The Nothing Job Read Online Free PDF Page B

mates.
    He placed the bird sideways in the tin and began to use his thumbs, feeling its tiny wings and delicate bone structure give as he kneaded it into place …
    Henry shot bolt upright, perspiration cascading off him.
    He groaned and took deep breaths, turning to Kate as she reached out for him.
    â€˜Oh God, sorry love,’ he said, flopping back into the bed, the back of his right hand on his brow.
    â€˜Was it the chicken dream?’ she muttered sleepily.
    â€˜Yeah … other people dream about running naked through shopping centres; I dream about filling a tobacco tin with a baby bird,’ he whined. ‘Give me naked any time.’ He wiped his eyes, yawned, exhaled.
    â€˜Difference is,’ Kate mumbled, turning over and hauling the duvet back over her head, ‘you haven’t done naked …’ And then she was asleep again.
    â€˜No, but I’ve done chicken,’ he said.
    He twisted his head and checked the time: almost 6 a.m.
    Was there any point, he wondered, even trying to get back to sleep? He decided not, gently eased the cover off and pulled on his pyjama shorts, then dressing gown, before inserting his feet in his slippers and sneaking quietly out of the bedroom. He walked past the two empty bedrooms that belonged to his daughters, Jenny and Leanne, feeling a fatherly twinge of guilt. They had almost flown the coop now, he thought wryly, keeping up the chicken analogy, and as a dad he had missed most of their growth. He swallowed back something big and emotional in his throat then wondered which of the rooms he would use for his planned model railway and Scalextric combined. Humming at this prospect he made his way down to the kitchen.
    Then, coffee in hand, he retreated to the chilly conservatory to watch the day arrive.
    It was Tuesday morning, the week after he had been called out for the murder on Friargate, which had turned into a double murder. The girl in the back of the Panda had been stabbed to death by the same knife as the girl in the alley, tests had shown.
    Henry had done as much as he could on the night, but had been obliged to hand it all over to a ‘real’ senior investigating officer to deal with, as much as it stuck in his craw. The remainder of his week-long stretch on cover had been fire-brigading call-outs from all over the county, most of which he had resolved. By the end of the stint he was exhausted and was grateful when Monday morning came around. Just because he was on call did not mean he could forget his day job and despite a call-out each night he had still been required to be in his office at headquarters in the mornings at least to show his face. As the week had progressed, he’d become more and more dog-tired than he’d been in a long time and had slept in most of Saturday and Sunday, much to Kate’s annoyance.
    His week on the rota had finished at 6 a.m. on Monday. He had rolled into his office later to shift the paperwork which continually appeared on his desk and then he had an ED – early dart – at 3 p.m. so he could make up for the weekend and spend the evening with Kate and have his first touch of alcohol in a week.
    He’d expected to sleep well for a change, but as usual he’d tossed and turned and had a recurrence of the chicken dream when he eventually got to sleep, which is what had thrown him back to wakefulness.
    The chicken dream was actually a retelling of a real-life incident, something that had happened to him at the age of five but had resurfaced from his subconscious only in the last few days. At that age, he and his family were living in a rural, but fairly tatty village in Lancashire in a tumbledown house that came with a few acres of land. His father, God rest his soul, decided to keep hens to make ends meet. The only problem was that there was no one in the family who could bring themselves to execute a chicken for food and that foxes and rats had no such qualms and continually