Cat & Mouse

by Jason Vanez

  Nauru's motto was "God's Will shall be First" Valdon adopted it and immortalised his own version in a tattoo upon his spine: "Valdon's Will shall be First." As a child, he had been big, brave, strong, but had suffered from a reticence that attracted bullies and bruises. Although he won every fight he got into, Valdon was still scarred by the events, and although the bullies always struck first, he was still yanked before the teachers time and again and branded a trouble-maker.

  But after the incident that occurred when he was eight, he doused the flame of trouble long before it could become an inferno. At school, if he remotely suspected someone might affront him, he now struck first. He had learned the hard way the consequences of reticence, and he had also seen the benefits of imposing his will first. The choice between the two was no choice at all. And look at what he had now become.

  So pre-emptive were his attacks, no one ever tied him to them. There was never a run-in or argument with the injured party that his teachers, or later the police, could use as motive. Valdon saw how a fragment of friction could escalate into trouble, and he put his enemies down before they could even sense that burgeoning themselves. There was never any clue of his involvement, and he dropped off everyone's radar, blended in, became invisible. The only time the police ever acknowledged his existence after that was when he joined them after leaving school.

  Two years in. Called at night to a domestic disturbance at a run-down beachfront tenement home. Valdon was 20, the homeowner 28. The man's wife was hurt, clearly, but she claimed the neighbours - way down the beach, so the screaming must have been loud - had it wrong, that there had been no argument. His partner stayed with the wife, while Valdon was instructed to drive the husband around a bit, get him to talk and calm down. They drove through the ring of green encircling the outer edge of the island and towards the centre. Later, Valdon returned with a cut on his head and a tale: the husband had assaulted him and fled. They never found him again. A description was sent out of a man with a scar on his chin, almost the length of his jaw line.

  Years earlier, a boy of eight had told the police that that scar was a tattoo, because he believed it had been. The police had been on the hunt for a teenaged burglar who had murdered a woman who accosted him as he robbed her house late at night. Valdon had surprised the teenager during the killing, but his reticence had prevented him from action. He'd frozen, hoping the bigger boy would hurry up doing what he was doing to Valdon's mum and leave. The boy had proceeded to strangle her to death before fleeing past Valdon.

  The crime should have been solved quickly: how many young men on that small island had such a scar on the chin? But of course they were not seeking a scarred criminal - because of Valdon's statement, they were hunting a tattooed killer. And none was ever found.

  When Valdon the police officer happened upon the same boy as a man, the reticence in his heart was barely a memory.

  Many times Valdon had envisioned finding the teenager, now a man, who killed his mother. Over the years, the urge lessened, but the skills to destroy another human grew. On the day he came face-to-face with the man, the rage had long subsided, but it was still there, like a pilot light in a gas fire. Waiting for gas. Valdon hadn't even known the light still burned until that day, but soon he learned, and it was something he still believed today. That light was in everyone, and it was for this reason that Maria Marsh and her child had to die alongside James Marsh. If they survived, there might come a day far in the future when Valdon would stand before them and suffer, just as the man who killed his mother had suffered.

  Valdon had driven deep into Topside, the blasted centre of the island, to a secluded spot near a phosphate mine, murder in his mind. Before Valdon was born, phosphate mining had been big business in Nauru, and a lot of people had gotten rich off it - most of Nauru, actually. These days the phosphate was virtually exhausted, eighty percent of the land having been mined. There were many areas of abandoned, useless phosphate deposits that created great swatches of land resembling the surface of some barren, alien planet. Nothing grew here, and no one lived here. Valdon walked the man across the rocky land, which resembled a tiny mountain range, slit his throat by the disused mine and dropped the body down the black shaft. And out winked that particular pilot light. Valdon then bashed his own head and returned with to his partner with a story about a violent escape from custody.

  From that day, Valdon was and forever would be a murderer. He had to hide that fact. His life became one of lies and subterfuge. But he felt no guilt over the killing, only in his deceiving those he had called friends all his life.

