The Defective Detective
Cat Chaser
by
Adam Maxwell
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Adam Maxwell
Discover other titles by Adam Maxwell at Smashwords or at his website
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~*~
For Eve
~*~
Prologue
There was another horrendous thud against the door of the storeroom we were hiding in. Erin screamed as the force of it threw her down to the ground. I scrambled forward to take her place, barricading us in.
“I told you, you stupid, stupid, man!” she screamed, picking herself up and leaning against one of the metal shelving units that sliced the room into three tight rows.
I tried to glare at her but another thump against the door destroyed my composure. She stared back, her eyes wide, mascara beginning to fracture and invade the bags under her eyes.
I pushed back against the door, my feet unable to find purchase and tried without success to get my mobile out of my trouser pocket.
“Jacob,” I said. “Can you reach into my trouser pocket?”
Lori giggled instinctively, her hand going up to cover her mouth but she winced in pain as her arm moved.
“You what?” said Jacob.
“My phone, it’s... Never mind, come here and brace the door.”
Jacob nodded and did as he was instructed. I shifted myself and grabbed my phone. Still no signal.
“It won’t work,” said Erin. “I keep telling you. You can’t get a signal anywhere in this place, can you Lori?”
Lori shook her head.
“Well is there another way out of here?” I asked no one in particular. The wall shook from the force of another attack but the sound of splintering plaster on the other side seemed to be coming from a little further down the corridor this time.
“Erm, well,” Jacob began. “I think...”
“Oh shut up, Jacob for all our sakes,” Erin snapped before turning and pointing one of her hyper-manicured talons at me. “And anyway, it’s no use putting you in charge. You’ll just fall asleep again.”
She tilted her head slightly to one side and pouted.
“Now hang on a minute,” said Jacob but I held up the palm of my hand to stop him.
Erin had a point, maybe she’d spotted that I was starting to go maybe she hadn’t. I could feel my lids weighing me down and I’d nearly succumbed to sleep twice but somehow I would keep it together. And the first step towards that was very, very simple.
“Can you please shut your cake-hole you bitter harpy,” I made sure each word was spoken carefully, softly and slowly.
Her bottom lip dropped, leaving her mouth hanging open. I got the feeling she didn’t encounter many people with spines.
“Right then, we really need to get out of here before...” I pointed and, right on cue the wall shook, the impact of the attack knocking over one of the shelving units and scattering bleach bottles and sponges everywhere. “Before that gets in.”
My head fell forward but I fought back the sleep again.
“Lori,” I continued, dropping down onto my haunches next to her. “How are you doing?”
“I... er... well,” she said, her hand cradling her shoulder. “Scared. And I think I might need to go to the loo.”
“You,” I said pointing at Erin who had resorted to scowling at me. “Can you look after Lori, please?”
To her credit Erin didn’t hesitate, her face snapping out of the scowl and into concern. An empty shell of a woman she may be but she knew how to put on a maternal act even if she couldn’t feel the emotions.
“Okay, Jacob,” I turned around and smiled. “You get the best job, my friend.”
“The best job to the man who shares an office with the cleaner?” Erin muttered through her smile. “And where’s that lazy caretaker anyway? Hiding as usual I’ll wager.”
I turned to Erin and raised an eyebrow. She turned back to Lori.
“The best job?” said Jacob. “Brilliant. What do you need me to do Mr Barnum?”
“Please stop calling me Mr Barnum,” the urge was becoming too much now, I knew any moment I was going to have to give in to it.
“Sorry,” he smiled. “I suppose we’re past formalities now, eh?”
I nodded. “First I need you to barricade the door with one of those metal shelves. And then I want you to see if you can kick a hole through that partition wall. We should be able to get out I reckon.”
“You know, I reckon you’re right.”
“Oh and do me a favour?” there was another thunderous bang against the door.
“Yeah?”
“Catch
~*~
Chapter One
Actually, hang on a minute, I’m getting ahead of myself here aren’t I? Sorry. That happens sometimes. I suppose that seemed to be the most important bit. In the storeroom but in actual fact it probably isn’t going to make a great deal of sense until I tell you about what happened before.
