Pack Animals (6 page)

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa!’ Rhys showed her his palms in an effort to calm her. He switched the radio off at the plug, and sighed as he considered a couple of the cards that floated in the tired-looking dishwater. Gwen continued to glower at him. She put a hand to her mouth and broke the gaze. Rhys saw there were tears in her eyes. ‘This isn’t about Banana, is it?’ He took her arm gently, and didn’t let her shake him off. ‘It isn’t about the shopping trip either. What’s happened, love?’

‘You weren’t to know,’ she said softly, and went to sit on the sofa. ‘I left Tosh to tie up the loose ends. There was an attack at the Pendefig Mall this morning.’

‘Oh, well, I left when I heard the fire alarm go off. Radio says it was kids arsing around. I saw one of them. Stupid Halloween mask. Throwing his weight around on the escalators.’

‘It wasn’t kids.’

‘Hooligans, then. Probably rehearsing for the match this afternoon.’

‘Not hooligans. It wasn’t a mask, Rhys. It was a real, live, deadly dangerous Weevil.’

‘I thought it was a teenager,’ Rhys mused. ‘You told me that Weevils don’t like bright places. They prefer gloomy surroundings. Nocturnal. Skulking around with their own kind.’ He considered this for a second or two. ‘Now that I think about it, that sounds more like teenagers, don’t it?’

‘Definitely a Weevil,’ insisted Gwen.

‘Like that thing you showed me in your underground cells?’ Rhys gave a low whistle. ‘Wow. I didn’t look at yours all that closely. But still, you don’t expect to see one at the shops.’

‘And something else. Something worse.’

Rhys sat next to her, and Gwen let him put his arm around her. ‘No trouble for you, I’ll bet. Hey,’ he went on, ‘remember them first few days on the beat? Thought you’d never cope with the yobbos. Now you’re more used to handling the Creature from the Black Lagoon…’

‘People died, Rhys,’ Gwen persisted. She studied his surprise.

‘What?’

‘I couldn’t stop them.’ Gwen heaved a disconsolate little sigh. ‘You wouldn’t have stopped them. And you could have been killed. Right before our wedding.’

‘C’mon,’ he cajoled her. ‘Is this what our marriage is gonna be like then, Gwen? You can’t protect me every day. I’m a big lad now. Maybe a bit too big, but the suit’s booked now and I’ll just have to fit…’

‘You shouldn’t underestimate what you don’t understand.’

‘Thanks,’ he grumbled. ‘That one of Jack’s sayings, is it? “What doesn’t kill us just makes us stronger,” is that another of his? Or what about “Tomatoes show the difference between knowledge and wisdom”?’

‘I have no idea what you’re banging on about…’ Her voice trailed off, and she stood up.

Bloody hell, Rhys, you’ve done it now. ‘All right, I should have told you,’ he admitted. ‘I’m sorry.’

Gwen hunkered down in front of him to briefly place her hands on his thighs and kiss him. ‘I’m sorry too.’ She moved over to the counter. ‘And I shouldn’t have thrown these…’ She was at the sink, picking bedraggled cards out of the dirty water between thumb and forefinger.

Rhys joined her, scooping some of the scattered deck from the tiled floor. The stylishly portrayed creatures snarled and threatened, harmless cartoon monsters. He didn’t understand why they were so popular with students and the like. He picked fluff off a couple of them and stacked most of the deck back together. Most of them were still presentable, and if he had to discard the ones that had dropped into the sink, well Banana wouldn’t notice or care.

‘Where d’you get these?’ Gwen asked. She was frowning at one of the cards from the sink. ‘Rhys, did you look at these properly?’ She showed him the face of one card. It said it was a ‘Toothsome’. The cartoon monster’s brow was furrowed even more than Gwen’s.

‘I got them from a games shop in the mall. They had costumes in there, too. So when I saw a yob in a Halloween mask, I didn’t give it a second thought…’ His voice trailed off as he made the connection for himself. ‘Not a yob, you said.’

Gwen shook her head. ‘A Weevil. The Cardiff sewers’ best-kept secret, thanks to Torchwood.’

Rhys took the damp card from her and looked at it. Suddenly the cartoon creature didn’t appear so harmless. ‘What’s a games shop doing selling cards and Halloween masks of monsters no one knows about?’

