To Catch a Mouse

By Le Chat Détenu

In a world where memory fades and knowledge elude, Louis navigates solely by instinct, his past a blank slate. Meanwhile, Michael stumbles upon a coveted treasure trove of knowledge, its origins shrouded in mystery. The path ahead remains uncertain as they follow the sticky trail of clues.

Amidst this enigmatic journey, a host of characters, burdened by loss and driven by longing, embark on their own quests. Brown Shyn, a relentless seeker of truth, weaves through intricate webs of imagination, piecing together fragments until they coalesce into meaning. Their paths intersect, converging upon Billy, the embodiment of our collective hopes and uncertainties. Will he triumphantly unearth the long-awaited gold, or succumb to the weight of doubt?

Yet amidst the thrill and turmoil, a figure of resilience emerges – Orchid. In a realm where male characters dominate, she yearns to demonstrate that the pursuit of “redemption’s nectar” is the ultimate prize, a cure for the poverty that haunts their minds. As the boundaries between knowledge and peace blur, their destinies intertwine, and the unveiling of truth becomes both their salvation and their downfall.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Aug 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781528998758

Le Chat Détenu

Born on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, Le Chat Détenu was an inspired product of the lush green, humid and chaotic volcanic landscape. She was an anguished mind, quietly reserved, a hopeful daydreamer. Le dreamt her way into the despairing claws of depression and a mental journey after her relocation to the winter colds of Great Britain, age 13, 1993. She wandered in a world most heaving, lost in a reality unhinged and troublingly excitable. Le met her silver lining when all her endless daydreams awakened like her childhood Soufriere Hills volcano…her demons imaginatively slain through pen and ink.

Book preview

About the Author

Born on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, Le Chat Détenu was an inspired product of the lush green, humid and chaotic volcanic landscape. She was an anguished mind, quietly reserved, a hopeful daydreamer.

Le Chat dreamt her way into the despairing claws of depression and a mental journey after her relocation to the winter colds of Great Britain, age 13, 1993. She wandered in a world most heaving, lost in a reality unhinged and troublingly excitable.

Le Chat met her silver lining when all her endless daydreams awakened like her childhood Soufriere Hills volcano…her demons imaginatively slain through pen and ink.

Dedication

Dedicated to Johnson,

Lighthouse in the storm,

Dedicated to the lady,

Who is truly my mum!

Copyright Information ©

Le Chat Detenu 2023

The right of Le Chat Detenu to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528998659 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398427921 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781528998758 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Riddle –

‘A flower in the cool of brown water’

In the door the donkey rose,

As the smell of…

‘Rose is done’

They’re on the locks.

By Le Chat,

And Brown Shin…

…At the window.

Book 1

Chapter 1

A man jumps awake to a hair’s crawling to find that the whispering doubt is but a mother fanning him back to dreaming. The sounds of night creep like instinct across the mind. They roll amongst the dreams, telling cryptic callings of strange things that were seen whilst the eyes saw daylight.

It was in the long ago, when we could not understand torrents of patterns. We did quiver then, away from whispers and mysteries attached to the incident. The clues in the shadows lay hidden in the behaviours of people across our mind.

These things of the forgotten times would bring trauma. Therefore, we would also wake sucking a breath of terror, as our mind recoils instinctively, and our eyes would open from dreaming. It is then we would not be allowed to grasp the truth. The killer is near and stands watching us.

In our innocent lack of memory, we become safe in the presence of the wolf.

***

He could tell the strange men by the way they moved. They would behave as if they were aware that they were being watched. They would move as if they put on an act, like somehow it would fool who watched them. The sitting man observed that he could count four strange men that stood at the bar.

Downing a Guinness beer in front of him at the table in the hot room, the man felt the dusty wind blowing into his ear. He had looked around him at the wooden coffee table and out of the corners of his eyes, spotted the shawl loosely dancing on his shoulder.

How did I get here? he questioned.

He had just found himself sitting in the bar, dizzy, and a voice had told him his name was Louis. Somehow, he felt it had to be an alias.

A moment later, he was thrown into the clutches of a very talkative Egyptian man. The man was drunk. He fell over himself, but mostly into Louis’s arms.

There is always a fool, that sees too much, those whose empathetic eyes cause them to wander sadly into open snares. This drunkard had seen him sitting in the bar and offered his sympathies. He was aware of Louis’s apparent stark isolation.

Louis had no memory of how or when he had ended up in Cairo. He had sat quite immobile at the table, almost hoping a thought would come falling into his lap on how to decipher the surroundings.

He did not like the possibility of walking into further indescribable snares. The Gods had conspired and left him abandoned.

Louis knew he was an agent. That much had not escaped his thoughts. With this calculative memory, he realised he was also playing a role, as one who acts. He deduced that the bar was somehow connected to his alias as Louis.