  In Nauru he felt uncomfortable, known by so many. The island had hardly ten thousand inhabitants over 8.1 square miles, most of them living along the coast because so much of the inner land was unsuitable for habitation. There were no resorts, barely any tourism, so new faces were scarce. Every moment outside his house involved greeting people he knew, people who thought they knew him. He didn't abhor capture so much as derision by those he had laughed and eaten with over the years. His only option: to become anonymous, to live where he could be himself and no one would know any different. Back then, of course, he hadn't been aware of the murderous desires inside him. In his mind, he had killed the killer of his mother and that was the end of all lethal intent within him.

  Nauru used the Australian dollar, relied on the Australian Government for protection, and exported most of its phosphate to Australia. Australia was Big Brother to Nauru in his eyes. There lay his answer, then. And two years later he was there, a brand-new Australian citizen, a drop in the ocean and blissfully anonymous because of it. To complete his anonymity, he had found a forger and adopted a new name. Some said Valdon was a fine, exotic name, but he hated it. Valdon had been a worthless boy and a useless man, so Valdon was cast into the depths, gone forever. He was now Einar. Old Norse name, something to do with valour, with being a warrior. Back then it had simply been a word he thought sounded cool-sounding. Today it certainly fit the man he was.

  It was a shame, then, that Einar was a name so infrequently used. He owned passports and driver's licences in many other names, and even in France, his sort-of home, he was known as Carlos. Einar these days was the name associated with his killer persona, which meant it was used only by those paying for his murderous skills. And a few others who came fleetingly into his life, like this woman right here.

  "Einar?" she said. He shook himself out of his reverie, because he could feel the woman staring at him.

  "You okay? Seemed in a world of your own for a moment there." He nodded. "Do you want tea?" Einar immediately said yes, knowing it would give him an opportunity to have a quick nosey around, get his mind back on the job. He asked if he could use the toilet. Sure, she said, and pointed to the sky.

  The stairs were as clean as everything else. The upper landing was spotless. At the top was a window whose sill was laden with photos in frames, too many for such a small area, as if all the ones in the house had been placed here while their usual places got dusted. The edges of some overlapped the edges of others, so tightly were they packed onto the thin shelf of wood. Einar noted that they were all collages: fragments of other pictures stuck together. There was no method apparent, or theme. Like something a child would do. In some people missed fingers where tricky cutting had been unsuccessful, in others slices of heads and bodies were missing where objects in the foreground had been removed. Einar looked closely at the jumbled jigsaw of tiny images. He ignored black & white images of family members from years gone by, skipped past all the pictures of the child who currently played downstairs. His eyes were drawn only to the snippets that showed James Marsh, some as a civilian doing natural things like dozing on a deck chair, eating a sandwich, and others as an active Marine. In the latter, the man looked comfortable in his uniform, holding his gun.

  The collage was too small, though. He imagined Marsh and his wife on the sofa, cuddling as they traced their fingers across different pictures, laughing and reminiscing. Einar want
ed to smash the frame. It seemed everywhere he looked, there was something else reminding him of what he'd missed over the years. A normal life.

  "Toilet's that way," said a squeaky voice. He looked down. There was a child at the foot of the stairs, staring up at him.

  "I don't need it now." He clumped down the stairs and past her. When he sat back on the sofa, it was just in time to take a cup of tea from Maria as she exited the kitchen. She sat opposite him and seemed to catch something on his face.

  "You okay?"

  He nodded. But he wasn't. Einar had lived a transient life for years now, was used to it, happy with it. But sometimes he thought about what he lacked. It had been a long time since he had sat with a woman, he liking her company, and she genuinely relishing his. He had had his share of women around him, a lot of sex, but that company was always paid for, always from girls performing out of a sense of duty. Not since a teenager had he fucked a girl who truly wanted to fuck him back, and wanted to stay with him afterwards instead of going in search of another man, another payday.