Sorry. It’s just that I think you need to understand how these things come together. I didn’t just wake up in a storeroom full of people like that. Stuff happened first. I should tell you about it, I think.
Well, it was my first day, my first proper case. Mr Forsyth, the head of the agency, had called me to his office to brief me personally. Apparently that never usually happens so as you can imagine I was absolutely crapping myself. And that just exacerbates the narcolepsy.
I mean, I knew that he knew about it but I didn’t want it to screw up the chances of me keeping this job. Not on the first day. Not in the first briefing.
Fortunately for me Forsyth was a talker. He loved the sound of his own voice and didn’t pay a great deal of attention to anything else that was going on around him. There was, of course, another side to this. I wasn’t entirely convinced that he hadn’t simply employed me as a comic aside. In which case he was just waiting for me to fall asleep.
And, again, that just made it worse.
“So,” Forsyth had been in monologue mode for a minute or so but he seemed to be coming to a point of sorts. “Your first case, my boy.”
“Yes?” I said. I couldn’t help feeling a bit of excitement underneath everything else. I mean, I was going to get to be a private detective. “I’m really looking forward to it.”
He laughed and patted me on the shoulder then turned to face a painting of someone fat and monocled on the wall behind him.
“You will begin by
~*~
gone missing. This is your number one priority. Lava Corp are absolutely rabid to get their property back as you can imagine.”
My head snapped upright and I inhaled sharply.
“Are you getting all of this?” said Forsyth, turning to face me once more.
“Er,” I said. “So far so good. Number one priority.”
“Yes. Indeed. We’re going to lock the shutters of the shop. That way there’ll be no escape for your prize.”
“My prize?”
“The prize. Fancy a brandy?”
“Er, no. Thank you but no, I’d better not,” I said, the wave coming back. I had to get the prize. What prize? Oh shit.
“Probably for the best. Don’t want you drunk as well as falling asleep on the job do we?” he turned to a small table on the other side of the office. “So, where was I? Oh yes. Vince from Lava Corp was fairly convinced he knows whoever has stolen their property personally.”
“Yes?”
“Well, stands to reason doesn’t it?” Forsyth snapped. “Don’t interrupt again.”
“Right.”
“Okay. Taxidermy
~*~
quite the tricky character this Ms Pingoveno. Never trust a woman who calls herself Ms, eh Clint my boy?”
I opened my eyes as wide as I could, trying to pin them to my skull. Forsyth turned around. He scowled at me and waved his brandy.
“Have some balls man, don’t look so scared,” he said.
I snapped my face back into what I would have described as a normal expression. “Not scared, sir, I just had cramp or something in my cheek.”
I repeated the facial tick, widening my eyes as far as I could, then squinting, widening and squinting. He took a slug of his brandy and raised an eyebrow.
“Hmm, right. So you got a handle on this then have you?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“Good stuff. Knew you would. Should be easy enough. The people we suspect of helping out Ms Pingoveno will all be in there. Plus a couple of others no doubt but you’ll know who they are once you find out their names, won’t you?” he laughed. I laughed.
~*~
sleeping on the job?” Forsyth gave my chair a kick and I jerked back into consciousness.
“No sir, I wouldn’t,” years of coping mechanisms springing into action.
Forsyth grinned. “Pulling my leg were you? Haha! Jolly good. Like it.”
I nodded.
“Any questions?” he said.
“One or two,” this was my chance to try to make sense of this mess. “Taxidermy?”
“Racket. Yes. She’s running it, we can practically prove it.”
“Here? In Kilchester?”
“Yes I know, I thought that was a bit odd too but apparently they piece them together and send them to the Far East. Like a Baboon with a poodle’s head, that sort of thing.”
“Right,” I said. “And people collect that sort of thing do they?”
“Apparently so. Takes all sorts, eh? Okay, enough chit chat,” Forsyth rose to his feet and picked up a file that had been lying on his desk. A case file. This case file. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
~*~
Chapter Two
“Of course,” said Forsyth as we walked down a long corridor, light streaming in from a spectacular atrium high above us. “Detection isn’t all we do.”
The whole thing was slightly overwhelming. I mean, you know when you get a new job and you have that feeling like one day soon they’re going to realise that you don’t actually know what you’re doing and sack you? Well, imagine that only instead of it being just a feeling it is, in fact, a very real and tangible possibility.
