Just a very short piece, scribbled on a piece of cardboard while sitting in a cafe.
Marcus stood perfectly still, blending into the background as the busy shopping crowds streamed past. Saturday morning and the Pyramids Centre in Birkenhead was packed with bustling shoppers. His target had been in River Island for half an hour but the level of his concentration remained unbroken.
This was research. Planning ahead. The person he was waiting for was safe for now. Their time had not yet come but knowledge was everything. The more he knew about his target, the safer and more enjoyable the outcome.
He had been away from England for not much more than two years and noted the increased number of tattoos on show, more commonly on young women than on men, with a wry amusement. He had survived an attack in prison from a fellow inmate that had left a jagged scar on his shoulder blade. Not much of a scar. Certainly less than the injuries suffered by his assailant. Marcus had gouged out one of the man’s eyes and chewed through his testicles. Compared to that, a minor flesh wound was nothing.
Marcus had persuaded a prison artist to tattoo a quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche over the scar. ‘What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.’ Following his release he’d discovered the quotation may have been incorrectly recorded, although his source volume of quotations in the prison library had been reputable. The quotation had been recorded elsewhere as ‘What doesn’t destroy us makes us stronger.’ The possibility of inaccuracy was unacceptable and he’d had the entire area treated with a laser until no trace of the words remained.
A pretty teenage girl swished through the doorway, hips swinging under a short denim skirt. The tanned legs, high breasts and pert features were one hell of a package and Marcus observed that his were not the only eyes following her progress. Most of the men and a fair number of women had taken more than a passing note of the girl. Marcus smiled inwardly at the thought that many of the watchers would like to sleep with the girl, but only he would want to kill her afterwards.
Gulliver Smith 