“Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” –Nietzsche.
Leonard “Greasy” Sykes couldn’t resist the races, and it was the death of him. Greasy had been hiding from me ever since I’d killed the Becker brothers, moving from one safe house to another, but I knew his weakness. It was only a matter of time before I got to him.
I went to Epsom and then Cheltenham and finally found him in a little flat in Berkshire, a mile away from Ascot Racecourse. The silly bugger had changed his name, but he’d not thought to take it further. Mind you, Dawson, his best mate, had tried plastic surgery and moving to Dublin. It hadn’t saved him either.
I staked out his flat and made my arrangements. Then I followed Greasy to the track, him dressed in a hat and dark glasses and me with my cheeks padded, a fake tattoo on my neck, and a week’s worth of stubble. I’d topped up the ghastly disguise by dying my hair red and wearing ripped jeans, a bright yellow tee, and a red and white scarf proclaiming my undying love for Arsenal.
Greasy was nervous as fuck, but after glancing at me decided that death could never look like a traffic light. His bad.
The disguise was eye-watering, but he clocked the scarf and instantly recognised a fellow football fan, “Arsenal? They’re the boys!”
“Best football team in the world, mate.”
He was still nervy, but two minutes later, I was slapping him on the back as Red Lightning streaked in a full length in front of the others. “I won! I freaking won!” I showed Greasy my ticket. “Twenty to one. Fucking A, right? I put a tenner on too.”
I’d bet on every single horse, but as Greasy didn’t know that, he was impressed. “Jesus, you must be the only fucker who bet on that nag!”
I tapped my nose conspiratorially. “I’ve got the inside scoop.”
By now Greasy had forgotten his caution. I was a fellow football fan and a whiz at the horses. I was solid gold. The damn fool. “What? How? Who?”
“Right, shouldn’t have said.” Pretending reluctance reeled him in.
“Got a tip for the next race?”
“Look, erm, I have to—” As I pretended to be shy, the next lot were off. “Yes!” As Stella’s Beauty won, I pulled out another ticket. Again, I’d bet on every horse running. “Another tenner, but he was the favourite so at two to one, it’s not much.”
Now it was Greasy, hanging on to me, desperate to find out my secret. “Let’s go and have a pint to celebrate.”
“Well, I could do with a beer.”
Greasy finally remembered he was supposed to be hiding. “I have a fridge full back in the house. Have one on me?”
Score. The damn fool took me home with him, and as soon as he entered the hallway, I was behind him, putting him in a sleeper hold.
“What the fu—?” Greasy was still trying to figure out the hell had happened when he went out.
Duct tape and stockings secured him, and a big laundry sack concealed him neatly. I was dragging him out the back door and into my van that was parked in the back alley in less than three minutes. A quick blast of a stun gun put Greasy under long enough for me to drive out to the quiet barn I’d found.
When Greasy came to, he was flat on his back, spread-eagled with his wrists and ankles cuffed to a bed frame.
“My name’s Marston,” I told him.
He didn’t speak because I’d taped his gap shut, but his eyes widened. Not surprising really. He’d known someone was after him, his mates dying spectacular deaths one by one was a dead giveaway, but he’d not known who. In his business, he’d made a lot of enemies.
“Oh dear, Greasy. Did you forget about me?”
His face said he had. It should’ve made me angry, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I was consumed by dark helplessness and white flaming pain. Simple anger was beyond me.
I contemplated my victim. “I haven’t forgotten about you. In fact, you are all I’ve been thinking about for last six months.”
He was groaning and tugging at the cuffs.
“There’s no point in struggling. You’re mine now.”
That’s when he saw past the makeup and got a look at the real me. For a moment he stiffened, and then he was bucking again, ripping at the bonds. The metal cuffs tore his skin, but he was too terrified to notice.
“Why are you so surprised? You created me.”
The frame was rocking now, but I wasn’t worried. I’d bought it brand new and it was solid. He’d have to tear off a limb to break free. Gazing at him, the helplessness retreated. I felt a twinge of power rush through me. This was it, the monster that was hidden deep inside me was rising. The pain was muted, driven out by the pleasure of revenge. The dark night was lit with sparkles.
“I caught you and now you’re mine,” I told him. “You lost the game and you’ll have to pay.”
