The Cat Hunter

by Krishna Ahir

  His problem, unfortunately, had to do with the fact that someone did like him; a concept that, while not altogether alien, confused him immensely.

  No matter what he did, his mind kept coming back to it, like he was continuously walking in circles. Over and over he would depart the issue and focus on something else, yet eventually, he would always find himself back where he had started. Georgina.

  He remembered a song that the old drunks who drank in The Tavern used to sing. ("Georgina! Georgina! Who the fuck is Georgina?") Christopher used to frequent the pub, in his younger teenage years. Seeing as he was still not yet old enough to legally consume alcohol, his reasons for visiting the establishment were not as unsavory as one would assume (even though he had, for all intents and purposes, been drinking since the age of fourteen). Situated in the small companion town of Rosefield, just outside of Christopher's home city of Grand Stone Bay, The Tavern was an urban pub that still somehow managed to maintain an air of the countryside to it. Most of the locals who called the pub home were crusty old drunks who had long ago claimed their pensions and decided that the best way to end their lives was to drink them. Christopher's Grandfather being one of them.

  He wondered what his Grandfather would have said about the Georgina situation, had he still been with them.

  And like that, Christopher was back to where he started again.

  The repeated back-and-forth was starting to annoy him, getting on his nerves and turning them red raw. Frustration boiled up inside him, and Christopher found himself seriously needing some form of release. Emotional or physical, he didn't care which. As things stood, he had three possible options: One, raid his Father's liquor cabinet and deal with the earful when his family got home; Two, make full use of his empty house and search online for porn, to help with a quick fumble; or Three, text Barbara for advice.

  Christopher settled on the final option.

  Reaching into the pocket of his black trousers, Christopher pulled out his phone and pushed the menu button. As the touch screen came to life, white rectangles of light were reflected in Christopher's eyes. Quickly opening his messenger app, he tapped out a short text, to check to see if Barbara was busy, and hit 'send'.

  He got a reply almost instantly. "Not busy. Pretty bored... What's up?"

  Christopher's thumbs blurred in front of his half-focused eyes as he typed a reply. "Sounds like you need a friend. And nm, just all this Georgina shit..."

  "I got you, don't I? What do you mean by Georgina shit? Has something happened since I told you to nut up?"

  "More like nothing's happened. I'm stressing big time: /"

  "Aw, are you getting cold feet? ;)"

  "Shut up. I don't even know if I'm gonna go anywhere with it! That's what I meant when I said I was stressing"

  "You want some advice on what to say to her?"

  Christopher began to chew on the corner of his lip. "I'm not even sure if I want to say anything to her... That's the problem"

  ______________________________________________________________________________

  Constable Gregory could feel the onset of drowsiness starting to set in. The warm embrace of sleep wound itself around his body, clinging to him like the arms of a beautiful woman, clouding his thoughts.

  The sharp twinge of his heartburn shocked him back into his right mind. Popping a pair of antacids out of their foil wrapping, Drake slipped them into his mouth and knocked the pills back with a slug of water. As he felt them drop into his stomach, the small capsules neutralized the acid burning through his system, providing several moments of psychosomatic relief. It would still take another few minutes until the medication resolved the problem.

  He had sat in his cruiser in the back-parking lot of the Station for close to twenty minutes. Try as he might, Drake couldn't bring himself to walk inside and clock out just yet. Clocking out meant facing Byron and finding out if there was any news from the Vet (or worse, finding out that there was none). It also meant potentially having to deal with the Detective and explaining why there were rumors floating around about him working a case off the books. He wasn't CID yet, and Harold was an unforgiving bastard towards anyone who worked on anything they hadn't been assigned.

  Flipping down the sun visor, he swept aside the plastic cover of the mirror and examined his eyes. It had been a long day, addled with stress, and the signs were clear on his face. He looked like shit, and he knew it. Despite his cheerful attitude that morning, Drake's mood had quickly gone downhill after his patrol had passed the noon mark. Bags hung beneath his eyes, drooping like carrier bags weighed down with the contents of a weekly shopping, indicative of his need for sleep. He found himself wondering if Detective Harold ever slept, or if he had simply evolved past the need to.

  Sighing heavily, Drake rubbed his face with the palms of his hands and snapped the visor back up into place. He was glad that his usual partner was off sick. The last thing that he wanted was someone sitting next to him in the car all day, pointing out how tired and run down he was. As if he wasn't aware of it himself.

  That isn't to say that he disliked his partner. Constable Paxon Hidleston was a strange if not amusing man, with an equally strange and amusing name. He claimed that his last name was of Italian origin; statement that Drake believed sparingly, if at all. Paxon had a talent for bullshit unlike anything Drake had ever seen before. On a good day, it was nothing if not amusing, however given the situation, he was glad that he didn't have to deal with it.

  Exiting the vehicle, Drake made his way across the steadily filling lot and towards the door that lead into the station. As he stepped inside, the door swung back on heavy hinges and ground against the dark concrete of the floor.

