Captivity (First 8 Chapters) (3) Roz walked to work whistling and singing: All the stars are coming out tonight They're lighting up the sky tonight For you, for you… She unlocked the surgery and had a quick look into the three occupied cages. Jaguarondi with a bandage round his infected tail, active, looking good, bandage in tact; golden lion tamarin on antibiotics for abscess in his mouth, miserable, crouched in the back of his box; a meerkat, prone, dead. All much as expected. The meerkat had just escaped euthanising by the skin of his teeth the night before. George would probably be still at the House for breakfast. There was nothing pressing on the day’s agenda. Roz put the kettle on, picked up her walkie-talkie and announced, “Good morning, Brentwood. Roz on duty.” as she did every morning. “Are you at the surgery Roz?” “Yes, Bianca. And the kettle is on. I’m the Queen of the World!” “I am coming right there.” A few minutes later, Poppy jumped on Roz from behind. “Morning George,” she shouted. “It’s not George. It’s me, Bianca.” “What are you doing with Poppy? Where is George?” Chapter4 “Perhaps we are in need of slightly more formal surroundings, Inspector? Come into the office” Sir Miles positioned himself behind his desk. “Coffee? Tea? Something else?” “No, I’m fine thanks… A birdwatcher, early this morning, found the wreck of George Amis’s Mercedes wrapped round a tree on the Maybury Road. It looks like it has been there all night. From what I can see, Mr Amis, was killed more or less instantly in the impact, he certainly had made no attempt to get out of the car. As far as we know, there were no other vehicles involved.” “That seems ridiculous. George drove down that road every day.” “Without benefit of a post-mortem, I wouldn’t like to hazard as to what has occurred. Mr Amis may have suffered a coronary arrest while at the wheel, there may have been a deer or dog on the road, perhaps something broke in the car. People who die on the roads usually die, I’m afraid, on roads they use every day. Had Mr Amis been quite himself recently?” “Much as usual. George was a pretty stable character. On the other hand, if there was something wrong, he wouldn’t mention it. Stiff upper lip type. Endangered species.” “Any next of kin?” “A brother in the States somewhere, another vet. Florida, perhaps. George wasn’t married and had no offspring of which I was aware. We’ll have the brother’s address on file somewhere. Are there ‘suspicious circumstances’, Inspector?” “Depends on what you mean really. Lone male driver in late middle-age, no wife or kids, no other vehicles involved. Par for the course really. I wouldn’t call it suspicious.” “I’m not following you, Inspector.” “I’m afraid that George’s accident has all the hallmarks of suicide. Of course, these things never show up at the inquest. It will go down as accidental. There is rarely any great impetus to pursue such cases.” “George? Suicide? Doesn’t strike me as the likeliest of possibilities. What on earth makes you think that?” “Standard MO, actually. Suicide is a funny business. These lone driver crashes with no obvious mechanical cause are almost all suicide in my experience and estimation. I think it is often a spur of the moment thing, a sudden wave of nihilism and depression. Your middle-aged English gent spends a lot more time driving his car than he does walking on high ledges, or cleaning his twelve-bore. It’s quick and convenient. And blameless. If you blow your brains out in the garage, someone has to clean up the mess too. This way, we, the police, just lug the corpse away. Let me ask you another way. Rather than trying to think of reasons why Mr Amis might want to die, can you think of any why he would want to live?” “What a most peculiar question! George had everything to live for! He was going to retire in a couple of months…” Sir Miles’s voice tailed off, as Chatham raised an eyebrow. “To play more golf? Try his hand at watercolours? Spend more time with his family? ” Sir Miles fiddled with an ammonite paperweight. “And do you think these two events are related?” “Which two events, Sir Miles?” “George’s accident and Margarita’s… accident… er… murder… slaughter?” “Obviously the thought had crossed my mind, but I am no pathologist. I do know that there are very few coincidences in police work. My guess is that George’s accident took place around nine last night. I know nothing about stable antelopes…” “Sable. Sable antelope.” “I know nothing about sable antelope, but that looked quite fresh to me. Perhaps four or five hours old. Have you any idea why anyone would want to decapitate such a beast?” “I’ve been involved with zoos for thirty-five years, Inspector. It is not exactly police work, but nothing would surprise me now, nothing does, and there is no reason at all for almost anything.” “If I had not been on site, Sir Miles, would you have reported this incident to the police?” “It’s very doubtful, Inspector. Things like this – peculiar one off incidents - happen with reasonable frequency in zoos, and they cause a lot of trouble when they do. You remember the trouble with the tiger release, I am sure. There was even a public enquiry. And there have been plenty more of which you are blissfully unaware. Zoos are supposed to