His muffled cries were unintelligible, but it didn’t matter because I saw the fear in his eyes. Gazing down, his panic ran through me, blasting away the pain. The desire for revenge was rising. He needed to suffer.
“Your crew’s gone,” I told him. “Dawson, Fielding, and the Becker brothers are all six feet under.”
Greasy already knew, their deaths had sent him into hiding, but he was trying his level best to buck and escape his own fate.
“You should’ve left my family alone,” I told him.
The eyes were bulging in fear. A little moan told me he was regretting his mistakes.
I ripped the tape off his mouth. Instantly, he was trying to deal. “Look, it was an accident!’
“Hardly. You came to steal the Picasso.”
“It wasn’t me!”
“Don’t lie to me.”
I patted my pockets and removed my kit. A ring gag and a dildo. At the sight of them, Greasy was panicking. “Wait! Look! You don’t understand!”
“Shut up.” Pretending not to know how the ring gag worked got me what I wanted.
“I was on a job! I can tell you who sent me!”
I’d killed Fielding and the Becker brothers without realising they might have given me intel, and Dawson had expired before he could spill the beans. I needed Greasy to talk, but I didn’t want him knowing he had a bargaining chip.
The ring gag was spiked and thoroughly nasty looking. “Let’s not waste time chatting,” I shoved the gag against his face, just to scare him and then fumbled artistically, muttering, “Bloody thing.”
Greasy didn’t even try to bargain. “Sokolov gave the order!”
I had a name. And it was one fuck of a name too. “Sokolov? You mean Andrei Sokolov? The Polish billionaire who sponsored the open-air Shakespeare festival last year?”
Greasy was nodding furiously. “He went to the house and saw the picture. But your dad wouldn’t part with it.”
The Picasso had been a legacy from my great-grandfather, William Marston, who’d been given it by Pablo Picasso himself back in the 1930s. It hung in our ancestral home, right alongside the Chippendale furniture and French silver.
We Marstons go back all the way to the days of King Charles II when actors, or rather thespians as they were called so grandly then, were as prized as dukes. The seventeenth-century James Marston had been presented with our home, Marston Hall, the Victorian Marston had built up a nice little fortune from a chain of theatres, and twentieth-century William had endowed us with the Picasso.
“Sokolov always gets what he wants,” Greasy whined. “You should have just given it to him.”
He’d killed us all over a painting. Everything gone because of some paint daubed on a canvas. Suddenly sick with anger, I shoved the ring gag into place. My victim was trying to squall, but ring gags work in a funny way: you can make moans and groans but they stifle big sounds.
Greasy’s eyes were bulging again. He was realising the revelation hadn’t won his reprieve. “Is it a comfort, Greasy, knowing Sokolov is next?”
From his wheezing gasps, it wasn’t.
“Now let’s see.” I pretended to ponder. “You planned it, Dawson disabled our security, and the Becker brothers were the muscle. Fielding took the painting out of the country.”
He was sucking in rasping breaths now. He was remembering the others had not gone out easily.
“You staged a home invasion. My father had a heart attack when the Beckers beat him,” I reminded Greasy. “Fielding said it was your idea to tape my sister’s mouth up. You wanted to stop her crying, right?”
I’d been in London, enjoying my first proper job, a supporting part in a West End production of The Lion King, when the police had contacted me. I’d gone into shock, unable to process the horror of losing my family. The numbness had been a blessing. Once it retreated, helplessness had rushed to fill the void, bringing along a seed of pain that had grown steadily until it had consumed me unrelentingly.
Now, seeing Greasy, the architect of that horror, rage was surging in, banishing the agony, just as it had when I’d hunted and killed his team. “You watched them die.”
The coroner had been quite explicit: both my father and sister could have been saved if the robbers had simply picked up the painting and left. But instead, they’d stayed and looted the rest of the house.
“When you finally got out, the ripped wiring caused a short that started a fire.” I was seeing my home again, razed by the flames that had torn through the building. “By that time Dad and Ginny were dead. But Mum was burnt alive and so was Davy.”
My little brother, born on Christmas Day, had been just a few weeks old.
“He was asleep in his crib upstairs, you know. They didn’t even find his bones; the fire was too hot.”
At that, Greasy was whimpering. I welcomed his terror. I felt the monster of darkness deep inside me flexing, the hunger for revenge mounting. Only his screams would give me satisfaction. He had to pay.
