The Defective Detective : Cat Chaser Read Online Free PDF

they were more gauntlets of protective type workmen might wear.  I threw them back, got out of the car and wandered around the back.
    “So have you worked here long?” I said, opening the doors at the back of the van to reveal… not much.
    “Six years, maybe seven,” I heard Ray clack-clacking around the van as I climbed inside.  “But it doesn’t pay well.”
    “No?”  I hunched over so I could walk around inside the van, again getting paranoid that he might just lock me in here I decided to make this a very quick check.
    “No,” he replied.  “It’s difficult to make ends meet so I do a bit of moonlighting.”
    And then I saw it.  It stood out because you didn’t usually expect to see a fossil amongst the newspapers and cardboard boxes.  At least, that’s what it looked like.
    “Moonlighting?” I asked, not really listening as I reached forward and picked up the strange object.
    “Yeah.  Just as a cleaner, same as here.”
    “Mmmm,” once the object was in my hand it was clear that I had been wrong, this wasn’t a fossil.  It was a claw.  A bloody enormous claw that was maybe three inches long from the horrendously sharp tip to the part where it had become detached.  I shoved it in my pocket and scrambled out of the van in time to see Erin bearing down on Ray.
    “I knew it!” Erin’s nasal voice echoed irritatingly around the empty car park.
    “Hey, hang on a minute,” said Ray.  “What are you doing down here?”
    “Came to get you two, something weird’s going on but that’s beside the point, did I hear correctly?  Did Ray say that he was working two jobs?”
    Ray inhaled to answer but apparently wasn’t going to be given the chance as Erin just kept stamping towards him.
    “You know what that means, don’t you Ray?  It means that when I tell the management you will finally be sacked you lazy little man.”
    I slammed the doors of the van.
    “You were mistaken,” I said.  “He said no such thing, did you Ray?”
    “Well… ” he replied.
    “We were talking about someone else.  Now please, Erin, why don’t you take the elevator with Ray?  I’ll take the stairs and see you up there.”
    Erin huffed then turned around and stomped towards the metal cage.  There was no way I was going back inside that to play sardines with the two of them.
    “Come on,” I said to Ray.
    “Thanks,” he put his hand out and shook mine.  “You didn’t have to do that.  Thanks.”
    I shrugged, “Come on.  I need to talk to Jacob.”
    ~*~

Chapter 7
     

    T he stairs were a bit of a mistake if I’m honest.  They went around the elevator shaft so there were three flights of stairs and a landing for every floor.  And since there were two basements, a ground floor and three shopping floors to climb by the time I got to the top I was doubled over panting, my jacket over my arm and regretting taking a stand against the death-caged sardines.
    Incredibly, the lift still hadn’t arrived.  Clearly without gravity on its side the antique mechanism was struggling.  I leaned against the wall, the sweat from my shirt simultaneously sticking to my back and the cold of the wall and sending a welcome chill across it.
    I closed my eyes and the sleep came, just for a second. My jacket fell from my grip and the claw too, dropping down onto the grey concrete.  The noise was enough to snap me back and I stared at it for a second, trying to figure out how it fitted in. 
If
it fitted in.
    The door of the lift rattled open echoing around the tunnel.  I yawned as I scooped up the claw and put the jacket back on.  It was time to get down to business.
    Ray and Erin maintained the silence of two people who’d had a row, an atmosphere hanging cloyingly around them as we made our way back to the shop floor.  I tried to lead the way, staying ahead the whole time and only needing the odd navigational correction until we walked through the double doors to see Jacob standing next to a young girl.
    She was