They slept on the bench till dawn, when they awoke and watched the big turtles make their way to the shore just as the sun was rising, an extra piece of heaven not even mentioned in the resort brochure.
* * *
Three weeks had passed since Matt had murdered the man in the industrial area, and it took a week for authorities to announce any news of the killing to the press. The papers could only speculate that the latest victim, a Pakistani male in his late forties, had succumbed to The Pinner, for no official proclamation of that had been made. Police were still investigating to determine if it was related to the previous two, and they mentioned that several arrests had been made. Matt was 100 percent sure that the police knew all the murders had been committed by the same person, and he was even more certain that their delay in reporting the killing to the public was bait to try and draw him out of the woodwork.
He also knew, without a doubt, that his days as Matt were over. The past two weeks had been the best he had experienced in years. He loved his work, and Daisy was helping him to discover the meaning of life. Sometimes his mind drifted to memories of the horrible things he had done, and one night, he had even woken up in tears, unable to believe he could have committed such heinous atrocities. Only remembering Daisy’s ocean-side whisper, “I am next…” could calm him down. Daisy was truly the next chapter in his life, a fresh start in a book full of hope and love that Matt had come to believe he was incapable of feeling.
In time, rather than seeking reports about his killings, Matt began trying to avoid any news about The Pinner. He had no interest in reading it or seeing it. He considered anything relevant to The Pinner to be poison, forbidden, the way a recovering alcoholic might try to avoid being anywhere near booze. He was happy feeling sober, happy being the Alex Daisy knew him as, and he was within a few days of receiving his one-month badge for no bloodshed.
Weeks passed, and the buzz about The Pinner began to fade. It was not the top story on the trending bars, and the papers were publishing less and less about it. Radio stations and television rarely mentioned a thing. The story had gone almost entirely stale, and in the last seven days, only two articles on the topic had been published, interviews with seniors in the police department.
According to those interviews, the investigation was still ongoing, and they had not quite lifted their feet from the gas. Some assumed the culprit had left the country, others thought he had died, maybe even killed himself. Regardless of what they thought, Matt didn’t want to hear or read a word of it.
* * *
For Alex and Daisy, their relationship was moving faster than either of them would have anticipated, and they were certain destiny had a hand in it. They were so happy and madly in love, and when their eyes met, everything else seemed to fade. After weeks of being together and having the time of their lives, they decided to test their love with another trip, and they made reservations at a beautiful resort outside Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE.
They desert oasis was a luxurious place in the middle of the Sahara, and their room oozed royalty. The Persian carpets, old Arabic lanterns, leather sofas, and masterfully carved bedposts and headboard spoke for themselves.
On their second night there, they had a romantic dinner under the stars, where they had a full view of the sandy dunes and the beautiful palms. They sat near the swimming pool while a private chef masterfully handled the barbecue.
Over the sound of the Arabic music playing in the background, Matt had a serious question for Daisy. “Would you like to move in with me?” he asked.
She didn’t say a word, but her nod and the playful half-smile on her face were enough to give him an answer.
From that point, their lives got better and better. They went out every other day, enjoying jazz and samba music. They both loved to dance and were good at it. On the nights when they stayed home, they enjoyed cooking together, trying new recipes, or ordering pizza and watching movies they took turns choosing. Life was great, at least for several weeks.
When the next night came for Daisy to select the film, she chose a thriller, a story about a local sheriff solving crimes that began suddenly and unexpectedly in a small county.
As the movie played, Matt began to feel uneasy. “This is kind of boring,” he said. “Can we watch something else?”
“I’d really like to watch it to the end,” she said sweetly.
Unable to tell her no, Matt agreed to continue the movie.
Halfway through, the criminal pulled a girl to the forest and killed her. At that point, Matt took the remote control and turned the movie off.
Daisy laughed. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Are you scared of the blood?”
“No,” Matt said flatly, not at all amused by her sarcastic question.
“Aw. Don’t be such a baby, Alex, my little mama’s boy,” she said, giggling.
“Mama?” As soon as he heard the word, he snapped and shouted at her in a louder voice than he had ever used, a maniacal voice she had never heard from his lips, “Stop!” He picked a glass up from the table and threw it against the wall, shattering it in a fiery rage. He then snatched up his car keys and stormed out.
An hour later, he returned, but Daisy was gone. Just like that, the honeymoon was over.
* * *
Matt called his lover twice to apologize, but she refused to answer or return his calls. The following day, she called in sick and did not show up at work. When she finally returned to the office the next day, she only talked about work, mostly with Omar; whenever Matt tried to talk to her, she quickly put distance between them.
He knew he had made a grave mistake, and he understood her reaction to his violent temper. He had surprised her, and he could not blame her for being shocked, hurt, and angry; he would have done the same. Nevertheless, he had to fix it, because she was the love of his life, his hope.
Matt tried so hard to get her back. He sent her flowers, wrote poems of heartfelt apology, and called dozens of times, but she would not come around. As the days passed, Matt began to feel miserable. He sought comfort in the bottle and was often drunk. He did not bother to shave, and he showed up at work later and later each day, with unruly stubble on his face. All he could think of was her.