“The Becker brothers went easy because they were my first,” I told him. “I whipped them raw, and then I drowned them. It only takes two minutes to dunk a head in a bucket, but I guess I mistimed it because we had a couple of dozen goes before it actually worked.”
Yes, Greasy was terrified.
“Dawson went quick, a dicky heart, I think. I was half way through taking off the third finger when he croaked.”
It had seemed appropriate, taking away the digits that had been the source of his talent.
“Fielding was the best. I didn’t think he’d survive my attentions, he made no noise when I finally blinded him, but as it turned out, he was still alive when he went into the chipper.”
Greasy knew this would be nasty, and I wasn’t going to disappoint him.
“You’re special,” I told him. “You planned it, so you get a game all of your own.”
Ginny had suffocated slowly, and now I would make her murderer suffer the same fate ten times over. The punishment would fit the crime.
“Let’s see how long you can hold your breath.”
I gripped his hair and tipped back his head. A quick shove with the dildo had his tongue lodged in his throat. I taped it in and watched Greasy gulp and panic—until he realised he could breathe through his nose.
The triumph in his eyes! He thought he was outsmarting me! I almost laughed. “Deep breath,” I said to him. And then I pinched his nose shut.
Greasy bucked better than Stella’s Beauty. But I was always strong, and there was no way he could shift me. I was right on top of him, holding him down so I could see right into his eyes. The fear that streamed from him was setting me alight. This was absolutely right. The pain had vanished. The monster of revenge dominated. This was justice.
I let him think he was going out, and then I let go. “Take a breath, mate.”
He was purple, snorting like a racehorse and sweating like a pig, but he was alive and well. Despite his pallid skin and beer gut, Greasy was tough.
“Slow suffocation, the coroner said,” I reminded Greasy. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you die. At least, not yet. We’re going to spend some time remembering Ginny.”
Greasy didn’t like it one little bit, but I was enjoying the payback. This man had destroyed us; killing him was nectar to my soul.
The power of revenge and satisfaction surged. “Deep breath!”
Ginny lasted several hours, the coroner had said, and I coaxed Greasy through teatime, dusk, and pub closing, and finally the clock approached midnight. By that time his eyes were bloodshot, his mouth was full of blood from the spiked gag, and he’d shat himself. But I’d been careful, and he was properly alive and conscious.
“In a few minutes, I’ll be eighteen,” I told Greasy. “Maybe we should celebrate and make a long weekend of it?” At that, his eyes bulged. “No, maybe not,” I agreed. “I mean, this barn is quiet, but it’s not deserted.”
It was ridiculous, but that hope flared again. Greasy was thinking that if the farmer popped round at dawn, he might survive.
“I think we’ve done our bit to remember Ginny,” I told him. “Now, I thought it over, and I think Dad would suggest we talk about Mum and Davy.”
For a moment Greasy lay totally still. Then he convulsed again, the metal cuffs ripping into his skin.
“Come now,” I chided him. “You started this, Greasy. You can’t quit playing the game just because you’re losing.”
The barn was loaded with straw and the usual loose bits of board you find on farms. I collected it all and pushed it in neat stacks around the bed frame. Greasy was bouncing about, blood dripping from his wrists and ankles as he realised what was in store.
“We had an open fireplace,” I told him, “so setting up isn’t a problem.” I showed him the firelighters. “I brought a bag of charcoal along too. Just in case.”
I looked out of the barn door. It was drizzling steadily. Nobody would be out and about on a wet night. Setting small fires meant the metal bed frame would heat slowly. The thick beams around us would catch eventually, and the old wood would flame nicely.
“A roast takes a good, slow fire,” I explained to Greasy. “Mum and Davy can’t have lasted more than half an hour, but the way this works, you should have the full hour. More, maybe.”
I removed the gag.
“Wait! You can’t do this!” Greasy was talking fast, spitting blood in his haste to try and convince me to have mercy. But the monster was in control, filling me with delicious revenge and screaming for justice. “I have money!”
I went about, lighting the little heaps. “I don’t need money.”
“Sokolov! I can help you get to Sokolov!”
“Don’t need help there either.”