He felt the eyes on his back. He heard the whispers on the wind. Glass and plates clattered a tune to the beat of chatter.

Where have I been? He thought again.

He had literally found himself just sitting there. He was not even asleep. Somehow, the room had just adjusted around him. He could not hear it before, but then the car horns and even a baby crying had set him to attention. It was like a speaker going up.

As his view adjusted, he could then see the full extremities of the bar. It was like waking from a daydream. It was a sort of dream where your eyes had always been opened. It was like one who stared ahead at some wandering meadow hypnotised. The beauty and gentle swaying of this mystical sea of grassland would hold you in its trance as you stared.

Therefore, when you did come to your senses, all time had passed. You would then sit as the ignorant one, blissfully unaware of happenings as they had come and gone.

Yet, now Louis could see he would have an ally. This wandering drunkard of the bars social scene was the ally he would use. Things could become clearer, and just so, as a dark night had passed into days illuminations.

A drink my friend, said Louis.

The drunkard smiled. His teeth revealed like fangs as his smile stretched in the anticipation of the red wine.

Louis smiled also and he poured into a glass from a beaker. It had been conveniently placed at the corner of his table.

And he smiled at the flow of every drop, a plan developing like a snare. The fly, of course, lay comfortably unaware.

Chapter 2

Louis had trembled. He was afraid of the world that had crossed before him as he slept.

He was afraid like the people who hid in safe and sacred churches. They wondered if their neighbour would have them for feast as the cannibal betrayal of some untamed man.

It was a war of carnal thinking. In a subconscious game of fear, the hands would slowly pull the heavy curtains at night.

Louis was fully aware of the floating pretence; the stance of modern fearlessness. It was like a confidence that would betray wolves to the reveal of campfires.

Men had grown knowledgeable. They sat confidently in their houses. Louis knew that men believed in their own enlightenment…men and their protective lights and electronical achievements.

He was ever still aware their common actions were also as little children walking in fear. Their eyes would look away like the shy, from the passing stranger; and they diligently turned the locks on their inner doors at night.

A thing stirred in the atmosphere that man was not aware of, turning in their beds from the claws of the nightmares. Although they smiled eagerly like businessmen to greet a peer, Louis knew that man secretly did not trust.

Man would not sit naked before each other. They would instead lean towards playing subconscious games. These games were filled with deceit even in the flows of body language. These things were done to please acquaintances.

Man would not invite another to watch over them like hawks while they slept, knowing how the secrets whispered in sleep would expose them. Such secrets were the ones a person would rather not share.

So, men are weak and would avoid each other in the closets where they would nurse their secrets. And this is how he would catch his rabbit. With a little more wine came the flowing of the words. The stumbling drunk could not avoid Louis’s charms.

Louis was feeling even more confident. With this staggering decoy friend leaning on his shoulder, he would appear less of a sore thumb in the bar. He could walk with his companion, steadying him, like he was mostly productive and not at all displaced. Louis wanted to appear like he was well known. He now had a clingy friend weighing him down and painting a decoy of his laid-back persona.

One should not wake from a supposed enchanted trance and shake their head to expose the ploy that they were indeed vulnerable and lost. That was how you would fall as the prey.

Louis saw his way out of the bar. He was cloaked with the persona of an identity. He was the friend, the responsible man…the person with allies. Louis had watched as the rhythms of the men at the bar changed from curious to uninterested.

They hoped that whatever whispers the drunk spoke over his shoulder were less about them. It would take away their domineering glare and make them more a part of the exposed scene.

As the men of the bar turned away from Louis and his companion to focus on other trivialities in their drunken minds, Louis listened to the babblings of the drunk.

I know things, said the drunk with slurred speech.

At these words, Louis had a sudden flash of memory. He felt confident with this memory of his past life as a hypnotist. Gently, he reached out and placed his right hand ever so lightly on the drunk’s shaking shoulder. It was an act, a sign of agreement, a sign of comradery.

The drunk had obviously had many people shun him. They would no doubt laugh at his flow of undecipherable stories.

Louis presented a big pretensive and agreeing smile. He began to drag his words to mimic the drunk’s. It would make him feel they were drunk together, even though Louis was now alert and very much sober.

I know…things, Louis repeated.

This was a way to hypnotise the man under the influence of drink. He would believe he was looking into a mirror and at someone just like himself.

Louis played the double hand. He slurred his words and spoke slowly but kept an eye on the bar for anyone who was watching. He made certain to show them he was not drunk.

The bar had filled with noise. The telling’s of the drunk were for his ears only. Louis felt his luck would change with every word that would fall from the mouth of this Egyptian drunkard. As a magician of enchantment or one who hypnotises, one should never close their attention away from the confessions of the enemy.