be safe and secure environments for both man and beast. You will be only too well aware that it is impossible to secure the perimeter of 120 acre park. Anyone who wants can easily break in and more or less have the run of the place. Mercifully, no one really wants to break out. In the zoo business, there very much is such a thing as bad publicity. I honestly do not know whether I would have involved the police or not, but now you are involved, so matters are beyond my control.” Chatham was overtaken by a wave of ennui, the likes of which may cause a man to drive off the road. A simple accidental death was burgeoning before his eyes into an enormous mound of paperwork, hideous press conferences, crowds of sick voyeurs streaming towards Brentwood, satanic rituals on the front page of The Sun and a thorough search through George Amis’s dirty underwear, in public. Grisly antelope beheadings were a pain in the arse. “Perhaps you could look out the details of George Amis’s next of kin?” The door flew open and Roz stampeded in. “Miles! What on earth is going on? Bianca says that George has killed a sable and then done himself in…” “Good morning, Roz. Meet Detective Inspector Chatham, West Kent CID. I know you must be… er… devastated by the news, but would you be so good as to find the address of George’s brother in Florida for him? I think Bianca may have slightly… over dramatised events, as she does.” “But George is dead, isn’t he?” “Quite certainly, Miss…?” intervened Chatham. “Hynde. Roz Hynde. I work here.” Chatham nodded his head almost imperceptibly towards Roz’s chest, enveloped as it was with a baggy green sweatshirt illuminated by the words BRENTWOOD STAFF in bright yellow. There seemed to be something moving in there. “I was George’s nurse.” “So Mr Amis was not an entirely well man?” “Roz is our veterinary nurse, the doting mother of many of our residents, keeper of secrets and all round indispensable treasure.” “Are you the keeper of any useful or interesting secrets with the regard to the late Mr Amis? Any reason why he might plunge headlong off his mortal coil?” Roz was the kind of woman who Chatham never felt entirely at ease with. Almost as tall as he, she looked like she could beat him in a fist fight. Childless, he hazarded, her body appeared entirely bereft of any fat. It was likely, he mused, that she could rip the head off an antelope with her bare hands, if she chose to. If he were to describe her as blonde, she would correct him and tell him she was a redhead. If he said she was redhead, doubtless she would insist on blonde. There was definitely something moving in there. “George? George didn’t have the imagination for secrets, Inspector. George was a wooden plank of rectitude. The idea that George would do away with himself is downright ridiculous and you know it, Miles.” “Well, the Inspector made a pretty convincing case. And anyway, it is of no importance whatsoever. The inquest will record a verdict of accidental death, which it probably was. There isn’t much else to say about it.” “I must say, you both seem remarkably sanguine about this tragic event. If I were of a suspicious nature, then I may be somewhat inclined to express it at this moment.” “Inspector,” Sir Miles steepled his fingers, “George had been a friend of mine and a valuable member of the team here for ever and a day. Latterly he had become even more tiresome and fussy than in the past. Both Roz and myself, and many others on the staff, I imagine, regarded George’s impending retirement with… with very little sentimentality.” “He was driving me nuts, and had been driving me nuts for twenty years.” The head of a small creature, perhaps some kind of giant mouse, Chatham supposed, popped out of the neck of her sweatshirt and instantly vanished again. No one commented. “Would I be right then to conclude that after twenty years of being driven ‘nuts’, that you are in fact, ‘nuts’?” Roz stretched the corners of her mouth outwards and upwards, twisting it into a smile shape. “I’ll get the details of George’s brother, shall I?” “Too kind,” said Chatham and showed her his teeth. Sir Miles arranged to go to the morgue, make a formal identification of the body and Chatham finally left. “I think you had best clean up the mess with the stable.” “Sable,” corrected Sir Miles again and bade the Inspector farewell. “Is there anything going on at the surgery that you can’t deal with for a few days?” “Nothing right now, but you know how things are. They drop like flies without any warning.” “Roz… I hate to have to ask you this, but… someone has to organise George’s funeral.” “Gosh!” Roz held her hands up to her face in mock horror. “Maybe Carol?” Carol Cornwell was curator of Brentwood, and purely admin, a stodgy but efficient school teacher type. “It’s hardly zoo business, Roz. And Carol has only been here for six months. You have known George for almost twenty five years. He was a father to you.” “Miles, I didn’t and don’t like George. He was a pain in the arse. I’m straining, and failing, to shed a tear on his behalf. So are you. I’ve been through twenty-odd years of fuss and tantrums. Why don’t you organise the bloody funeral? He was your friend. I would feed him to the wolves. He’d probably like that.” “Because I am 