Dad had been a noted Shakespearean actor, and Mum had featured in every BBC period play for twenty years. They were popular in their own genres and rarely worked out of them. But like great grandfather William, I had a gift for transformation. My ability to morph into a part had snared Greasy and his gang, and I knew it would help me get Sokolov.
I wasn’t concerned about crossing the continent or the prospect of hunting him down. I would lure him into coming to me, just as I’d convinced Greasy to invite me home, and then I’d kill him. I was out for justice, and it was going to be bloody.
But first I had to finish the job at hand. The old wood was hard, but it was dry too. The little fires were coming along well, helped by the firelighters and the charcoal briquettes.
Greasy saw the flames flare and turned frantic eyes on me. “You don’t understand. Sokolov isn’t who you think he is. He’s not just a poncy rich bastard funding plays; he’s mafia! He’s got a gang all of his own!”
I fanned the fires a little and topped all six with a little more charcoal. The heat was already intense. The metal bed frame would soon be warming up.
“Sokolov is untouchable!” Greasy shrieked.
“I got to you, didn’t I?”
“You stupid bastard! If you kill Sokolov, his brothers will be after you. And then his cousins. And then their cousins. They’re the Bratva, for God’s sake! You’ll have to kill them all!”
I looked into his bloodshot eyes. “Sounds like a mission to me.”
The fires were now licking at the metal frame. A wave of heat blasted out, driving me back a little. “You can’t do this!” Greasy was bucking like a madman. “For pity’s sake!”
As if there were any pity left in me. Love, joy, and gentleness were out of my reach forever. All that remained was pain and the monster that banished it.
I stood back and watched the flames rise. Greasy shrieked and struggled. “No-no-no-no!” He was jerking at the cuffs now, blood running down his wrists and ankles. “Oh-God-oh-God-oh-God!”
I’d promised him scream for scream, cry for cry. If I could have ripped his heart out and made him eat it, I would have. His pain was a mirror of my own suffering, but I stood silent.
“Mercy! For God’s sake! Have mercy!” As the metal frame heated, he began to wail. “Help-help-help!” The fire was spreading, licking over the floor and reaching the big beams. There was hardly any smoke. Greasy wouldn’t be able to pass out on friendly fumes. I’d done a perfect job.
His screams were tearing through the air, bouncing off the walls, and practically shredding my ears. I stood back, taking it in. Power was running through me, fuelling the heady sensation of control. This was good. This was justice.
I tended the fires, adding coals and fanning those that threatened to smoulder rather then flame. The temperature rose steadily, moving from hot to intense. Greasy was melting in front of me, his sweat actually steaming as it flowed off him into the burning air.
Eventually it was time. His skin was blistering. The shrieks were continuous. The flame was spreading. I looked at my watch. Midnight. “Bye, Greasy.”
I stepped outside and drove the van to the bottom of the lane. The barn was in a dip, invisible unless you came looking for it. With the mild rain dampening the fields, there was no threat of accidental night ramblers calling in the fire or of it spreading. But thanks to the location, the cries floated over the fields, echoing in the darkness.
Greasy screamed for the entire hour. His shrieks faded and died just before the roof caved in. It would smoulder all night long, burying my victim under the burning tinder. The fire was so hot, that I doubted they’d have enough left to identify him.
As he went out, the rage and desire for vengeance vanished, leaving me empty. Welcoming the numbness, I got into the van and drove back to London. Back in my own digs, I watched the moon fade as the sky lightened. Then, seeing it was my birthday, I went to the fridge and helped myself to a beer.
Back when we’d been happy, I’d planned to spend my birthday at home. At the memory, the pain began to wash back. Soon it would grow and overwhelm me again.
I cracked the beer open, and as I drank it I was contemplating my next move. Sokolov had set in motion the events that had destroyed my family. He’d have to suffer the penalty. The monster inside me flexed, blanking the burgeoning pain as my intent focused.
Sokolov had a thirst for fine things. He would be inundated with dubious offers. How would a man like him think? I tried to fill the role of the mafia prince, rich and spoilt but suspicious. The answer came soon enough. A whisper of a rare treasure, not for sale but open to theft, would be an irresistible lure.
As the sun inched over the horizon, my trap took shape. I finished the beer and tossed it into the bin.
There was no justice, it was too late for that, but I could have my revenge. The lust for retribution swept through me, setting my soul on fire. I would hunt them down, and I would kill them all.