“In fact,” he continued. “We have three divisions in total.”
I think the problem is twofold.
“Detection. Separation. And assignation.”
Firstly that I hadn’t managed to keep a real life job. Ever.
Forsyth laughed. I wasn’t sure why. But I laughed as well.
And secondly because this wasn’t a job I was convinced I had the chops for.
“Right my boy,” said Forsyth gesturing to an imposing looking door with a brass plaque attached. On the plaque was just one letter. It had a ‘Z’ on it. “In here.”
I pushed open the door and walked into a vast room filled with desks. Under each desk was a computer, on top of each desk was a bank of six monitors and sat at each desk was a woman who was firmly out of my league.
“Clint. I’d like you to meet the Z-Girls,” Forsyth laughed his laugh again and leaned in close to me, close enough for me to smell the brandy and cigars on his breath. “I don’t just employ them for their brains.”
“Mr Forsyth,” said a voice and I turned around to see the one woman who was the most out of my league of all walking towards us.
“Agatha. This is-”
“Mr Clint Barnum. Yes. I know.”
“The defective detective! Of course you do,” he said, handed the case file to her and began to move towards the door. “I’ll leave him in your capable hands then. Oh, good luck Clint. I know you’ll do well. And if you don’t, you’re sacked.”
And with that he slammed the door of the office.
“Z-Girls?” I said.
“The defective detective?” she replied.
“Yeah, he just started calling me that,” I said, glancing down at my shoes.
“We call him the A-Hole,” she smiled and for the first time since arriving at the Agency’s offices I laughed without having to force myself.
“Do you think he means it?” I said.
“What?” said Agatha, flipping open the file she’d been given and glancing inside.
“Well, about being sacked if I don’t... you know.”
She began walking so I began following.
“Oh, he means it,” she went on. “Can’t tell you the number of people who’ve had one case only, failed and then...”
“Ah. Right.”
“But don’t worry.”
“No?”
“No,” she said as we reached a larger desk with two chairs. She gestured for me to sit in one. “They’ve tended to be employees recommended by someone else. He doesn’t employ anyone personally who fails. He has quite the eye for it. You’re the first in...”
“Shit, so no pressure then?” I said.
Agatha looked up from the file in front of her and flashed me her bright blue eyes then followed with a smile. I looked down at the case file. If I could just get a look inside I could find out what I was supposed to be doing. Of course I couldn’t let this beautiful, intelligent woman know that I’d totally failed to pick up on what Forsyth had told me. That would be insanity. She may be out of my league but you always have your pride, don’t you?
“So what do you do in here exactly,” I said and waved my hand in the opposite direction of the file.
Right on cue Agatha looked the other way and I craned across to read upside down. All I managed to see was the address of a department store in the centre of Kilchester. Agatha turned back around to see me leaning over the desk towards her, her eyebrows raised for a second, trying to work out what I was doing but she continued unperturbed.
“We are the brains of this organisation,” she said then leaning in even closer to me and lowering her voice to a husky whisper she added. “As well as the looks.”
I didn’t feel it happening but with the sacking business and not knowing what I was supposed to be investigating it didn’t take much to push me over the edge. She picked up her glasses from the desk and put the arm between her teeth, her dark, brown hair fell forward a little and
~*~
shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!”
I was still in the same chair, still in the same office but now instead of one Z-Girl in front of me I had... Well, I don’t know. Lots.
“I am so, soooo sorry,” said Agatha, now standing slightly behind and to my right. “I was just joking. I mean, I knew you were... And I thought that... but I didn’t think you would just drop like that. Oh shit, are you alright?”
“I think you’ve broken him,” said one of the gathered spectators.
I smiled. “No, honestly, I’m fine. Happens all the time”
“And what about the bleeding?” said Agatha. “Does that happen all the time?”
I nodded.
“More than I’d like,” I said.
“Miss Zimmerman?” said another voice.
“Err,” said Agatha. “Get back to work, all of you. Give him some, erm, space.”