79 years old. The only funeral I want any part of is my own, and I am no hurry to start the preparations.” “Are we going to get a locum in?” “I hope not. I’m going to try to track down Peter Igglesden today. See if he can join us a few months early. Can you remember where he said he was going?” George’s replacement had been appointed a couple of moths previously. Good zoo vets were pretty thin on the ground and usually remained in situ for long periods. Igglesden was an Eton and the Guards type, except it had been the Royal Military Veterinary Corps rather than the Guards. He had been at a Sheik’s private toy zoo in UAE with a colony of 15 gorilla and had lots of sound dog experience from the army. He was tall, fair and comparatively youthful; a sailor and probably a polo player. He would be a pleasing change from George’s fussy, bad-tempered gentleman farmer. “I’ll track down Igglesden, if I can. I’ll certainly do a better job than you. I’m pretty sure he is trekking across the Namib desert or the Okavango Delta. He might not exactly have his mobile switched on. What is the horror story about Margarita?” “I honestly haven’t got a clue. Someone has sawed her head off and carried it away to God knows where. These things happen from time to time. Remember the chousingha poisoning? And then of course the famous tiger release? Almost every week or so Bimbo gets caught with a packet of fags hidden in his nest box…” “Oh come off it, Miles! This is a bit different. And where is the bloody head?” “I have no idea where the bloody head is or why anyone would want such a thing, or want to do such a thing. Maybe it will turn up in a skip in Maidstone. All I know is that it is bloody bad for business. Of course if it happened again…” “But what about the police?” “I got the impression that the Inspector wasn’t especially interested. In fact, I got the impression that he was somewhat less than especially interested. I’d be more than slightly surprised if I heard any more about it. What would you suggest?” Roz did not know what to suggest and merely pulled a face. “Something should be done. There must be a reason why someone would do such a thing. Imagine the effort involved. The bleeding head of a huge antelope with five foot horns is not exactly inconspicuous or easy to conceal.” “You have your ear to the ground all over the world. Have you heard tell of anything even remotely similar?” Roz hadn’t; almost all her communications directly concerned her offspring, and none of them had been beheaded recently. She shook her head and bit her lip. “So will you deal with George’s arrangements, please?” “Yes, I suppose so. You are a liberty-taker Miles.” “And hunt down Igglesden?” “Yes, and hunt down bloody Igglesden. And sniff around for some news of recent beheadings.” “Please don’t do that, Roz. Let’s try to keep this in the family for now. Please.” Roz grunted, perhaps as a sign of consent. * * * * * There was one TV in the hotel and one computer with internet access, both of which functioned only when the generator was running in the evening. There was a gas fridge and plenty of Tafel lager, but Peter Igglesden had never been much of a one for drink. He did not enjoy confinement and had been stuck in Bagani for four days now, but had still not produced. After a ten day trek across the desert, his bowel was static and unmoving, which was preferable to the obvious alternative. In the Kalahari, diamonds just lay around on the ground and anyone who knew what he was looking for could more or less fill his pockets, or his stomach. When applying for a permits to trek in the desert, it was a strict condition that one would remain in quarantine until ‘fully purged’. This was his third trip and now, as in the previous two he would resort to laxatives. There was nothing to do in quarantine, but there has been ‘nothing to do’ in the desert for two weeks either; it was the feeling of being caged which Igglesden disliked. It was a pity he had cracked and gone for the senna, because if he had shown a little restraint of a different kind, his email would have done the trick. From: Hynde Roz Roz@rozweb.net Date: Mon, 12 May 2009 17:07:22 +1000 To: Peter Igglesden CC: Miles Subject: Help! Dear Dr Igglesden, Sir Miles has asked me to track you down, and I hope this email finds you (well). We have had a couple “emergencies” at Brentwood. George Amis, who I am sure you remember is our incumbent who you are scheduled to replace on August 1st has unexpectedly suddenly and sadly passed away in a road accident. Furthermore, last night, person or persons unknown entered the zoo and in an act of unspeakably senseless cruelty slaughtered by cutting off her head one of our female sable antelope, Margarita. God alone knows why for she had only been with us a matter of some few weeks. Humans are the most beastly of beasts. It would be of the most enormous convenience to all here at Brentwood, if you were to get in touch and Sir Miles has asked me to impress upon you how grateful we shall be if you could commence your duties at the earliest possible opportunity. Sir Miles assures me that he is ready to be more than generous in the defrayment of any expenses you may incur as a result of our misfortunes.
Copyright © 2009 Jonathan Shearer |