Life rolls by slowly for an outback detective.

Sniffing out clues to catch a peeping tom or following the trails left from the town’s latest misdemeanours usually fills the warm summer nights and as the sun begins to peak it’s head over the horizon to bring in the new day I find myself dropping the paper work off to my boss before retiring until tomorrow.

My name is Robert Banks, Detective Robert Banks, (if you had not already figured that part out) and my life and my job are always uneventful, that was until last night.

It all began when a couple of kids found a body down by the riverside that ran on the outskirts of town. Now I’ve seen my fair share of the deceased over the years as a detective, but as I arrived at the crime scene and first laid my eyes on the female victim I was transfixed. Even in death this dame was beautiful, and I mean beautiful. In life she clearly had been a showgirl, the look of class and sophistication was unmistakeable.

I examined the puncture wounds around her throat, two just below her lower jaw, two piercing her jugular and I found myself asking how anyone could……..no would, take the life of something so beautiful. I had my boys from forensics start their work as I began to look around the area for clues through the thick reeds and over the rotting logs, I searched into tangled bushes and over the muddy shore, I looked everywhere for prints but could find none, just when I was about to give up and head back to the crime scene I spotted someone hiding up a tree watching me.

“ Hey you!” I shouted. The stranger sprang down from the tree and started off up the riverbank. “ Stop police!” I barked. But the stranger, whom I could now make out was a skinny little black kid, continued pounding away.

I’m in pretty good shape for a bloke of my age, but this kid sure was quick, I chased him over the fences and across peoples backyards, down alleyways and through car parks, just when I thought he was going to get away from me he turned his head back to see how far away I was and ran straight into a pole. When the kid came too and saw that I had him pinned to the ground he started to scream and it was the most awful high-pitched scream I have ever heard.

“Shut-up boy” I growled.

The instantly mute kid looked up at me terrified.

“What’s your name kid?”

“S…..socks”, he answered reluctantly.

“Socks? What’s your bloody real name?”

“Socks if my real name “

“What kind of name if Socks? I mean who in their right mind would, (I swallowed my words). Forget it. Why were you running Socks?”

“Cause you were chasing me “,

“Alright wise-guy, what were you doing hiding up that tree? Did you see what happened to that dame?”

“I dunno I can’t remember”….

It was obvious that this kid ‘Socks’ didn’t kill the dame by the river, but he had seen something, I was sure of it.

“Listen here you bloody pussy, if you know something you better start talking or so help me god…….”.

“Ok I’ll talk”, Socks cut in.

Tough guy routine gets them every time.

“I didn’t see the girl get murdered, I came too late, but as I climbed up the tree I did see someone walking off. I couldn’t make out his face but I did see the vest he was wearing, it had a symbol of a pig on it. Then I thought he turned back and spotted me so I hid “

I stepped off from the kid and let him get to his feet.

“Alright Socks, you can go but don’t skip town. I might need to talk with you again “.

The pig printed vest narrowed down the search for the killer considerably, a few kilometres down the road was a pig hunting gang camp and all of it’s members wore the exact same vests that Socks had described. The only problem was that there were a lot of members in the gang and they were not too nice. As a matter of fact they were down right mongrels.

Later in the night I got word that another body had been found in the town park. It was another beautiful young female but this time it wasn’t just puncture wounds to the throat. She had been savagely ripped to shreds, her blood sprayed across the grass.

“Poor bird didn’t stand a chance”, I said to one of the deputies on the scene.

“I want this place scoured for clues, every rock overturned, every bush searched, every scent picked up. Sergent Rocko come with me, we’re going to check something out”.

Rocko and I spent hours watching the pig hunting camp, looking for some kind of sign that would pinpoint the attacker, but apart from the usual meat-headed stupidity that you’d expect from these type they didn’t seem to be doing anything wrong.

“Alright Sergent lets call it a night, the sun will be up soon and I’ve got some paperwork to get to the boss. We’ll pick up again tomorrow.”

It had been a long disturbing day and I was looking forward to seeing my family, the Banks family. No matter how bad everything else was I knew that they would cheer me up. All of them were always so happy to see me, asking me where have I been? What had I been up to? Of course I couldn’t tell them, my job had to be confidential.

As I walked into my bosses to leave the paperwork for him I noticed a strong putrid smell coming from somewhere in the vicinity, the smell was like rotting meat, like pigs meat!

I ran through the front entrance and into the main hall where I spotted my boss cornered by a big pig-vested brute. Instantly I pounced on the pig dog and sunk my teeth into the back of his neck, we both tumbled across the hall as I barked at my boss to call for some backup. The mongrel flung me from his back, I landed on my feet and we began circling each other. From the corner of my eye I could see my boss was holding the white toy bone that was connected with a curly rope to the wall, he shouted at the bone as I often saw him do and I thought to myself this was hardly the time to want to bloody well play.

The pig dog pounced at me and we became one furry mess, tooth and claw tore into flesh as the fight spilt outside. I smashed my paws across the mongrels face, sending him skidding across the lawn.

“Why did you kill the dame and the bird scumbag?” I growled.

The pig-dog gritted his teeth and began to laugh.

“You’re going to the slammer pal”.

“What, you’re going to take me pup?” the dog sneered.

“Not me mongrel. Him”.

I watched as the noose slipped around the pig-dog’s neck and was pulled tight by the overweight human. The savage killer fought vainly to escape but before long he was yanked up into the back of a van and locked in a cage.

“I’ll get you dog, mark my words, I’ll get you!” he screamed at me from behind the bars.

“The only thing you’ll be getting scumbag is a long sleep, book him boys. I’m knocking off”.

I walked over to the newspaper to get it for my boss but he beat me to it.

“You have done more than enough for me already today. Good boy Bob”, he said as he patted my head.