  He was met with a bright glare from the overhead lights, catching the pale green of the Linoleum floor. Some of the other officers might have referred to it as the color of faded limes, however Drake had always thought of it as closer in hue to snot. A milky off-green, typically reserved for nasty colds and the flu.

  Signing in his cruiser on the wall-mounted check-in sheet, Drake walked past the two interview rooms and made a beeline for the open-plan office. Looking out over the numerous desktops and accompanying Constables, the Detective Chief Inspector's office was to his left, framed by the enormous window that seemed to cover the entire front wall, so that Harold could keep an eye on the officers. Drake could see him sitting at his desk, head bent and reading something on his desk.

  Hoping that his superior wouldn't notice him, he made his way over to Byron's desk and tapped him on the shoulder.

  "Christ, did you even go home?"

  Cocking his head to the side as he worked, Byron muttered out a vaguely interested response to Drake's question. "I went home for about four hours, between ten and two. Wanted to get all of this done before I called it a day but turns out I underestimated just how deep this hole I had dug myself was. Harold wants to have a word with you."

  "Figured he would," Drake replied. "You heard back from Annabelle's sister, yet?"

  Byron barely even looked up from the severely diminished paperwork set down in front of him. Grasping a single sheet of A4 paper, he held it up beside his head, for his colleague to snatch. "Called me around three thirty; said that there had been a few unusual pet injuries these past two weeks. I asked her to email me the details. You know I think you might actually be onto something here."

  "Don't say it too loud, people might hear you."

  "Just make sure you're working it on your own free time. I don't want to have the Detective breathing down my neck about you; I get enough stick from him as it is."

  "You've never been the type to care before," Drake replied, coyly. He was right. Byron was always the first man on the Force to mouth off and share some of his more unsavory opinions; however, over the past few months, this attitude had been waning.

  "Yeah well before, I wasn't being considered for a promotion."

  "You're aiming for Sergeant?" Drake asked, visibly impressed by his colle
ague's aspirations.

  "Detective Sergeant," Byron corrected, still scribbling away at the sheet in front of him. Beneath the tip of his ballpoint, trails of ink looped into words. His handwriting was surprisingly neat. "Give it a few more weeks, and I'll probably be a part of CID, but now that's not enough for me. I want to lead a team."

  "And all this time, you told me that you enjoyed running the beat?"

  "I do enjoy it, but it's not something that I want to still be doing twenty years from now. Plus, the pay is better as a Detective Sergeant. Not by much, mind you, but it's still better. I'd much rather have something that's going to set me up well for the future."

  "So, when do you take the Detective's exam?"

  "No plans on that, yet. This promotion comes first. Take each hurdle as it comes is a pretty good philosophy to live by. Hopefully this means I won't get distracted by much."

  "Here's hoping." Drake broke into a slight chuckle and started to move away from the desk, paper in hand.

  "You know Harold wanted a word with you," Byron said, still not looking up from his paperwork.

  "He can talk to me if he catches me. Otherwise, I didn't know."

  Turning halfway to his left, Drake made a turn for the men's locker room, to change out of his uniform. The sooner he was out, the lower the chances were of him receiving a grilling from Harold, at least for the moment. It would have to wait until at least the next day, and that would give him more than enough time to think through all potential answers to the questions his superior would undoubtedly ask him.

  "Gregory!"

  The voice slammed into Drake like the closing of a coffin lid. His body jolted to a stop and he felt his breath sigh out from between his lips. He briefly shut his eyes. He should have known that he wouldn't be lucky enough to escape his superior's attention.

  Especially with that damn window of his, he thought, bitterly.

  "Yes sir?" he asked, turning towards the opposite side of the room, and calling over the heads of the other officers.

  "I want a quick word with you. I won't be long. And shut the door."

  Drake entered the office and closed the door behind him, the dull click of the catch sliding home echoing inside his head. "Is there anything I can help you with, sir?" His best course of action would be to play dumb; though he wasn't sure how well, if at all, it would work to his advantage.

  Detective Chief Inspector James Harold was a man that many of the officers working under him would have described as being akin to a rusty nail. A man of fifty-nine years old, he had iron grey hair and blunt features; his leathery skin holding a slight tan to it and sagging around the corners of his eyes and mouth. Despite his appearance, dealing with Harold was best done with care and at your own peril. Extraordinarily sharp (and in most cases likely to cause tetanus, if the rumors proved true), he had a particular way of digging at your skin and reaching the deepest part of your being. This was best observed in his eyes. Small and discerning, they held a dark sheen to them, like lacquered rosewood, that reflected a peculiar hardness. Despite never having seen it in the eyes of anyone other than Harold (and maybe even because of that same fact), Drake recognized this hardness. James Harold had seen some serious shit.

  The eyes narrowed behind Harold's glasses. "I've heard some of the other Officers talking. You're working on something you haven't been assigned." He spoke in a blunt and direct fashion that many would often mistake as rudeness, however it was never intended as such. It was efficiency, pure and simple.

  "I am, yes." There wasn't any use in lying about it. The best Drake could hope for was the opportunity to explain himself.

  "You know how I feel about my Officers working cases that aren't theirs."

  "I do. But this is only in my free time, sir. It's something that's been bothering me for a while, and I really think I'm onto something."