With a disappointed grumbling the assembled women began to disperse to their respective desks. I took the bunched tissues from Agatha’s hand and dabbed at the cut on my forehead. Scanning the desk I located the source of the injury. The culprit was a small ornament of a cat curled and asleep with its ears pricked upright. Looking at the blood spots on the tissue, they appeared to be the same distance apart.
“I think I’ll live,” I smiled. Agatha smiled nervously back and sat down. “You were saying that you were the brains?”
“I’m sorry,” she said a little too loudly then moved the files on her desk slightly, lining them up. “You provide questions, we provide answers. You find a spot of blood, we find out who it belongs to. You find a glass next to a dead body, we find the poison from it. You need access to information, we investigate and inform.”
“Catchy little tag line,” I said.
“Not really. Oh, I see. And today we are going to get you into Crowther’s Department Store.”
“Which is where I’m going.”
“Yes, all you need to do is swipe this card,” she slid a pass card wrapped in a piece of paper across the desk. “And then type the number that’s written on the paper and you’ll be in. Then we’ll lock the place down. If you need to get in touch for anything here’s my card with my numbers.”
She slid her card across the desk and as I reached out to take it our fingers touched.
“I really am very sorry,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Happens to me all the time. So what exactly am I supposed to do when I get there?”
Agatha laughed in relief. “Very funny. Now, go.”
~*~
Chapter Three
The sun hadn’t been set long and I could feel the chill of the autumn evening slowly crawling under my coat. I was thankful to see the pedestrian traffic was starting to thin out in the area because it gave me a fighting chance of not being spotted entering the building. As I rounded the corner its Art Deco façade, although blackened with pollution and age, was still an impressive sight. Crowther’s Department Store was an institution in Kilchester, with staff and customers spanning four generations. It was the sort of anachronism of a place that no-one could quite understand how it remained open. And yet no-one could ever imagine it would ever close down.
I walked past the garish window displays touting the latest in gaudy couture and glanced around before trying to slip subtly down the alley that led to the back entrance of the store. Unlike the gorgeous architecture which characterised the front of the building the back was a horrendous carbuncle that appeared to have been shit out and stuck on in the sixties. At least it was quiet down here, the only company being some birds scavenging the bins.
The building itself took up three sides of what you might loosely call a courtyard. To my left the building was dotted with tiny windows which were so small I couldn’t imagine they let in any light at all. To my right the building’s only feature was a rusted fire escape that zig zagged from the roof down to street level and straight ahead the only points of note were a closed roller shutter door that would presumably let in delivery vehicles and a smaller, windowless, metal door.
Since it was the only person-sized door I thought it reasonable to assume it was the staff entrance. I walked closer and saw that it was replete with card-swipe and keypad. Wonderful. The plan was going smoothly. My hand went to my jacket pocket, fingers running along the edge of the card Agatha had given me. This was it, the beginning of... well, I didn’t know actually. But it was definitely the beginning of something.
I gritted my teeth, took out the card and swiped it. There was a beep and an orange light. I didn’t bother bringing the piece of paper with the accompanying number, having decided to live life on the edge instead.
I pushed ‘1’. The keypad beeped. That was a good start. No alarms, no security, no dogs.
I pushed ‘2’. Another beep. Thinking I could hear footsteps I looked around the courtyard again but no-one was there.
I pushed ‘3’. Beep. There really was no going back now.
I pushed ‘4’. Beep. I wondered why she had bothered to write the number down in retrospect. Not exactly a difficult one to remember.
The orange light flicked green then turned red and sounded an electronic raspberry. I exhaled and my breath hung in the air around me. Were they definitely the instructions? Agatha had said to swipe the card then type the number. Or was it type the number then swipe the card? I reached up and touched the tiny wound she’d inflicted on my forehead.
My eyes flicked around the courtyard and once more there was no-one watching. This time, however, I was sure I could make out a security camera on the wall high above me. Which was it? Swipe then type? Or type then swipe? No, I was definitely right the first time, I swiped the card and this time instead of the orange light a green one flashed happily. This was good.
Wasn’t it?
I typed 1, 2, 3 and then hesitated. It wasn’t beeping this time. There was a cancel button. Maybe I should press it. I pressed ‘4’ and waited for the click of the door opening.
The machine waited, flashed the green light at me some more and then abruptly changed red and blew another raspberry.
