The Phoenix

A chill wind blew as he jimmied open a ground-floor window and climbed easily into the dark bastide. But he didn’t feel the cold any more. Instead a slow, satisfying warmth crept through him as he considered what he was about to do and why.

I am an angel of vengeance.

A servant of the righteous.

A destroyer of evil.

Smiling, the assassin began climbing the stairs.

Inspector Anjou rubbed a jaded hand across his eyes.

‘La vache!’ He whistled through his teeth. The scene in front of him was like nothing he had ever come across in over twenty years of police work. What had begun in the evening as a couple’s bedroom now looked like an abattoir. Like one of those appalling videos that animal rights activists or militant vegans post online. Except that the mutilated corpse in the center of the carnage did not belong to a calf or a sow, but to a young man in the prime of his life.

‘Is the girlfriend talking?’ Inspector Anjou asked one of his officers, his eyes still fixed on the slashed, bloodied mulch that had once been Andreas Kouvlaki.

‘Not really, sir,’ the officer replied. ‘Screaming, mostly. She’s still in shock.’

‘Did she see it happen?’

‘No,’ said the officer. ‘She was drugged and tied to the bed. The intruder dragged Kouvlaki outside. That was the last she saw of him alive, apparently. When she woke up he was …’ The young man nodded towards the body but averted his eyes. He already looked green and fit to puke. Inspector Anjou didn’t blame him.

‘She called us though, didn’t she?’

The young officer nodded. ‘The killer deliberately placed the phone next to her on the bed. He must have wanted her to get help.’

Inspector Anjou grunted. ‘Oh yeah. He was a gem of a guy, all right.’

‘Of course not, sir. But it is striking that he didn’t harm anybody else on the property,’ the young man pointed out. ‘Apart from the guard dogs. I mean, it was clearly Mr Kouvlaki he was after.’

And boy did he get him.

Anjou knelt next to the body. He was careful not to touch anything, but roamed over Andreas Kouvlaki’s injuries in as much detail as he could, examining the killer’s handiwork with disgust. The face had been battered into an indistinguishable pulp, probably with a fist or the blunt handle of a gun. Most of the other wounds had been administered with a knife, although the killer clearly had a gun as well. There were bullets in the feet and lower legs – perhaps used to stop the victim when he tried to run? The throat had been cut, repeatedly. But the most striking features on the corpse were the two mutilations that, Inspector Anjou hoped, had been inflicted after death.

One was a letter ‘P’ scorched into the chest like a cattle brand.

And the other was the right hand. It still bore the victim’s gold and diamond rings. Whoever did this clearly wasn’t interested in money. But the index finger had been cleanly severed.

He kills dogs, Inspector Anjou thought. He’s wildly violent. He leaves ‘signs’ on his victims and he keeps body parts as trophies.

But … he leaves a phone for the girlfriend to call for help. And he lets all the staff live.

What kind of psycho was this?

Back in the safety of his rented room, the assassin showered, changed into sweatpants and a clean T-shirt, and lay back on the bed. He was exhausted, physically, but he knew he wouldn’t sleep. Nothing could calm his frantic, buzzing mind.

It wasn’t killing that was the rush. That gave him no pleasure. He wasn’t a monster, after all. But it was the sense of completion. Of justice served. Of a mission, not yet completed, but in motion. He was doing his duty, not for himself, but for others.

Andreas Kouvlaki had been a clever man. Like his brother, he’d pleaded for his corrupt, worthless life. But unlike his brother, he’d had a strategy – offering to lead the killer to the most important target of them all.

‘I can get you access to the Athens townhouse,’ he’d babbled to his killer. ‘That’s where he is right now. Believe me, I hate him as much as you do. Everything I did, I did because he forced me to.’

The assassin hadn’t believed him. Not for a second. But his promise of access was interesting. Interesting enough to delay his death.

‘How? How can you get me in?’

‘The codes to the outer perimeter gates and the front door are saved on a memory stick in my safe,’ said Kouvlaki. ‘I’ll give that to you now. The safe’s in one of the guest bedrooms. But the codes will only get you so far. At night he sleeps with the master bedroom laser-alarmed. You need biometric access to get in, and I’m one of only four people who have it. You’ll need my help.’

The assassin looked thoughtfully at the groveli