Tooth and Claw Read Online Free Page B

sure whether he was talking about the quotation or the scene in front of him.

CHAPTER TWO
     
    There was a fine suspension of rain in the air. It coated every surface that it touched, leaving a slick and slightly oily residue on leaves, grass, tree trunks and the brickwork of Carl Whittley’s house.
    He stood in the shelter of the bus stop across the road, gazing over at the house. The rain soaked into his hair and trickled down his cheeks but he didn’t react to it. Inside his waterproofs he was uncomfortably warm, sweat prickling his skin despite the coldness outside, but again he hardly even noticed.
    He held a package, wrapped in plastic, in his hand. It was the size of two hardback books, and the plastic around it was secured with thick rubber bands. Mud smeared its surface, a remnant of the hole in the ground where he had buried it, months ago. It had lain, undisturbed, from then until he had dug it up, just an hour ago.
    His waterproofs were a muddy khaki colour, and years of use had left them faded and blotchy. He had deliberately removed the metal tips that terminated the tie-cords around the waist and neck. Those tips could brush against material, or brick, and the sound, slight though it might have been, could warn birds and animals of his presence and frighten them away when he was trying to catalogue them. The frayed ends of the tie-cords would not give him away.
    The sky was a uniform nothingness, a neutral tone that had no depth to it. Somewhere behind the clouds that blanketedeverything was a dim, hot sun, but it was impossible to tell where it was located. Its rays refracted through the cloud, making them glow with a sickly, pearlescent light that cast no shadows and made everything appear dimensionless, timeless.
    He had been watching the house for nearly fifteen minutes, the package held unfeelingly in his gloved hands, ever since returning from his walk across the Essex salt marshes to the place where he had buried it.
    The house was semi-detached; separated from the neighbours on one side but connected on the other, like one larger house split into two. The neighbours on the side that was separated from his home by a narrow alley both worked in financial services in Chelmsford; they were out most of the time, and he hardly ever heard them when they were in. Sometimes, in the summer, they left their windows open while they were in the garden, blasting the noise of their stereo everywhere while they sunbathed, and he had to walk around and ask them to turn it down, but most of the time they were okay.
    The ones in the connecting house, however …
    Kev Dabinett was out of work, his wife Donna was a slut and the kids ran round the estate uncontrolled. The garden had three different cars in it, and Carl had noticed that the makes and models changed every few weeks. He was keeping a list, so that he could inform the council when he was absolutely sure that the husband was illegally running a second-hand car business from what was a residential property. The garden was a mess of churned-up grass and cracked paving slabs, with bits of engines and two car doors scattered along the edges. It was a disgrace, and every time he looked at it Carl could feel his blood boiling. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to live in houses; they should be restricted to blocks of flats with othersof their kind. With the evidence he was collecting, he could get them evicted. He was sure of it.
    He had planted
leylandii
hedges along the perimeter of the garden, just so he didn’t have to see the cars and the mess every time he left the house, but he still knew. It still burned at his heart, day after day.
    Carl walked every morning and every afternoon, although he chose a different route every time. As well as providing him with the opportunity to catalogue the birds and animals of the salt marshes, it also gave him time to think. Time, but not necessarily the impetus, and he often found his mind blank for the entire walk,