Right, this time I would reverse it. Type then swipe. It had to work. Unless I had the number wrong. What if I had been too hasty, what if it was 2134 or even 4321? No. Have confidence. This time it will work.
I glanced up at what I imagined to be the security camera and pressed ‘1’.
The door in front of me made a satisfying clunk noise and opened wide.
Inside stood a security guard.
“What the bloody hell do you
~*~
My eyes woke up first. Before my body. It happened sometimes.
I wasn’t in a police car, so that was something at least. I inhaled and there was a smell like musty furniture crossed with industrial cleaning agents. It was unmistakably the smell of Crowther’s Department Store although the area I was staring at wasn’t one I’d ever seen before, the smell here having a lower concentration of mustiness to it.
I seemed to be in some sort of chair at a shabby old wooden desk. Whoever had brought me here, presumably the security guard, had laid my head on the desk but my arms hung awkwardly under the desk. I could see papers, out of focus and too close to read, then a baked bean tin being used as a pen holder. On the wall in front of me was a calendar, one of those cheap and nasty ones that was just one picture with a tiny grid of numbers stuck to the bottom.
The picture was a montage, cheesily done by some amateur designer with lions, tigers and other big cats all staring down presumably aghast at the fact that, in their world at least, it was still May.
Some movement began to trickle back into me and I managed to tilt my head a fraction of an inch to see another anachronism. A dusty frame with an ‘Employee of the Month’ certificate inside. The date on the certificate was from five years ago and from another company whose name the dust obscured. Something beginning with ‘Lav’.
“I know you’re awake,” said a voice. “I can see your eyes are open.”
“Mmmmmph,” I said, the narcolepsy had started to subside, begrudgingly giving me back control of myself.
“What the devil were you doing at the back door?” he said. He wasn’t angry, he sounded worried if anything.
I sat bolt upright, my subconscious handing back control and then panicked for a moment when, inexplicably, it had refused to allow me to move either of my arms. A brief internal check revealed that lying on a desk with your arms hanging beneath you is likely to cut off the blood supply. Not the end of the world. I smiled at him.
“Usually the first thing people ask is why I fall asleep like that,” I said. “Very tactful of you not to mention it.”
“My pleasure, that is, what...erm,” he was sitting at the other side of the room at another, smaller desk next to the door. He was a big man, in his early fifties but I would have bet that what filled his uniform was mostly muscle and not fat.
“Name’s Clint Barnum, I would shake your hand but both my arms went to sleep and now the blood’s returned I’m starting to get a chronic case of pins and needles.”
“Jacob. I’m the security guard.”
“Yes, I guessed that,” I said. “The uniform’s a dead giveaway. You often pick strange men out of the gutter and take them to... is this your office?”
“Yes. Well, sort of.”
“And you’re in charge around here are you?”
“Yes. What are you d-”
“Excellent. Great. Good man,” the pins and needles tingling in my arms had turned into a painful searing, creeping feeling under my flesh. I let out a scream partly because it really hurt but mostly to keep the guard off-guard, if you’ll pardon the pun.
“So what are you doing here?” he said, standing up and moving between me and the room’s exit. Clearly his concern was only going to stretch so far.
“Good question. And one I intend to address, don’t you worry about that. I walked over to the framed certificate and wiped the dust off it. “Is this yours?”
“No,” he said. “Now wait a-”
“Jacob, I’m a private investigator and I am here on a very important case,” it was the first time I’d gotten to say that and it felt really good. He immediately sat back down in his seat. I decided to counterpoint his downward motion with some upward movement of my own and stood up. “Do you know of a Ms Pingoveno?”
“No,” he replied.
“Heard of her, worked for her, any mention by anyone you’ve ever met?”
“No, I swear, sir,” he said.
“And how about Vince?”
“Ah, now there I can help you. There are two, no, three gentlemen by that name working here. One of them lives down the street from me. I get the bus in with him when we’re on the same shifts.”
“They work here?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “Lava Corp?”
Jacob shook his head.
I tried to look thoughtful by scratching my chin then turned around to survey the rest of the office. It was a cramped affair, the other walls I hadn’t been able to see housing newspaper clippings mostly of football teams I didn’t recognise and a small square board with hooks, the majority of which had keys hanging from them. There was a single, shared telephone, two desks and that was it. We weren’t going to make any more progress here.
