The Teacher: A shocking and compelling new crime thriller – NOT for the faint-hearted! Read Online Free PDF Page B

eccentric, different. The most remarkable thing about him though were his eyes, they were cold and grey like cut glass, Abbey had to force herself not to stare.
    ‘I’m Parker, Parker West.’ He held his hand out to her over the table. She rubbed her palm on her skirt to remove any traces of tuna mayonnaise and then shook his hand.
    ‘Hello.’
    ‘You’re Abigail Lucas?’ He smiled again, she could not hide her surprise – how did he know her name?
    ‘Who—’
    ‘Oh, they didn’t tell you? I’m going to be helping you with the archives. I have a masters in zoological archaeology and I’m working towards my PhD,’ he said, almost embarrassed.
    ‘Oh, yes, Mr Lowestoft did mention it. I didn’t realise it would be today.’
    She had already worked her way through Australasia and Southern America on her own, cataloguing every single animal, noting down its region and its place on the food chain. Up till now she alone had the power to decide the fate of these creatures. She could mark the animal for restoration or for destruction. Where possible she was to save the animals, although it felt so futile – so far she had condemned over two hundred animals to the incinerator, their final resting place. The worst cases were in the northeast corner of the building where there had been a leak in the roof that had gone unnoticed for far too long. She hadn’t been able to save any of those, the mould and rot had set in so much that their deterioration had sealed the deal. She wasn’t sure if she trusted a stranger with this responsibility.
    ‘He just said you could probably do with a hand. This museum has a particularly quantitative supply of species and sub-species; it’s a lot for one person to get through … in two months, is it?’
    ‘I can manage it,’ she said apologetically, internally scolding herself for apologising at the same time.
    ‘Oh, no one said you can’t. To be honest with you, I volunteered, no one is paying me. I’m writing a paper for my PhD, you see, well I won’t bore you with the details of it but you would be doing me a huge favour if you would allow me to tag along, I might even be able to offer you my expertise with the identifications at least; you would obviously have to handle the actual restorations.’
    ‘If you think …’
    ‘The final decision is yours, my fate is in your hands.’ He had a soft, pleading but mischievous look in his eyes, she wanted to smile at him, she wouldn’t because that’s not who she was. People, she knew, are rarely who they show themselves to be. There is always a lie, always a mask.
    ‘Hello, Parker, you can call me Abbey,’ she said after a pause. She would just have to deal with it.
    ‘Nice to meet you, Abbey.’ He half smiled. His anticipation was evident as he ploughed his way through his lunch, raring to go, eager to meet her dead little friends.
    She thought of all the animals she had already worked through alone and decided maybe this wasn’t the end of the world, it didn’t mean that Mr Lowestoft didn’t trust her, it just meant she could take her time and not worry so much about the self-imposed deadlines she had assigned. The hardest decision she had made on her own so far was on a small creature whose identification numbers had been ruined by water and damp, she did not recognise the animal and could not find it in any of the encyclopaedias. Maybe it was stored in the wrong part of the world, but there was no saving her – she knew the creature was a female, her teats were still enlarged from recent motherhood. Abbey wondered what had happened to this little beast. Her cheeks had been ravaged by termites but her black eyes were so calm. As Abbey had fingered the tiny bullet hole in the animal’s chest, a spider had crawled out and she dropped the animal in shock, smashing what was left of her face. Abbey could not stop the tears as she placed the red sticker on the small animal, wondering if her children had befallen the same