Read Send in the Clowns, a Detective Mike Bridger novel for Free Online Page A

forward to it.”
    The phone went dead in
Bridger’s hands. Staring at the little black device, the content of
their brief conversation tumbled inside his head. He could not read
Keith Joyce’s motives or preconceptions, which worried him
slightly. Was he the friendly assassin plotting against him? He
would find out either way in two days. That skeleton, born of
frustration and unwarranted anger directed at someone who was
probably deserving, was finally coming back to haunt him. It was
the remnants of his tumultuous first few months of promotion, or if
he was honest, the last couple of years, flaring up before dying
and finally being put to rest. It was a bit like hotspots in an
extinguished forest fire, just there to make the harried fire
fighter’s job that much more difficult. This was not what he needed
right now but he knew he had to face up to his past if he was truly
going to move on.
    The sight of Gillian
Holler entering the room forced him to push the thoughts to the
back of his mind; he had a murder to solve.
    Two days…
     
     
     

Chapter Six
     
    Reece Coster hated the
way they did things these days. It was all too passive, where was
the passion? P.A.A.I.N was no longer the group he had joined five
years ago. The People Against Animals In captivity Network had
sounded good too him as an idealistic student. Their colourful
recruiting stand during University orientation week had attracted
him right from the start. Pictures of past demonstrations, and
‘Operations’ they had been involved in, promised a lot of
excitement to those that genuinely cared about animal welfare. It
indicated they would go to any lengths to get their point across,
something that excited him. There were plenty of girls hanging
around as well, so that was an added bonus. Of course, they were
only there for Bruce Millar, the charismatic self-styled leader
that he had idolised back in the day. As it turned out, Bruce
Millar was only there for the girls, he did not really care about
the animals at all. The pictures from the stand were mostly
bullshit as well. As soon as Bruce graduated, he disappeared into
the corporate world and was rumoured to be working for a company
that tested on animals. A few of them had kept the group going, but
no one else seemed too have any heart for it anymore. After Bruce
left, the group dynamic changed, the females in the group became
more serious. They got uglier and talked about things with which he
had no interest. It did not matter much anyway; they seemed to
exclude him more and more these days. They became secretive, not
inviting him to meetings as often as they should…, as often as he
was entitled as a paid member. What was so secret about what they
were doing now? The group who claimed to be behind the lions
release from a Circus in Lawrence back in the seventies reduced too
passive protest. He no longer cared about the girls, he could have
as many of those as he liked, and that Circus slut last night had
proven that. She was so easy. What he craved was
excitement.
    Standing around outside
the Circus now, wearing animal masks, was not doing it for him
anymore. He stared at the collection of tents and caravans across
the road. The Circus was far from his favourite place, memories of
the terror filled visits his parents subjected him to as a child
bubbled in his head. Those animals scared the shit out of him and
his parents made him sit there and enjoy it. Snorting, slobbering,
and breathing, with their massive scary heads, the big eyes that
told him to be scared. He did not know it then, but he did now,
those animals were blaming him for their subservience, just waiting
for an opportunity to jump over the ringside and inhale him into
oblivion. Caged terror and hate, it was a crappy
existence.
    Silent protests were
shit; he wanted more direct action, those animal abusers needed to
learn some lessons. Last night was just a start, what he had in
mind for today was going to make everyone stand up and