Einar paused here. 3 Commando Brigade. And a Troop Commander. Tough guy, then. Einar skimmed over the rest and typed something else into his search engine. While the page loaded, he thought about what he'd just read. So James Marsh had been a Royal Marine Commando, and quite good at it. But he had left before he was thirty. It was almost ten years’ service, which would give the guy some skills, but for the last ten years or so he had been a civilian. Those skills would have rusted.
Einar shook his head, as if to clear it. What was he thinking? Worrying, just because a mark had once been a trained killer? He'd been up against killers before. He smiled at his own silliness.
The page had loaded. He had searched for Athena Supermarket, and there was only one in London. He typed the postcode into his phone's Satnav.
It was barely seven miles. Einar loved that about London: everything crowded everything else. But he didn't love the traffic, and it took him almost half an hour to reach his destination.
The supermarket seemed swamped by its own carpark, like a toddler wearing his dad's shoes. It was a one-storey structure of glass and bricks painted green, like some giant kid's playhouse.
Einar parked as far from the building as he could, right by the main road, just across from the edge of a housing estate. In the boot of the Audi was a clipboard with driving safety instructions on a single sheet of paper. Einar flipped the sheet around so the blank side faced, and carried the clipboard against his chest as he strolled across the car park.
Inside, he made straight for the customer service desk. It was manned by a girl in her late teens with giant earrings, chewing on something but trying to hide it. She was facing forward, but her eyes were cast downwards. She was pretty, but Einar felt teenage girls had no individuality. They all looked the same to him, as babies did. He approached silently, until he was close enough to peer over the counter and see that she was texting on a mobile phone. He rapped the desk, and her eyes flew up. At first they settled on his handsome, caramel face, and he saw them light up. He knew the effect he had on females. Then her eyes took in the suit, and the clipboard, and her look turned to one of concern.
"Joseph Cook, is he available?" Einar said. He had already spotted the frame on the wall behind her. Photos of smiling staff members, arranged in a pyramid, their names and roles beneath their pictures. One Joseph Cook, General Manager, a handsome black man whose smile looked legit, sat at the top. Below was James Marsh, the same photo as his LinkedIn profile. Assistant Manager. The word ASSISTANT hadn't been on the profile.
The girl shook her head. Mr. Cook was off today, back tomorrow. Mr Marsh was the duty manager today, but he had gone out for lunch and was late back. Could she help?
In other words, What's going on?
No, he told her. I'm from trading standards, and I need to speak to a manager, quickly. "We've had complaints from customers who bought a horror book here with a review on the back that said 'guaranteed to keep you up all night.' And they all managed to sleep fine."
She gave him a look that was part shock and part bewilderment. Maybe she didn't know what a book was. She recovered quickly and offered to find Mr. Cook's mobile phone number, but Einar declined. Then he gave her a winning smile. How about an address for Mr. Marsh? So I can do this unofficially. Don't want to shut this place down, still feel bad about the last place I was at. No letter P in the alphabet spaghetti. Such a shame.
He was aware of a security camera high on the wall behind the desk. Nothing he could do about that now. But if ever somebody decided to review them after James Marsh's death, would they really care about a smart guy in a suit who showed up here on the same day that one of the managers died?
She left her chair and went through a door in the back wall. Came back quickly with a battered address book and showed him a page. And there was Marsh's address and phone number. He memorised both in half a second and then looked away. Told the girl it didn’t matter, wouldn't be polite to call a manager at home. Said he would be back tomorrow to speak to Mr. Cook. Thanked her and left.
Outside, he kicked himself. He had Marsh's full name and could easily have found the address using his phone, or one of his many contacts in this city. So what had he been playing at, going into Marsh's place of work? Bad enough that the surveillance cameras had logged him and that he had made himself memorable to that girl. But what if both managers had been in the office? What would he have done then? What would have happened if the girl had hollered and Messrs Cook and Marsh had appeared?