The ploy was to scrutinise all for one’s own advantage, just in case. And so, the drunk whispered his story of someone who was going to kill the king. Louis listened attentively.

The drunk glanced coyly over his shoulder before telling parts of the tale. Louis would wait for him to release a name, the name of the culprit who was behind the treason.

The bar was becoming much more animated and much louder. Louis wanted to hear the precise words, but with all the noise rising he could only make out a muffle.

As he carried the drunk outside, as a decoy to walk less suspiciously out of the bar, he would part ways immediately with the noisy man. Outside would be quieter and it was in his best interest to abandon the man who would give him away. The drunk would be too loud.

Chapter 3

Outside, Louis felt that feeling again as if he was being watched. The streetlight gave away the darkened window of one solitary second floor mud flat above him. In a world of technology, Louis was aware of how the modern chase was conducted.

No longer was it a simple straight line. It was now many webs of deceit. One man suspicious in a bar could use his mobile phone and alert an ally outside. They would be waiting like wolves on the plains for you. As you left the bar secure in your drunken delusions, you would walk into their snare. You would have left your security in the bar. With a feeling you had not been followed, you would even still go walking foolishly and confidently into yet another prepared trap.

Louis leaned the drunk against the outside wall of the bar. He turned to casually glance at the window shadowed in darkness. Its curtain toyed deceitfully with the frame, calling to him like a ghost. Louis suspected a man watched from inside, quietly urging him to fall into some false sense of security.

Louis shrugged his shoulders understanding his stance. He was no mouse of naivety to the game.

Louis turned towards the right where he saw the street was narrow and short. It led along out towards a broader main road at the end.

There is a thing to be observed.

Louis is as one with no memory. This had made him the perfect spy agent. He had a sudden understanding of the secrets of government and country. Without his memory, if he were captured, he would not tell. He could not expose the government secrets when he did not remember his name.

Louis reached into his trouser pockets casually. He did not know what he could find. His hand came out with one single cigarette and a pink see-through lighter. He placed the items back in his trouser pockets and characteristically scratched a bearded chin. In his shirt pocket, he found a small torn piece of rectangular paper. It had the words ‘Agent Mulder’ typed on the middle. Louis began to whistle just then. It would help to create the accepted scenario, he thought. He would appear as the innocent bystander. There was of course nothing suspicious there.

Louis placed the scripted clue back into his shirt pocket. His heart beat hard against his chest.

Damn, he thought. No keys, no number, no money.

There was only the clue ‘Agent Mulder.’ Louis started decoding in his head like this was his mission. It was obvious he was on a mission. He had come to an understanding that his memory of the name Louis was an alias. He was aware it was what he was called, but…

…it was not his name.

Mulder, Louis whispered.

Chapter 4

As Louis stood outside the bar, he was beginning to realise that his stalling across from the drunkard was getting lengthy into suspicious activity. He decided he would fix his stalling with the trick of some carefully crafted acting.

He could walk a few steps. Then he could reach down to fix something idly on his shoe. As he bowed to fix his shoe, he then noticed something intriguing. It caught his eye like it was something out of place and shouldn’t be there.

Something was carved into the wall…the letters SUS.

Louis felt like an instinct flowing over him that he should call it ‘suspicion.’ He was remembering a song. It was coming back to him like a recording on his dreams. It said something about writings on a wall.

How outstanding, he thought, and his stomach turned.

He decided he would not give himself away as he fixed the sides of his socks. He just leaned back up gently and continued towards the main road.

How would he manage to get a hotel, or a place for the night, without drawing attention to himself? He had no money and did not recognise the street? He had seen the word Cairo on a poster in the bar and decided not to ignore it. He had stared at the many dark-haired exotic looking men and he assumed with the panging heat against his face that he was indeed in Cairo.

Also, he was aware of the scarf, which covered his head and every now and then blew against his face as a welcoming breeze came through. Louis tried to remember the name of the singer as the lights from the street ahead were coming further into view. This song was a light in the darkness. It was some mysterious clue that had connected with something.

Then in that moment Louis stumbled upon a new idea. He was suspicious, was he not? He was more than suspicious. He was lost. He decided that as suspicious people don’t often do, that he would turn himself in to the nearest police station.

His mind was like a wilderness grasping at thoughts. This thought had come rolling by him like the tumbling desert grown weed.

Then suddenly as if by some mental and magical conspiracy, he saw a policeman. He was standing under a street lamp observing a wayward drunk that was vomiting by the curbs edge.

That’s strange, thought Louis, for it was as if some imagining of his had indeed conjured the distracted policeman.

Louis wandered over and whispered, Help me, staring at the policeman, his eyes wide and green and with some wishful urgency.

