The cat must die

Harris thought nothing of it when he read the story in the local newspaper. ‘Mewder plot foiled. There isn’t a local newspaper in the country that doesn’t have stories like these every week. In this instance a hitman was surprised by the sudden appearance of his victim’s cat, causing him to be disarmed and caught. The cat, Arthur, became a local celebrity. The victim, a Mr Stenson, who had wrestled the would be killer to the ground, disarmed and captured him, was given a cursory mention, in the world of local news the cat was the only possible hero.

It was a few days later that Harris received a call from the Fat Man. When they met, in the Fat Man’s favourite local bar, he was brandishing a copy of the newspaper, open at a picture of Arthur.

“You read the Chronic then?” Harris said, wanting to break the ice.

“Ghastly fucking rag,” the Fat Man said, “a weekly collection of the most tedious tittle-tattle it’s possible to gather together. I hate it.”

“So why did you want me?”

“This,” the Fat Man said, pointing to the article.

“You want me to finish off Stenson?”

The Fat Man shook his head slowly. “No, Stenson’s been warned. He won’t misbehave again. I want you to get Arthur.”

“Arthur?”

“The cat.”

“You want me to kill a cat?”

The Fat Man was getting quite agitated, so much so that the table almost tipped over as he leant across it to hold Arthur’s picture an inch from Harris’ face.

“This fucking moggy humiliated me. I don’t like being made a fool of by anybody, but a cat … Just make sure this is all over. I wanna see Hero Cat Mewdered on the front page of next week’s paper.”

Harris quickly assented to the request, not wanting to annoy the Fat Man. They shook hands on a sum of money and the Fat Man handed over an envelope containing an advance, an address and a picture of Arthur.

“Make sure you get the right cat. He’s ginger, but he’s got a white patch of fur under his chin. If you come back with the wrong cat I’m not gonna be happy.”

Harris was expecting to spend most of the next morning crawling through every hedge in the neighbourhood looking for Arthur’s secret hiding place. If the cat’s inside sleeping, I might be walking up and down the street for days, he thought. But his concerns were unwarranted, the cat was sitting in the wall outside number 29 Cripps Road, Stenson’s house. This was going to be easy.

“Hello kitty,” he said, holding out his hand to stroke it. He was surprised to find that Arthur was friendly, he had assumed that he would be a vicious and unfriendly, but he purred at Harris’ insincere affection.

“Let’s have a look at your chin,” Harris said, as he stroke the cat’s face and lifted the cat’s chin with his finger. “Oh, dear, little kitty, you’re all white underneath. Bad luck, Arthur.”

As he was speaking he was reaching in his pocket for his gun – the Fat Man had insisted on a bullet through Arthur’s head, even though a quickly slit throat would have been far less conspicuous. Just for a second he took his eyes off Arthur, who, annoyed by the protruding finger, lashed out at Harris, scratching him with his sharp cat claws.

Harris staggered back in surprise, extracting the gun from his pocket as he did so. Before he could fire, however, he took one step back too many and walked straight into the path of a passing car. The car broke sharply, cushioning the blow and Harris, still just about standing, but clearly not thinking, turned and shot the driver three times in quick succession.

Shit, this is bad, thought Harris, but he soon realised how bad, as he recognised the Fat Man’s dying body as it collapsed at the wheel.

“Right Arthur, you’ve had it now,” Harris snarled, but as he turned to finish off his job, the Fat Man, dying but not quite dead, took his own gun from his pocket and shot Harris in the back of the head.

“Second mewder plot foiled,” the headline ran the next day.