Too late now to worry about such things. So he got into his car and typed the address he'd memorised. Marsh's house was another twenty minutes away. The time was just after four. One hour to go.
The house was a detached entity halfway down a cul-de-sac in the middle of an urban maze. It had a square lawn bordered by a low hedge. A driveway on the side led all the way to the back yard. There were children's toys scattered on the lawn. So, Marsh might have children.
He drove past the house and towards the turnaround at the end of the cul-de-sac, where there was a small island with colourful flowers and a single wooden bench. An old lady sat there with a cup of tea by her side. Einar got the impression she was there a lot. And the bench faced back down the road, which meant she had watched him arrive and would watch him leave. But she was old, and maybe, if ever the police needed to talk to her about people who might have visited the late Mr and Mrs Marsh, her memory wouldn't hold up.
He drove around the island. The woman ignored him. She seemed to be in some trance-like state. Maybe she thought she was in her living room, watching TV.
He drove back down the road and parked across from Marsh's house. He pretended to consult his clipboard, while his eyes scanned the road and the houses and his mirrors. They caught movement ahead. He watched as a car turned into the cul-de-sac and came towards him. Head lowered, clipboard held right under his chin so it was high enough that anyone watching him from one of the houses could see it, he followed the car with his eyes.
A silver Mondeo, ten years old. It stopped outside Marsh's house. Right across from him, just feet away. From the corner of his eye, he saw a woman exit. In her thirties, quite pretty, with blonde hair in a bob. She started to help a child out of the back seat. The kid looked only four or five, had the same haircut, which Einar found cute. He knew instantly that this was Marsh's family. The knowledge dumped a heavy ball of concern deep in his gut.
He had figured a middle-aged man like Marsh might have a wife and kids, and they were going to have to die, too. It wasn't in the contract, but Einar had a curious quirk when it came to a mark's family. He himself was the ultimate proof why this woman and her daughter had to die. He had killed family members before, but here was the first time he had seen a mark's loved ones up close. He didn't like the feeling.
Once she'd freed the child from the car, Marsh's wife turned her head and looked right at him. He twisted away from her and leaned over the passenger seat so he could rifle in the glove box. So he could give her his back, hide his face. As he did so, he looked at the house across from the Marsh's. Or rather, the gap between that house and the next. He saw something he liked. His mind started to work on something.
He didn't know how long he stared at the house, but it must have been a while because when he heard a door slam and turned his head, Marsh's wife was standing on her doorstep and now wore jogging bottoms and a baggy T-shirt. Her blonde hair was swept back in a headband. She had gone inside, dropped off the kid and changed her clothing while Einar was entranced by a burgeoning plan.
This time he just stared at her, no pretending to read from a clipboard. She crossed the garden and dropped to her knees by the hedge, started digging at the soil it was planted in. He was a man in a suit, driving a flash Audi, and people would only find him memorable if he acted cautiously. So he got out and waved to the woman in the garden. She stood up, caught sight of his handsome face, and self-consciously smoothed at her grubby clothing, as if embarrassed.
"Mrs Marsh?" he called out in his finest English accent.
She dropped a trowel she was holding. Folded her arms over her chest almost nervously. "Who are you?"
He approached the hedge and extended a hand over it. His clipboard was clutched to his chest. Beyond her, he could see the child at the window, peering out. "Ronald Chester. I work for BMW." He handed over a business card, which she briefly looked at. Then she looked at his car.
"Strange, I know. They have a million BMWs, and they give us reps rented Audis to drive around in. Have you got a few minutes?"
She handed the card back and he put it in his pocket.
Right there, with that little act of showing her the business card, he was committing himself to the murder of this woman and her family. Somebody would soon report Ronald Chester missing, and his details would go out on the airwaves, including the fact that he had last been seen at his place of work, a BMW showroom, when he took a customer out for a test drive. Nobody would ever find the car or his body, but this woman would remember meeting a Ronald Chester who worked for BMW, and she would tell the police, and they would look into it, and with luck could start to unravel everything.