He dreamt about her several times. Sometimes in his dreams, he was chasing a white-clad Daisy, both of them happily giggling like school children. Other times, he had nightmarish visions of standing above her bloody body with a knife in his hand.
Before Daisy, Matt’s mind was already a mess. He suffered from deep inner conflict about his past and all the killings. After Daisy came into the picture, his struggle only strengthened into a critical identity crisis. He no longer knew what his next step should be.
His messed-up head was only more tossed and twisted when he caught a program on the local English channel, a documentary about The Pinner. The host of the show interviewed various people, everyone from locals to expats to police officers. At first, Matt wanted to turn it off, but something compelled him to watch. As the program continued, Matt grew furious. Several people speculated that The Pinner had been caught and was paying for his crimes. Some called him a coward and accused him of running away because he knew they were onto him. The police stuck to their story that they were still investigating but were ready to pin The Pinner if he tried to kill again.
“Pin The Pinner?” Matt said. “That’s funny. Real funny.”
After the program ended, Matt realized Alex’s days had come to an end as well. He slowly stood up, with a crooked look on his face. His heart was beating fast, like a rabbit’s surrounded by foxes, and his breathing was loud and heavy. “Coward…running away…pin The Pinner…” The words from the documentary echoed through his head countless times, on an endless, torturous loop, mocking him. Every word he remembered only fueled his rage.
Boiling angry, he walked to the balcony, with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a pack of smokes in the other. After a few sips of the vodka and three cigarettes, Matt
calmed down and walked back inside, to his bedroom. “Coward? I’m no coward!” he fumed. “I’m The Pinner, The Pinner, The Pinner!” He then took several of his remaining pins out of the hiding place in his drawer. He tossed them up in the air like confetti and caught them, ignoring the bloody prick marks they left on his hand. “Let’s see who gets pinned now,” he said to his reflection in the mirror.
* * *
The next day, Matt did not waste a second. He longed for chaos, and he knew just how to get it. He scheduled a week’s worth of appointments outside the office, so he could visit a client or two each day and still have time to orchestrate and implement his new plan.
One of his stops was at a small butcher shop, where he bought some goat meat. He asked the butcher to include some testicles. He then took a cab to another butcher shop some thirty minutes away and ordered lamb meat and testicles as well. He never used his car, and he walked home, as he didn’t want to alert the Dubai police to anything odd. His pursuers were smart, and he had to stay one step ahead of them at all times.
The next day, the top two papers in the country each received an envelope. The parcels contained one testicle, with a pin attached to it; a U for the Abu Dhabi paper and an N for the one in Dubai. The newspapers knew better than to publish anything, and they contacted the police straightaway, but by nightfall, someone from inside the paper or the police had leaked the news, and social media were feasting on the story. Within hours, pictures of one of the testicles and a pin had gone viral, for all the world to see. The posts were made with eye-catching headlines: “The Pinner Has Done It Again… Pinner Kills Two… U & N. Is He Targeting the United Nations?”
“The United Nations?” Matt asked, a notion that made him smile.
In the end, the police were forced to make a public statement to clear up the exaggerations and misconceptions that were spreading through social media like a virus. They reported that two parcels had been sent to two newspapers and that the pins used were of the same nature of those used by The Pinner. “Investigations are ongoing,” they said, “and we urge caution.”
Matt knew it would take at least a day for the DNA to come back with findings that the testicles were nonhuman. That gave him twenty-four hours to carry out his finale, and he could afford no distractions, not even Daisy. He focused on his plan and pushed away all of Alex’s pathetic thoughts of heartbreak and love. She had called him a baby and a mama’s boy, but he was certainly not going to live up to that.
This time, his victim would be a woman, an easy target, a prostitute. During his five months in Dubai, he had visited two nightclubs, where he was always surrounded by a harem of desperate women, and he was sure things had not changed since his last visit four months ago.
He only had to undergo some simple preparation, and he already had his disguise picked out. He would take the victim on a taxi ride from the club, to the place where he had parked his car, then drug her with a weak tranquilizer, just enough to knock her a bit off balance and weaken her inhibitions. He would then take her home, and the rest would be art. The next day, all of Arabia—if not the entire world—would be talking about him.
Matt spent an hour at the nightclub, tolerating the horrible noise produced by the DJ, who insisted on going from soft music to loud eighties rock. He walked around with a fake smile plastered on his face and a drink in his hand, making the same conversation again and again with about ten different women. “Where are you from?” he asked. “How long have you been in Dubai? What do you do?” He ended every interaction with, “How much for the night?” and none of them seemed the least bit insulted by the question.
Matt was targeting a loner, a girl who was not part of a group or there with many other women. Out of the hundred or so who were there, only two seemed to fit that profile. He walked closer to the one he was sure would make him famous. She was a tall lady with curly black and red hair. Her skin was as white as pearls, and she seemed softer than feathers. She was wearing a short black dress that clung to her every curve like gauze, and she had slathered her lips with red lipstick. Her makeup was light, so as not to hide her eyes, which were clearly her moneymakers.
“Come outside,” Matt whispered in her ear as he stepped close to her.
