There were three other vehicles in the parking lot, a brown Ford Transit van with the bar’s logo painted on the doors, a shiny new red Toyota GT 86 sports, and a tatty Rover 200 with two male occupants. They were both young, smoking cigarettes, and staring straight ahead. After carefully locking his car, Stone made a play of stretching his back so that he could check out the two lads in the Rover more closely. They were of a similar age to each other, probably under 20, and wearing identical white hoodies. The passenger was talking into his cell phone and the driver was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in time to some music playing inside his head. Stone noticed that there were several discarded cigarette butts on the ground by the car and surmised that the lads had been waiting for someone, or something, for some time. Stone watched them openly for a few seconds, but they continued to ignore him.
As he walked towards the bar, a small tabby kitten crept out from behind the Transit van and watched Eric warily. Pathetically thin, and visibly shivering from the cold, the kitten cowered in fear. Stone crouched down, and waited in relaxed stillness until the kitten sensed that he was not a threat. Gradually it approached, tentatively at first, and then with greater confidence. Soon it was circling his legs and purring loudly, enjoying the attention as Stone stroked its back.
“Are you lost little buddy?” Stone asked in a whisper.
He gently picked the tiny animal up. The kitten relaxed in his hands and regarded him with intelligent eyes.
“Well, that won’t do at all. Don’t worry, I know someone who will give you a good home.”
Suddenly a car roared past, startling the kitten so that it jumped from his hands. In a panic, it ran back under the Transit van, hid behind a wheel, and watched the world warily.
Concealed within the tree line opposite the parking lot, Chameleon watched Eric Stone with curiosity and confusion. The information that The Fixer had provided was clear; Stone was the target. He was supposed to be a deadly killer, a violent man, a danger to the organisation and somebody who must be destroyed. Yet as Chameleon had watched, this man had crouched down in the middle of the parking lot and waited without moving until a small kitten had accepted his offer of friendship. The little kitten was alone, cold, scared, and without a friend — until now.
Looking down at the knife that was supposed to end Stone’s life that day, Chameleon’s mind drifted back to the horrors of that dreadful institution. The assassin remembered a terrible life of being as frightened and friendless as that small kitten. Every day was filled with pain and fear, with no prospect of rescue. When the man in dark suits came, there was a fleeting spark of hope for that scared little child. Perhaps there was a prospect of a new home, with loving parents; but soon it became apparent that the men in dark suits had nothing but evil intentions.
Later, in an unusual act of kindness, they had given Chameleon a kitten to care for. It was a tiny ball of fur, squirming and purring with pleasure. The child was almost overwhelmed with glee, but soon it became apparent the kitten was not a gift of kindness — it was a tool for control and punishment. With the child Chameleon, beatings and starvation had become ineffective tools of manipulation, so the men in white coats had come up with the idea of introducing the kitten. Then whenever the child was obstinate, or disobedient, it was forced to watch as the kitten was punished in its place. When that kitten had finally died, those evil men had simply replaced it, as they had the next, and the one after, until the child had learned to obey.
When Stone had gently lifted the kitten into his arms and spoken kind words of comfort in a soft warm voice, Chameleon had a sudden and striking insight. How could this obviously kind and compassionate man possibly be the evil danger that The Fixer had sentenced to death? In that instant, something inside Chameleon changed.
After years of manipulation, cruelty, and treatments, by the evil men in dark suits, suddenly within Chameleon’s mind something altered. With all of the power of an electric shock, and the permanence of death, a new pathway was formed. Something inside screamed for rebellion and freedom. For the first time ever, the assassin made the autonomous decision to spare a life. After tossing that special cell phone into a muddy ditch, along with the knife, Chameleon slowly stood, turned its back on Eric Stone, and walked away forever.
As none of the cars in the parking lot belonged to Ed Carter, Stone went into the bar, and used the restroom before ordering a pint of soda water with lime. Although he enjoyed a glass of good quality beer as much as the next man, since Charles’ death, he seemed to have lost his appetite for alcohol. Stone thought that perhaps he would drink a toast to his old friend when his mission was over — assuming that he survived.
“That kitten outside, does it have a home?” he asked the barman.
“Nah! It turned up last week. Since then it’s been stealing grub out of the bins.”
“I know a good home. Can I take it?”
The barman snorted a laugh.
“Be my guest!”
“Consider it done,” he said, raising his glass in a mock toast.
Stone took his drink and chose a table at the rear of the bar, where he could sit with his back to the wall and see anyone else entering the bar. Ten minutes later, Ed Carter came in. Spotting Stone, he gave a wave, pointed at the bar, and made a drinking mime to ask if he could buy Eric a drink. In an equally mimed response, Stone raised his still full glass and shook his head. Carter ordered himself a coffee before walking over to Stone’s table. Eric stood politely and shook his proffered hand.
“How are you, Ed?” Stone asked.
Carter replied with his usual, “Same old shit — different day!”
Stone and Carter had been friends ever since Carter had started taking self-defense classes at Eric’s dojo in Colchester. When they had first met, Carter was an unfit, unhappy detective inspector in the Essex police. He was already on his third divorce and with high cholesterol and even higher blood pressure; he was depressed and feeling his age. Seven years later, Carter was a keen runner who had lost sixteen pounds in weight, given up smoking, retired from the police force, and found happiness in his own detective agency and the arms of his young secretary.
Although he was now over sixty years old, Ed Carter was probably fitter than he had ever been in his life. At just 5 foot 9 inches tall, relatively short for a police officer, he kept his thick grey hair combed straight back, adding emphasis to his lean face and thin aquiline nose. Below a permanently wrinkled forehead were light blue eyes that could produce an unblinking gaze so intense, that it had inspired spontaneous confessions from some of Britain’s toughest criminals.
Although he missed some aspects of being a police officer, the camaraderie, the job security, and the satisfaction of bringing real crooks to justice, Carter would be the first to admit that he did not miss the pressure, the admin, and some of the bullshit that went with his old job. With a fat police pension to live on and low overheads, his detective agency was never under financial pressure to take on work that he felt was unsuitable, or too time consuming. Strangely enough, his ability to turn down more clients than he accepted had made the agency popular with the kind of clients who were happy to pay more for an exclusive and discrete service.
The previous year, the Carter detective agency had been hired by a Saudi Prince, whose son and new daughter-in-law, had been kidnapped while on honeymoon in London. Under strict instructions not to contact the police, and not prepared to trust his staff with such a large quantity of cash, the Prince asked Ed Carter to handle the arrangements.