Unless she couldn't tell anyone anything.
"You okay?" the woman said. Einar smiled, aware that he must have drifted off for a second or two as he thought about that morning's kill, and what evidence he might have left, might be leaving right now. Why he seemed to be getting more sloppy and taking more risks lately.
"Sure am, ma'am. I was wondering if you had a few minutes. We're contacting the families of former members of the British Army. We are launching a new off-road vehicle soon, and there's a promotion we have in the works. If your husband qualifies, you might be entitled to a free vehicle."
She looked briefly at her own car, and he knew he had her. Free shit always got people's attention.
She rubbed at her hair as if embarrassed by the headband. "Sure. Come on in for a minute, if you promise that you're not selling stuff."
"Scouts honour," Einar said. A minute later, he was inside the home of the family he planned to kill, drinking their tea.
***
All the separate areas of fire spread like ink on blotting paper until they merged as one and consumed him. After that, it was as if his brain decided there was no further need to tell the body it was injured because it was so bloody obvious. Slowly the pain dulled to a throb all over. Jimmy found his concentration returning. He looked up at the four men who had been beating him for at least half an hour now.
Three of them wore bright jackets of mixed colours, but he focussed on the taller amongst them, whose dark clothing pegged him as the leader. He was also the one who threw his punches and kicks without a word, which showed his professionalism amid the shrieking laughter of his other tormentors.
"On the chair," the leader said. The others moved to pick Jimmy off the concrete floor. He fought it, which was a mistake. The leader stepped forward and raised a foot. It came down on Jimmy's head like a mineshaft cave-in.
He woke to find himself in a chair, a belt or something similar around his neck, pulled tight to force his shoulders against the backrest, preventing movement. Two of the others held a thigh each pressed down hard onto the seat. He felt the fourth man fiddling with his ankle. When all four moved away, he sat frozen. Now he saw what ankle-man had been up to. He was chained by the leg to a rusty iron gym weight with peeling paint.
He remembered where they'd brought him. An abandoned swimming pool, one of those roofless ones built in the early part of the last century. Popular and beautiful back then, but home only to rats and squatters now. And there was the pool, just a few feet before him. It was filled, surprisingly. Nice, clear water.
His kidnappers' plan was clear. Deep water before him, a heavy weight around his ankle. Despite knowing what they had planned, he started to calm down. There was no physical fight left in him. If he wanted to survive this, he was going to have to use his brain.
The leader stepped before him, right into the tiny gap between Jimmy's feet and the pool. He stared down and Jimmy stared up. The man now held a knife, a long beast with tape around the handle and impressions in the tape where fingers had squeezed it over time. He jabbed it sharply into Jimmy's knee, right into the bone, and new fire burned.
"You die today, cocksucker," the man said, grinning. A statement meant to scare.
"It's too early," Jimmy croaked. "What time is it?"
The leader laughed. One of his cronies checked his watch and said, "It's quarter to five. What's he on about?"
The leader ignored him. "Today you die violently, cocksucker. I'm asking if you know why."
Jimmy hung his head. This made the leader laugh again.
"You was seen, cocksucker," he yelled. "Look at your executioner when he's talking to you."
He lifted a knee, fast. Jimmy saw it coming, and made an adjustment, and for the second time his temple took a shot that was meant to smash his nose. His head rocked back hard enough to yank the chair over. As his head hit the concrete, Jimmy felt the rickety wooden chair disintegrate beneath him. Just before his consciousness swam away, he heard:
"Christ, we need another chair..."
"...chair, okay," a different voice finished. Or said later. Yes, later, he realised as lucidity came back. He had gone out again. Now he was back and tied again, this time in a different wooden chair. He knew it was a different one because bits of the original one were floating in the pool.