  "The cat s, right?" Harold placed his elbows down onto his desk.

  "Yes sir. I think someone is killing them."

  Harold closed his eyes and broke into a labored sigh. He knew the signs; he'd seen them before, back when he worked at the MET. He was about to explain when he stopped himself short. This wasn't the time to talk about the Moor Murderer. "Listen," he said. "You're not a part of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). You shouldn't even be working this sort of job. Not to mention, you're going almost entirely off a hunch. A hunch. That's not how we do things around here."

  Drake had prepared himself for this. He was all but ready to receive a right royal grilling from Harold. However, in a strange twist of events, it never came.

  "But I'm going to let it slide just this once. Only if you promise- and it damn well better be sincere- that if anything more comes out of this, you bring it straight to me."

  Blinking twice, Drake stared across the table and into his superior's eyes. He caught a glimpse of something different in them; something that he never expected he would ever see. Vulnerability. It was faint and distant, but it was undeniably there.

  Distracted by what he had seen, Drake just about managed a nod.

  "I'm going to need that verbally," Harold said, the flicker of emotion disappearing from his dark eyes.

  "I promise."

  "Good. You can go now. And make sure you shut the door behind you."

  _______________________________________________

  Drake drove home from the Station, feeling a strange mixture of relief and confusion. He was stunned that the Detective had allowed him to continue to investigate the matter. It was the last thing he had expected would happen, and even twenty minutes later, he was having trouble processing it. Harold was never this accommodating; never as understanding as he had been when they talked about the cats.

  The cats.

  He had skimmed the notes from Annabelle's sister while he walked from the front desk to his car. Multiple bones broken in at least three places in legs; all injuries similar or the same across four of the animals. So far, his suspicions were proving correct. Nothing about this felt like it was natural.

  Harold had obviously felt the same, when he had given him permission to pursue the case. Harold with his vicious, penetrating intelligence that, given the misfortune of a bad mood, could do damage that you couldn't walk away from. It pierced and drove deep into enigmas, and if it was telling Harold, even in vague intuition, that there was something here, then it was worth Drake listening to as well.

  The strange expression Drake had noted on the Detective's face may have been an indication of a temporary lapse in judgment. Anything was possible. Common opinion amongst the other officers was that he was growing restless and distracted off late; though the reason why was anybody's guess.

  Drake preferred not to think about it. Speculations about Harold would take up far too much of his time; fill his brain with a myriad of nugatory thoughts. Not to mention, said speculations would involve spending far too much time thinking about his boss. And such was a practice that he hoped to avoid, for the most part. It was true that he admired Harold to a certain degree, but past that the older man unnerved Drake. Talking to him held a peculiar detachment to it; like you were being observed through a two-way mirror.

  He took a deep breath and blinked hard twice, to clear his mind and focus on more pleasant thoughts.

  He thought of Elaine waiting for him when he arrived back home, having just finished her own shift in the petrol station's stop-n-go shop. Feeling his lips brush against hers, coming back slightly slick and smelling of aloe, from the balm that she used. Catching the scent of her makeup removal wipes as he held her, the smell of cucumbers clearing his head and making him feel fresh and calm.

  Drake's mind wandered from the sensations and feelings to the experiences. To what his evening would be filled with after he walked through the threshold of his home. The playful back-and-forths he and Elaine shared, discussing each other's days, sitting in each other's presence on the settee. He would read the papers from the Vets while she would watch something on the televisio
n; more than likely the Baking show that she loved so much, the name of which constantly escaped Drake. They would sit just within arm's reach, him occasionally reaching over to touch her with his fingertips, the sensation comforting and familiar. In their youth, back when they had first met, they had hungered for each other's touch, enamoring themselves in the feeling of their bodies, worried that such would be their last moments together. They used to sit tangled in a tightly wound knot of limbs, taking turns to nuzzle their faces into the crooks of each other's neck. Such intimacy had long ago evaporated into the ether, replaced by mutual comfort, appreciation, content and the occasional night of passionate love making.

  As Drake flicked on his indicator, the green blinking light on his dash flickered in his eye; a single bright spark in the blackness of his pupil. Pulling into his driveway, he shut off his headlights and killed the engine.

  The gravel beneath his feet was damp from rain and shifted wetly as he traversed the path leading up to his front door and slipped the key into the lock. Removing his shoes, Drake turned and locked the door behind him; the snap of the bolt as it slid into place providing him with a dull comfort.

  He could smell garlic and tomatoes, wafting through the air and coming from the kitchen. Elaine was cooking, Pasta most likely.

  Heading towards the kitchen, Drake slowed his pace and bent down a little. His socks padded softly against the floor, making little to no sound. He steadied his breathing, eliminating the sound.

  From his slightly crouched position, he could see his wife's back. She was turned away from him, busying herself searching for something in one of the cupboards over the kitchen worktop.

  Lifting his arms, Drake prepared himself to grab her.

  "You jump me, and I swear to god I'm going to burn you one day." Elaine laughed slightly and turned around to face Drake.

  "How'd you know I was there?"