Streetwise Read Online Free PDF

pub again. It didn’t take a genius to work out that a deal was going down. And if the Streets were involved, it was bound to be dodgy. Still, that was none of her business. See no evil, hear no evil. It was, she knew, a slightly skewed moral perspective but she couldn’t afford too many principles at the moment.

5
    It was closer to half an hour before Chris Street emerged again. He was with the older guy and the two of them walked over to the Bentley where they shook hands and separated. Chris got back into the Mercedes with a pleased expression on his face. Ava knew better than to ask how it had gone; anything he volunteered to tell her was fine but it didn’t do to probe.
    ‘Where to now, boss?’ she asked.
    ‘That shop on the high street, the one with all the stuffed animals.’
    ‘Beast?’ she said, surprised by the request.
    ‘Yeah, that’s the one.’
    Ava pulled the car into the traffic. Chris seemed more relaxed about her driving now or maybe his mind was on other things. She knew the place he was talking about. When she was a kid, it had been the local undertaker’s, a family business established for generations. But some bad stuff had happened there, a gruesome murder that had finished off the business for good. A few years ago the premises had been taken over by a taxidermist. Personally, she couldn’t see the attraction but apparently it was back in fashion and all the rage. ‘You like that kind of thing?’
    ‘It’s not for me. It’s a present for a friend.’
    Ava gave him a sidelong glance. ‘Not a girlfriend, I hope. I think they usually prefer perfume and flowers.’
    ‘No, not a girlfriend. A business associate.’
    She wondered if it was for the man she’d just seen him with. ‘Good,’ she said, smiling. ‘You could kill a relationship with a gift like that.’
    It only took them a couple of minutes to get there and fortunately there was a parking space not too far away. The sky had darkened and the rain was coming down hard, bouncing off the pavement and swirling into the gutters. As Chris opened the passenger door, he turned to her and said, ‘Would you mind coming with me? A second opinion would be handy.’
    ‘I don’t know anything about stuffed animals.’
    ‘Join the club,’ he said.
    Ava gave a shrug. ‘Okay.’ She had never been inside before and, despite a faint distaste, was curious to see what it was like.
    They ran from the car to the gallery, sloshing through the puddles. Chris opened the door and then stood aside to let her enter. Almost as soon as she’d crossed the threshold, Ava was struck by the surreal quality of the place. Animals of all varieties – stoats and weasels, foxes, mice, rats, reptiles, bats, birds and fish – were displayed in various poses around the room.
    For a while they drifted from cabinet to cabinet, examining the contents. There was a hushed, almost reverential air about Beast. Although they weren’t alone – there were at least half a dozen other customers in there – everyone spoke in whispers. Ava felt as though she’d stumbled upon a bizarre animal cemetery – except all the bodies were above ground. Eyes followed her wherever she went. She knew that they were glass and yet they still felt uncomfortably real.
    ‘Have you got any ideas?’ she asked, looking up at a large brown bear that was standing in the corner. The bear, she thought, had a slightly mortified expression. ‘Do you know what he likes?’
    Chris pulled a face. ‘Not a clue. Someone told me about it, said his house was full of the stuff.’
    ‘Weird,’ she said. ‘Would you put any of this in your home?’
    ‘Only if it was called Trojan.’
    ‘Trojan?’
    ‘My brother’s dog,’ he explained. ‘The bull terrier from hell. Now there’s one animal I wouldn’t mind seeing stuffed and shoved in a cabinet.’
    They carried on browsing, moving from case to case. After a while a tall, stooped man with very pale skin and a shock of white hair approached