“Right, Jacob,” I said, finally shaking his hand as the pins and needles subsided. “I need an assistant this evening. Do you think you are up to the task?”
“Yes, sir!” he said, practically saluting as he did so.
“What do you know of taxidermy, Jacob?”
“Not much, sir, but I think you’ll be wanting to speak to Miss Erin on that subject.”
“Do you now?” I said.
“Yes sir, if I was you I would ask her about Lucky. Her cat.”
“Would you now?” I said. At last, I was making some progress. “Well, then lead the way.”
“Right you are sir.”
And off we went.
~*~
Chapter Four
It’s strange, I suppose, walking through the unfamiliar insides of a building as everyday as this one. The stark concrete floors painted the same dull grey as the walls, the once large areas now partitioned into room after storeroom, cupboard after cupboard and office after office.
We walked in silence except for when Jacob would occasionally let out a warbling birdsong whistle. The place was a maze and we turned corner after corner until we reached a corridor which was shrouded in darkness.
Jacob held up his hand and put his index finger over his lips.
I stared into the darkness but at night and with no windows the corridor gave nothing away. And then the noise started.
A knock that echoed out, surrounding us then a soft, dragged hiss.
Knock. Hiss.
Knock-hiss.
Knock-hissssssss.
“Jesus, Ray, is that you?” barked Jacob into the murk.
“Course it’s bloody me,” a voice came back out of the darkness shortly followed by a face and then a whole body. “Who the hell else would it be at this time of night?”
Ray looked like an alcoholic Santa in the off-season. His skin was pale from the lack of sun, he’d shaved his beard, but a course, white stubble hung from his chin. The big tummy was there but it seemed a lot less jolly than the Santa we all knew and loved.
“Well, there’s just been, you know,” said Jacob. “What the hell was that noise?”
Ray pointed down towards the ground and it became immediately apparent. The hiss had been his left foot, the tartan slipper he wore on it dragged along the ground whilst his right leg, a wooden pirate-prosthesis tapped its peggy way alongside.
Jacob looked confused.
Ray kept walking, raising his eyebrows in acknowledgement of me then walking on past.
“I smashed the foot on my proper leg this morning so I’m stuck with the peg ‘til it’s fixed.”
“How did it, you know,” I said, pointing to his prosthesis. “How did you lose it originally?”
“Lion chewed it off on safari,” he stared at me, frowning.
“Really?” I said, completely unable to hide the awe in my voice.
“Course not you bloody idiot, it was an industrial accident.”
And with a knock and a hiss Ray scraped off on his way.
“You had to ask?” Jacob whispered to me then waved us on to a pair of double doors which we opened together and led us onto the real shop floor.
“Need to talk to you if you don’t mind, Miss Erin.”
Erin was a formidable woman, somehow seeming to tower over Jacob in spite of the fact she couldn’t have been more than five foot three. She was the epitome of a makeup counter girl with her orange face, lashes like Amazonian spiders and what appeared to be perfectly manicured two-inch talons on the ends of her fingers.
“Talk?” Erin spat the words at Jacob, accompanying them with some actual spit for good measure.
“This is Mr Barnum, he’s a Private Investigator.”
“Please,” I said. “Call me Clint.”
“I will not speak to this, this...” she turned the corners of her mouth down causing her garish red lipstick to crack. “...this dick. I will not speak to him under any circumstance.”
“What can you tell me about woman named Pingoveno?” I said and moved a little closer to Erin. I was hit by a wall of perfume and suppressed a cough. “And what can you tell me about Lucky?”
Erin stopped talking and stared at me, her left eyelid twitched, sending shudders through her spiderous eyelashes. I stared at her, waiting for something more. Right now this was all I had; one woman’s name, a vague idea of something that had to be retrieved and a taxidermy racket.
Jacob coughed apologetically and reached into his pocket, taking out a clean, white handkerchief and passing it to Erin who took it and appeared to shatter on contact, reduced to a crying, howling mess in Jacob’s arms. I couldn’t go on like this.
Fishing my phone out of my pocket I dialled Agatha. It rang twice then she picked up.