Hands touched his shoulder, and a voice spoke into his ear. Now the man in dark colours was behind him and Jimmy knew the man's placement was so he could tilt the chair forward and pitch Jimmy into his liquid grave.
"It's too early," he said.
The three men watching from the side laughed. Their leader didn't. He told them to shut up. Then the voice was right back by Jimmy's ear.
"What are you talking about, cocksucker?" Then to one of his pals: "Cub, Bruce Lee this guy if he doesn't answer my next question instantly."
What happened next took barely a second. One of the colourful trio threw a roundhouse kick. Jimmy had been fast enough to avoid the full brunt of a head-butt and a knee, both thrown from up close. But he wasn't as fast as that kick. A training shoe hit him flush on the nose, breaking it. Blood flew outwards and fire spread inwards. He heard the leader spit something like You arse, I said if he doesn't answer my - and then everything faded, and he thought that was good, because at least for a time these men would go away…
..."- away from us, did you?"
Hello again, lucidity. Jimmy stared into the eyes of the leader, now in front of him once again.
"Tell me why I'm to die," Jimmy said, spitting blood that had dribbled into his mouth from his ruined nose. "I deserve to know."
The leader grabbed his face. Jimmy tensed for another strike, but this time the man in dark colours only put his face close to Jimmy's.
"You were seen, cocksucker. Seen snooping around yesterday, around the warehouse where we had our rave. Some supermarket manager one of my guys recognised. So why would some shop guy be in a suit, taking photos of a crappy old warehouse? And then the next day The Destroyer turns up dead. Killed by The Chopper, according to one of my guys. You snooping around that day, then my boy gets killed that night? I don't do coincidences, so yeah, you know something about it, you know this bike riding freak, and you'd better..."
The words continued, but they faded like the end of a song. He didn't hear the words and he didn't feel the spit hitting his face. He heard nothing as his mind raced. Not even his own wild laughter.
***
There was a neatness to the house that Einar associated with James Marsh's army past. Marines had to keep their barracks spotless. Either Marsh was hands-on, or he hounded the woman, Maria, to do his cleaning. Maybe he simply enjoyed a pleasant house. But maybe the cleaning was a hard habit to break, even after so many years out of the service. Einar wondered how much of the man's combat training might also be ir
reparably ingrained into the man's brain.
Einar sat on the sofa and Maria took a seat across from him. She looked him up and down while he pretended to scan something on his clipboard.
"Do you mind if I ask where you're from? You sound like a Londoner, but..." She trailed off, and he knew it was because she feared she might say something offensive. He understood, though. His skin marked him as neither Congoid nor Caucasian, but somewhere in the middle. Some had assumed he was mixed race, but that wasn't the case. His people descended from Polynesians and Micronesians, but he was a Nauruan. Born and bred in Nauru, a tiny island in the South Pacific Ocean, the world's second smallest sovereign state after Vatican City. In the sixties and seventies the Nauruans had the highest income per capita in the world. Today they were the most obese people on the planet. Probably why weightlifting was one of the national sports.
"I've never heard of Nauru," Maria said. "And you aren't obese." She eyed him up and down and made sure he saw it. He barely saw it, because part of his mind was turning back the years. These days he hardly thought about the tiny island in Micronesia where he was born, thirty two years ago. He had last set foot there twelve years ago, not a vast amount of time, but he had been through so much since that it felt like five times that, like a whole lifetime. And he was never going back.
He had been born Valdon, an only child of parents who didn't plan him. His mother "did her best", to quote the old cliché, but after her death, his father lost interest. He worked longer hours because he had no wife to return home to. Valdon, left virtually alone, without another's affection, retreated into himself. It was akin to shutting a lid on his emotions, and they boiled and stewed and chemically reacted. By 13, Valdon was easily worthy of a sweeping consensus of psychopathic by any team of doctors that might have evaluated him. By 16 he was a boiler under too much pressure. By 18, he was a murderer.