The 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 dressed in the same white make-up girl uniform as Erin but there the comparison ended. Lori was a pale girl in her early twenties and she was striking if for no other reason than in the heels she wore she must have been over six feet tall. She and Jacob both smiled as we returned.
“This is Lori,” said Jacob. I smiled back at them both. “He’s the private detective I was telling you about.”
Lori seemed to have a nervousness about her and I wasn’t sure whether it was the situation she found herself in or whether she was just like that naturally.
Erin and Ray were still a few steps behind, I waited for them to catch up, hearing the now familiar dragging of Ray’s gait and waiting until it stopped to strike.
“Tell me about Lucky, Erin,” I said, spinning around.
It had just the effect I expected, sending Erin into floods of tears. Jacob stood up, walking over the her and handing back his threadbare handkerchief.
“In your own time,” I added. “I should probably say I do know that Lucky is not tied up in this whole messy business.”
“Messy business?” Erin was still fighting back the tears. This may take a bit longer than I’d hoped.
“And Jacob,” I continued. “What can you tell me about your interest in taxidermy?”
Erin turned to face Jacob, recoiling as she did so. “Oh no, not you,” she said. But it wasn’t anger in her voice, it was disappointment.
“Erin?” I said, turning away from Jacob. “Something you want to tell me?”
“It wasn’t him,” Erin began to compose herself. Thankfully. “If you must know, I went away on holiday and a friend of mine, a very close friend of mine was looking after my house. Looking after Lucky.”
I nodded and motioned with my hand that she continue.
“Lucky went missing and, well, she claimed that he’d been run over,” Erin was fighting back the tears again. Jacob reached out to touch her shoulder but she moved from him. “She claimed that one of the builders who had been working on the house next door had found him. She claimed that, in all innocence, he had scooped up my poor, dear little pussy cat and then he had stuffed him and mounted him.”
“I’m sorry,” I tried to give her what I thought was a sympathetic smile.
“To add insult to… to… murder… the sick bastard had mounted Lucky in a remote control car!”
My sympathetic smile was in danger of metamorphosising into a grin.
“And if that wasn’t bad enough she started dating the builder. And then… then they were married in the Seychelles two months ago.”
Lori, who’d clearly heard this story before, had gone off to fetch a chair which she duly deposited under Erin just as the story ended. Erin was lost in the grief for her lost pet but this was great news. That was months ago, at least, so Agatha had been right, it wasn’t Erin’s cat we were looking for.
“Excellent,” I grinned and clapped my hands together. Everyone turned and looked at me, their faces a picture of concern for their colleague. “I mean, not excellent, obviously but we’re making progress, are we not?”
“Are we?” said Jacob.
“We are, sir,” I said and beckoned Jacob to come to me. “You haven’t been entirely honest with me, have you, Jacob?”
The colour drained from Jacob’s face as he stood up and stepped towards me.
“No, sir,” he said. “I haven’t. There’s something I should tell you.”
“About this?” I whipped the claw out of my pocket with a flourish.
Everyone stared. This was great.
“Can anyone tell me what this is?” I asked, waving the claw aloft.
“Did you find that in the car?” asked Ray.
I nodded and grinned back.
“The car?” said Jacob. “Which car?”
“Is that some sort of claw?” said Erin, squinting through tears and vague confusion.
“It would appear so. But the claw of what?”
“A Tiger!” Lori screamed. A bit of an overreaction I thought.
“Could be, I suppose,” I brought the claw closer to get another look. “Why do you say that?”
“No,” Lori hissed quietly and began moving backwards. “Over there, behind you, there’s a tiger.”
Not really sure how to respond to a statement like that I turned around to see an enormous tiger stalking through the lingerie section of the shop. Now, I don’t know if you’ve even seen a tiger up close but, at maybe three feet high and, I don’t know, maybe ten feet long it
~*~
