I’m worth more dead than alive. It sounded ghoulish, the same way the word ‘suicide’ did, because it felt like something to be screamed down from a ledge at a would-be rescuer. But there was nothing dramatic about it as an idea; there was no self-pity in the way it nestled in his brain. It was a calculation, and James found it quite a cheering one. He was going to give people something they’d remember, act on. A harsh way of doing it, perhaps. But life was harsh, wasn’t it? Life was harsh, that was why he was here.
