Free Killing the Beasts by Chris Simms Page B

fists up and down on his sternum. He felt like a heart-attack victim.
    'Bollocks to Greece. I know where we deserve to go!' she squealed. She launched herself off him and ran across the room towards the computer in the corner. 'I'll check for flights now. Oh, I can't believe this!'
    From his ungainly position on the sofa Tom watched as his wife pushed the chair towards the terminal. Her tight buttocks quivered under white cotton tracksuit trousers with each step and his chest clenched with desire. Twenty-two and she hasn't got a clue, he thought with a smile.
     
    Later that night, as they lay naked and asleep, an empty bottle of champagne and a mirror speckled with dots of white on their bedside table, a dark-blue Ford passed their driveway and pulled up in a space under the trees further down the street. The passenger door clicked quietly open and a man got out, straggly ginger hair briefly lit by the car's inner light. Treading carefully, he walked back up the road and turned confidently through Tom's open gates.
    The metallic grey paint of the Audi TT reflected back with a liquid shine what little moonlight was breaking through the cloud layer above. The man's eyes lingered on its shimmering form as he passed the vehicle. Cutting across the small patch of grass at the side of the garage, he stepped noiselessly up to Tom's front door and crouched down.
    With the tiniest of creaks, the letterbox slowly opened and a second later a thin torch beam probed the dark hallway. The spot of bright light slid across the floor, crept up a wooden leg and then eased on to the surface of the small table just inside the front door. A polished coconut shell full of loose change. A mobile phone. A packet of extra strong mints. A tube of lipstick. A couple of unopened letters. And a set of car keys.
    Next the man hung a square of felt-like material through the letterbox. The flap lowered, then opened again as a garden cane with a hook on the end was fed through, the quivering length of wood extending out into the darkness like the tremulous tendril of a plant seeking sunlight. The hooked tip finally made it to the end of the table but stopped short of the keyring itself. The man strained against the other side of the door, trying to increase the reach of his implement by a few millimetres, but it was no good. He drew the length of metal and flap of material back through the letterbox and the circle of light moved to the edge of the table, jumping suddenly to the far wall and briefly dazzling him as the beam was reflected back by a mirror. The torch clicked off and the letterbox was lowered back down.
    The man walked back down the driveway, the forefinger of one gloved hand lightly tracing the length of the vehicle as he did so.
    Back in the car the driver looked at him. 'Hey Sly, not like you to come back empty-handed.'
    Sly shot him a sour look. 'I'll get them next time,' he murmured.
    They drove on towards Altrincham, coming off the M56 at junction six, moving along Altrincham Road and ignoring the first houses they passed: the driveways were too long and the gates too high. Instead they headed towards the centre of the village, searching for houses that directly bordered the road with driveways only fractionally longer than the cars parked on them. Soon after passing the fire station they spotted a black BMW A5 parked outside a 1930s semi-detached house. The men glanced at each other and the driver pulled over in the first available space.
    Sly got out and went to the house, automatically noting the absence of a burglar alarm. Seconds later the letterbox was pushed open and the torch shone through the gap. Immediately it revealed an art deco lamp on a small shelf just inside the doorway. Holding up the globe-shaped lampshade was a coppery green female nude and from the outstretched fingers of her free hand hung a set of car keys.
    'Bingo,' he whispered, hanging his flap of thick material through the letterbox. Next he fed the garden cane