It only took one minute for her to do as he said, and when he walked some distance from the hotel, she followed, intrigued.
When they were far away from the crowd, Matt lied, “I’m sorry, but my wife’s cousin was inside, and I don’t trust him. I find you very attractive, and I want to enjoy the night with you. What’s your name?”
“Sylvia,” she said, “and I will cost you 1,000 dirhams.”
Hmm, just $300, Matt thought. “That’s a bargain for what lies ahead,” he said, wearing a sardonic grin.
They walked a bit, crossed the road, took a taxi, and walked a bit farther to reach his car that was parked a few minutes away from his place. He offered her a drink, which she gladly accepted, and within a minute, her eyelids were getting heavy.
He was about to park near his home when his phone rang. Damn it, he thought, looking down at his phone. Omar knows better than to bother me unless it’s extremely important. Matt looked at his cell, let it ring a few times, then answered. “Yes?” he said, none too happy about the interruption.
“Sorry to disturb you, Boss,” Omar said, “but Daisy said she’s headed to your place. She’s been very emotional lately, so I just wanted you to be ready.”
Matt’s composure instantly changed, and he could hardly speak. “D-Daisy?” he stuttered. “When did she leave?”
“About ten minutes ago,” Omar answered.
“Okay. Thanks,” Matt said, then hung up, feeling as if his whole world had been turned upside down.
He turned and looked at Sylvia, who was half-awake. The power Daisy had over him was unexplainable. A minute earlier, he’d been ready to make The Pinner the stuff of legends, but he knew that hugging Daisy would make him feel immortal. Only she could turn off the rage in his head, as if she knew some sort of magic button to push to calm the beast. Only she could turn Matt back into Alex, and he could not believe she was stepping back into his life.
He parked in front of his building and walked straight over to the main reception area to find Ghafoor, but the doorman was not there. Matt walked a few feet, toward Ghafoor’s room, and knocked several times on the door.
“Ah, Mr. Alex!” the short man said, walking out with a smile on his face.
“Here,” Matt said, handing him a 200-dirhams bill. “Please get my female companion a taxi to wherever she wants to go.”
“Very well, sir,” Ghafoor replied. “I would say it is a good idea, for Miss Daisy has already arrived, and she may not appreciate extra…company.”
“Thanks, Ghafoor,” Matt said.
“It is my pleasure, Mr. Alex.”
The elevator ride seemed to take forever. Matt’s happiness was inexplicable. He could not wait to reach his place, to hug and kiss her and never let her go. He watched as the floor numbers changed. As soon as the doors whooshed open on his floor, Matt quietly exited the elevator, eager to surprise his lover.
He took his keys out and carefully opened the door. The living room was still dark, and everything was quiet. There seemed to be no sign of her, but just as he was about to check the kitchen, he heard some noise coming from the bedroom. He walked, step by quiet step, down the hall, opened the door, and found Daisy sitting on the side of the bed.
“Daisy, I—”
Before Matt could say anything more, she looked up at him in disbelief. Her face was pale, and in her trembling, dainty hand was one of his pins. In a fraction of a second, Matt’s life seemed to pass before his eyes, as if all the happy moments with his wife and with Daisy were melting away.
“Daisy, I can explain,” he said, stepping closer. “Just let me—”
“No, Alex!” she shouted, quickly moving away from him. She backed up against the wall, and tears began to flow down her cheeks. “Don’t come
any closer,” she demanded, terrified. “I-I can’t believe it was you! It was you all along! What kind of monster are you?”
“I don’t understand,” Matt said. “What’s wrong, baby? I love you,” he said, feeling as if the world was closing in on him.
“I’m calling the police,” she said, sobbing and withdrawing the phone from her pocket.
“Don’t, Daisy. Please don’t do that,” Matt pleaded. “I can explain everything.”
She dialed the first number, but before she could press down on the second one, Matt screamed and ran toward her. He jumped her and ripped the phone out of her hand. She tried to fight him, pounding him mercilessly with her small fists, but that did little damage. Ten seconds later, she was out cold, courtesy of a blunt hit to the head, and she would not see light for hours.
Matt hesitantly tied Daisy to the bed. She was his last hope, the only remedy for his Jekyll-and-Hyde situation. Now, all hope had faded, and he just sat there for twenty minutes, staring at her.
She would not wake up for at least two hours, but he knew he needed to act fast. At the beginning of the night, he had given up on Daisy and was ready to make Sylvia, an expendable prostitute, his last victim. That would have caused quite a stir in Dubai, like none other in their history, but Omar’s phone call had thrown that plan into the ire. As far as Matt was concerned, this was the last straw, and Alex would never return. He was born Matt, and he would be Matt forever.
Calmly, he walked to his room and pulled a leather briefcase out from behind some clothes. He entered the 1511 combination on the lock to open it, then took out his various passports, which he would need for his escape. His Canadian passport would be only enough to take him out of the UAE, and then he would have to make use of the others. He also took out a credit card that he had applied for before traveling to Dubai. Alex Mathews was useless and no longer existed, and he had to rely on the other ID and names he had secretly acquired.
Matt: A Matt Godfrey Short thriller Trilogy Page 9