  Unlike James Marsh. James Marsh had his nice home and his friends and his stable place in the world, and if ever he forgot how lucky he was to have those things, well, he had a loving partner to fuck him and remind him daily.

  The child entered the room and Einar shrugged off his melancholy. In the space between he and Maria, on a thick rug, the little girl played with giant Lego blocks, creating myriad different shapeless messes, all of which she claimed were lighthouses. Einar smiled where necessary, pretended the kid's noises were cute, and drank his tea.

  Maria asked him about the free vehicle, said her husband needed something new because he drove a shitty white van, and he expanded upon a line of bullshit he had whipped up during the drive across London. The new BMW X10 was being launched next year, and the bosses wanted testimonials from men who had experience in driving the biggest, toughest vehicles across the most uncomfortable land - army guys, in other words. Six men would be chosen. Their words would be printed in the brochure. Their payment would be a brand new X10, free, gratis, no charge, and no catch involved. Can you tell me what your husband did in the Royals Marines, and a little bit about you both for the family man angle?

  This was the real reason he was here – not to play a risky game of getting up close to his enemy, but to learn about his new target. Or at least the family that might become his next target in forty minutes' time.

  Maria had no problem talking about her family. After James had left the armed forces, where he had obtained the rank of Troop Commander, he had taken a number of low-paid dead-end jobs before deciding he needed further education. They had met at university. He had been studying business, and she had been taking a course in the fine arts. They shared a dorm after year two, then got a flat after she quit her studies, and then got married once James had gotten his degree. He got a job working the checkouts in a supermarket because, despite the degree, employers considered him too old to be given fast-track routes into management roles. But at the supermarket, his business brain and tough attitude hoisted him through the ranks. Five years in, he landed an empty assistant manager's role. A few years after that, Louise was born. And here we are.

  Einar asked a number of questions designed to give him an insight into the man. Pure curiosity, rather than an attempt to fully know his current nemesis. But when Marie, clearly smitten by Einar's charm and appearance, tried to talk about herself, he swiftly got her back on track. Here he had crossed a line. He had never before enjoyed the company of a target. He was starting to like Maria, and the girl, Louise, was beginning to get genuinely cute with her playful banter. Einar decided to excuse himself before he got so involved that he would find it hard to kill the pair. Plus, it was almost the 5 p.m. deadline.

  He told her he had all he needed and rose to leave. She shook his hand and handed him a business card of her own. He stared at it. Pottery. She ran her own pottery company from home, Internet-based.

  "My mother likes pottery. I'll let her know."

  "Tell her she can purchase online. I'll deliver if she's local."

  She had died many years and thousands of miles away, but Einar said, "London born and bred, my family. I'll let her know. And thanks again. I'll be in touch about the testimonials."

  She moved over to a small table in the corner. Einar noted the phone on the table and that anyone using it would be standing right before the window. She came back with something. It was a rubber stamp. She took his hand and stamped the back. He saw a smiley face the size of a ten pence piece, and a local landline number below.

  "That's our home number, if you need to get in touch."

  Would the game be better if he fucked the target's wife before he killed the family? Einar didn't know, but he wasn't about to try to bed this woman when he had no idea when her husband would return. He wasn't keen on the idea of having to slaughter all three with a butter knife while he was naked with a hard-on.

  Einar took the stamp and fiddled with it. He put a fake mobile number into it and Maria held out her hand. But Einar stamped her forehead.

  "How will I explain this to my husband?" she said, giggling.

  Louise came rushing over, asking him to stamp her head. He had to avoid grinning. He stamped her pale skin, centre of the forehead, and she rushed off, jumping for glee.

  Maria waited at the door while he went to his car. He checked his watch. It was just eight minutes to five. He'd been in there too long, he realised. Eight minutes to get into position. He waved at her as he tore out of there with a screech of tyres that he realised the neighbours might retain in their memories.