“Clint,” she said. “H-w i- - go-ng up there?”
“Agatha?” I said. “Can you hear me?”
There was silence on the line, I took the phone away from my ear. The call was over. No damn signal.
“Can’t get a signal in here,” said Jacob. “Walls too thick.”
Right, so this blubbering mess was all I had to work with then. Okay, on with the show.
“Erin is it?” I said. “Can you please stop crying and talk to me? What are you upset about?”
“It’s...” she managed before breaking down again. Jacob mopped her eyes and her mascara began to trickle into the wrinkles she had so valiantly tried to conceal. “I know about the taxidermy if that’s what you’re asking.”
Bloody hell, that was easy, I was getting good at this detective lark.
“Yes,” I said and put my hand on her shoulder taking the handkerchief from Jacob and dabbing her eyes, the handkerchief now looking like some sort of panda-Jesus’ Turin shroud. “That’s exactly what I was asking about. And what about Lucky?”
I was onto something here.
“He was,” she took a deep breath, took the handkerchief from me and blew her nose. She tried to hand it back but I shook my head and smiled. “But he’s... he’s gone.”
“Gone?” I said. My mobile started to ring in my pocket. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”
I took the mobile out. Agatha’s name was displayed on the screen.
“My little ginger puss. Dead. Stuffed,” she began wailing again.
The phone kept ringing.
“Shh. Please, can you just hang on for one second?”
I answered the phone.
“Clint? Can you hear me?” said Agatha.
“Yes, listen, quick while I’ve got a signal. Am I looking for a cat?”
“Clint, Forsyth has been down looking for an update. It’s imperative you retrieve the animal alive or -”
“Forsyth? Shit. Really? Agatha?” I tried walking away from Erin and Jacob, quickly jogging towards the windows. “Are you still there? Am I looking for a bloody cat?”
“C-t - anything you need?”
“Yes, Agatha. Can you please just tell me if I’m looking for a ginger cat?”
“Y- than we thought - black - orange - cat. Clint?”
“You’re breaking up,” I said, stabbed the disconnect key and hung up on her.
“Stop your bloody snivelling woman!” I shouted from across the floor and began striding towards them. “Are you telling me that you had a black and orange cat?”
She nodded.
“And am I to understand that he has popped his clogs?”
She nodded again.
“Shit!” I screamed. “A dead lost cat. Who the shitting hell sends a private investigator to find a lost cat? Especially a bloody dead one. Is that what I’m worth? A dead cat! A lost bastard dead bastard cat.”
“Sir?” said Jacob.
“‘Bring him back in one piece, Clint,” I shouted. “Oh and if you don’t you’re sacked, Clint. Arrrrrrrrrgh!”
I spun around to shout at the two of them again and
~*~
Chapter Five
I woke to what was becoming a much more familiar sight; the wall with the Employee of the Month certificate on it and the still disconcerting knock-hiss noise coming up behind me. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and turned around to see Ray the caretaker looming with a mug in his hands.
“Hope you like your coffee black,” he said, putting the cup on the desk in front of me. “Milk was off.”
“Thanks, black’s fine. You carry me back here?” I asked.
“Jacob. Then Erin started bossing him around so he asked me to keep an eye on you. What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Got angry. Fell asleep,” I lifted the cup to my lips but realised it was too hot before the liquid touched my mouth. “It happens.”
Ray nodded and flopped into a chair, “So what was all the shouting about then?”
“That?” I blew on the coffee. “Was me shouting about the fact that Erin’s dead cat is the end of my brief career as a private eye.”
I gave up blowing on the coffee and sighed on it instead.
“How do you figure that out, then?” Ray scratched at his pirate leg and I tried not to look. Thankfully my mobile phone chose that moment to burst into life, I stood up and answered it, looking at the wall instead.
“Clint?”
It was Agatha.
“You phoned me. Of course it’s Clint. What do you want?”
Agatha began to speak but it was a lost cause, between the dropouts and static the only thing I seemed to be able to make out was some sort of Morse code beeping repeating over and over in the background.
“It’s over,” I shouted into the phone. “It was Erin’s cat. It’s dead.”
The beeps again and then, clear as a bell she said something that nearly caused me to drop my phone in the coffee.