she’d heard what she’d known she was about to hear. As if there was a disconnect between writing the statement and hearing the statement. A single tear ran down her face. She wiped it away with the towelette.
The man with the thousand-yard stare didn’t look at the TV. Nor did he stay silent. That wasn’t in his nature. He was an apex predator and he had never felt the urge to hunt more. He wanted, no he needed to be outside. The sniper wasn’t in this room. He was in the hills, and he was in the woods. He was on the top of buildings, and he was underneath cars. He was everywhere the man wasn’t. But they’d be in the same place soon. The man with the thousand-yard stare could feel it. He knew it. He could hear the beat of the sniper’s heart, smell his fear. No one else was going to die. It was almost over.

So instead of staying quiet, the man threw back his head and screamed.
That man was Washington Poe.
But perhaps this isn’t the best place to start.
Maybe we need to go back a few weeks . . .

Read more on 14th August 2025
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