  ***

  He went silent and the battering continued, this time because he had laughed at them like a madman. Obviously they had no idea why – why would a guy facing death suddenly laugh at his kidnappers? He had laughed because he now knew this man had taken him because of Alfo Pitchford's murder – not, as he had assumed, because the guy was a contract killer carrying out a hit on James Marsh. Both were bad, of course, but at least he knew he now had a chance to get out of this mess. But if he didn't sort something out by the five o'clock deadline, he would be in a world of trouble.

  So he went internal once again as his mind worked. It formulated, and constructed, and soon had a finished product ready for delivery. That was when his eyes flicked open, and right then they stopped beating him. Right at the moment they flicked open, as if they had feared him dead and had been trying to restart his heart and brain with their hard blows. Now back in the world, he felt the blood in his hair, all over his neck. One of the guys used a beaker to scoop water from the pool and toss it over him, if only because he looked such a sickly sight covered in so much of his own blood.

  "Tell me what you know, and we'll let you live," the leader said. He and the others were panting from their exertions. "Or you go in the pool and drown. But first we'll slice you. Ever heard of the death by a thousand cuts? The Chinese invented it. That's what you'll get."

  If he tried to sound intimidating, it didn't work. How many idiots had heard of this simple torture and threatened someone with it? All you needed was a blade.

  Jimmy glared at him. "I'm just a messenger," he said. His eyes bore into the man, and Jimmy was sure he saw the first flicker of concern there. "There's a fiery rain of hell headed your way. Ever heard of the Mall Brothers in Scotland?"

  Many people had. The Malls were two brothers who had recently had their empire crumble, finally, after years of gangland terror. One of their clan had written a book from inside prison, naming and shaming. The book was unpublished, but copies were floating around the Internet, and the cops had gotten hold of one. Some murder of a sub-post office clerk in the 90s that everyone had forgotten about had come back to bite the Mall brothers on the ass. The clan member had mentioned what had happened to the knife used to murder the clerk, and the cops had unearthed it from below a kitchen on a new housing estate, where once there had been a public house whose cellar had been a com
mon hiding place for contraband. The weapon hadn't been much use to the cops after so many years, but they had claimed otherwise as a scare tactic that had worked. Peter Mall, now in his sixties, had fled Scotland and no one knew where he was. That had been three months ago.

  Jimmy told this story and could see from the Leader's face that it was one he already knew.

  "Eighteen of his younger gang members fled with him. Worked out where they settled yet?" Jimmy forced a fake laugh. "That's right. Right here. And Peter Mall isn't about to relocate and shirk thirty years of gut instinct. You think he's about to set up a furniture shop or a plumbing business?" He laughed again. "Peter Mall and eighteen tough fuckers are here to take over. Alfo got in their way. You think I had something to do with your boss's death because you saw me scoping out that warehouse?"

  The leader and his men exchanged glances. The henchmen bought it already, Jimmy could tell. But the leader's face was undecided.

  "What are you saying? Peter Mall is down from Scotland and trying to take over The Destroyer's empire? Bullshit? And how would Peter Mall get in cahoots with some supermarket guy?"

  The derision in his voice was thick, but not total. Some acceptance there, then. Jimmy's mind whirred again: the supermarket – he'd been seen there, this guy had said. Probably a fluke sighting by some gang member who lived nearby and had popped in for milk.

  "I run the supermarket closest to where one of Mall's men got a flat. They wanted a local guy. I got threatened. They wanted me to take photos. I don't know why. Then they wanted me to pass on a message to a man called Baz."

  The leader blanched. Jimmy relaxed a little. He threw his eyes skyward, to the clouds, just for something inert to look at. While researching Alfo Pitchford, Jimmy had heard the names of his top guys, including his number two: Baz. The guy now leading the gang. The guy who would lead any plan to exact revenge for The Destroyer's killing. This guy, Jimmy suspected.