The officer then nudged him precisely with his baton. Louis did not question this hurried and condemnatory action but took this shove by the policeman as his welcome queue to walk forward.

Soon, they were heading towards the steps of a building. All the while Louis walked feeling every step of the way eyes on him suspiciously. He changed his act and walked beside the policeman with his head bowed like one who was guilty. Something told him it was better to be against the law than to appear in allegiance with officers.

At the station, he explained that he was lost, and he did not know who he was or how he got there. Now, he was desperate for help and did not want to go back out the police doors unto the dark and shadowed streets outside. He needed somewhere to stay for the night.

Louis presented the paper from his pocket and the policeman went off rambling, Ayn al-warroud!

The officer kept repeating this over and over. Louis found without insight that he apparently knew nothing of the Arabic language. He stared on dumbfounded as the policeman’s words rolled on. He was just like a speedy operator that hovered over a telephone line.

Later that night, Louis was being driven in a van that pulled up outside what appeared to be a hospital. Louis soon realised that the blank and disturbed look on most of the patients faces was not from rum alone.

It was a mental hospital!

***

That night in his room, Louis smiled. He was happy at his sudden escape from the deceitful and shadowed streets even if it was from there and into this somewhat eerie mad house.

The game of life was won.

It was a game where the player had to hold knowledge keys. He had to be able to play the cards that would open the doors of survival. One needed to know the safe houses when danger appeared. Apparently, he had fallen upon a satisfactory stroke of good luck.

Not only had they given him a free meal and a change of clothes, but he had a room for the night. The thought occurred to him…of the destitute stranger in a foreign land and the cards they had to play in order to survive the strange country. A tremulous shiver went down his spine as he realised how another soul could end up a victim of the rogues of the street.

Louis curled up under the thin sheet he had been given. He stared at a moon piercing down the glass of his bedroom window. In the deserted landscape of his memories, no thoughts penetrated to give insight. There was only a faint ringing in his ears. It offered a lulling melody to another tune of wind that screeched on occasion outside the window.

And so, is the story told of the shadow that walks. Like tiredness across the eyes, it lures our fears in winds of gossip and about monsters that look to devour us. Louis fell asleep.

Chapter 5

The next day, Louis sat waiting. He sat next to a table and tried to gather his thoughts. He was persistent in solving the code he imagined would clear his mind. All he had to work with was the words written on the paper in his pocket, the name Louis, and the writings carved into the shadows of the wall the night before which was SUS.

He asked the nurse at the front reception for a pen and paper and went over to the table to write. He found that he could not seem to focus his mind and his thoughts flowed out in gibberish or more to the point random scribblings on the paper. It was like the drawings of a toddler.

Then Louis noticed amongst the scribblings something that seemed very familiar. A nurse passed by and smiled down at him staring at his scratching. He smiled a little, coyly, and embarrassed that she would see he was somehow disturbed and even so, in a mental fashion. He did not feel crazy even if he had been brought to a mental hospital.

Then he went back to focus on the shape amongst the madness. It was like a snake. But no, he thought, it’s like an S. This was all he needed, because he had felt the notion that this S looked familiar to him like the carvings on the street wall the night before. SUS.

He searched the scribblings for anything that looked like a ‘U.’ He noticed somehow lost in his scratching, he in his frustrations had wandered off any thinking topic and had drawn a tiny stick man. As he observed the only thing that was even resembling a ‘U’ was the stick man’s head.

He had uncharacteristically drawn it like a ‘U’ and not a circle. Louis had a wild idea. He drew ears on the stick man’s head, but he made them out of the letter ‘S,’ so the ears had a little tail like a string earing blowing backwards in the breeze. This meant that the last ‘S’ he had to draw backwards like an ear against the head.

Louis begins to decode the drawing of the stick man’s head. ‘SUS’ no longer meant ‘SUS,’ but because the ‘S’ had become an ear on the stick man’s head it now meant…‘ear U ear.’ Decoding further, because the ‘S’ that made each ear had a curl like an earring, ‘SUS’ became…‘Earing U earing.’

Louis decided to put all the words together. It became ‘earingUearing.’ Louis could see words within the words like…‘ear in gUe a ring.’ He simply decided that the word ‘gUe’ did not make sense and that it could make more sense if he added an ‘L’ to make it into ‘glue.’

Therefore, the decoded message was ‘ear in glue a ring.’

Ear in glue= wax, thought Louis, because the mental image only made him think of glue as wax in the ear canal.

Then he decided to decode wax. The only time he could think of when wax is a glue was when it was being used to seal a letter or an envelope. This made sense to Louis.

Therefore, he drew an envelope and put a circle in the middle of it to show the wax sealing the envelope flap. For a while, he just