Gwen had grabbed her jacket from the sofa, and was already at the short flight of stairs that led out of their apartment. ‘Let’s go and find out. You’re going to show me where that shop is. No matter what the danger, eh?’

Rhys hesitated for a moment. ‘What doesn’t kill us just makes us stronger?’

‘You’re a big lad now.’ She threw him the car keys. ‘I’ll let you drive.’

SIX

Snow in November would have suited Amur, thought Malcolm Berkley. The zookeeper watched the magnificent orange-brown Bengal tiger prowl around the limits of her compound as she explored the familiar concrete boundaries with her usual incurious grey-blue stare. She’d been like this for a month, ever since the death of the other tiger, the White Bengal called Ussuri. Tigers tended to be solitary, and until the zoo worked out how to introduce another companion animal, life would be lonelier and colder for Amur in the absence of her snow-white companion.

But there was no prospect of snow today. On this freezing Saturday morning in November, the skies were a solid, icy blue with no clouds in sight, no downpour in prospect.

Torlannau Zoological Park was quiet, so close to opening time, and the staff were preparing for the arrival of visitors. Saturday morning was the day for Amur’s treat. Most feeds included heart and ground beef, with a smattering of vitamins and minerals smuggled into the mix. Today there’d be a whole rabbit. Some days, thought the keeper, the animals ate better than he did. Maybe if he was feeling generous he would throw in a cow femur, too. That might enliven the afternoon viewings. The public loved to see the big cat gnawing on a large bone. It made Malcolm laugh to watch the kids in their tiger-print earmuffs as they pressed their eager faces to the plate glass of the transparent wall that separated them from the big cat. That and the brick-and-concrete wall around it in front of the six-metre-wide moat, of course.

Amur continued her circuit of the compound, skirting easily past the twisted trunk of a tree near the centre of the compound. She knew if she touched it, the electrified wires around its base would give her a gentle but discouraging shock. There was no likelihood of her climbing up and launching herself over the moat from its decorative branches.

A flutter of movement in the tree caught Malcolm Berkley’s eye. A large carrion crow, perhaps, dropping bravely on a fast raid, taking a chance to forage in the scraps of Amur’s last meal.

That was no bird. It was a young man. What the hell was he doing in there? Surely it couldn’t be one of the other keepers, he wasn’t wearing the blue and yellow Torlannau uniform, nor the white coveralls of the service staff. Berkley choked off a warning cry – unsure whether his shout would cause the man to panic and the tiger to locate him. He reached to his belt for the walkie-talkie, and cursed under his breath when his hand found nothing. He’d left it on his desk back in the administration building. Even in the biting cold of the morning, a colder chill ran through him.

He couldn’t leave the man in there. Berkley ran at full pelt around the enclosure, skittering on the gravel pathway, hurrying to the keeper’s entry for the enclosure. He had his security keycard, thank God. Berkley fumbled it into the access mechanism, and slipped softly through. He swiftly negotiated the outer gates, and snatched up a bucket of ready-prepared ground beef. He might need that to distract the big cat and get the man out to safety.

The inner door creaked on its unoiled hinge, a hideously penetrating noise in this freezing air. Amur’s head twisted round; she recognised the sound.

‘Get over here!’ snapped Berkley to the intruder.

The intruder turned to face him. Berkley felt his own cold fear turn to hot anger. It was Gareth!

‘Gareth, what the hell are you doing? Walk over here now! Don’t dawdle, but don’t run. You must remember the drill?’

Gareth just stood and smiled. He was three or four years older than Berkley remembered. Longer hair, shabbier appearance. But still recognisably the summer student who’d worked at Torlannau.

‘Mr Berkley.’ Gareth’s laconic, mocking words showed a disturbing lack of concern.

‘Are you on drugs?’ hissed Berkley.

Gareth waved his mobile phone at Berkley. It looked like an ugly, clunky, old-fashioned model.

Berkley stared. ‘You’ll get yourself killed. Maybe both of us! That tiger hasn’t been fed today…’

‘What tiger?’ Gareth put his hand to his forehead and peered around him, for all the world like an old-fashioned sailor looking out to sea.

Berkley checked to see where Amur was. Not in sight. Not behind the narrow bole of the single tree. He whipped his head from side to side, disbelieving. No sign of the big striped cat. Could she have slipped down into the moat? That would only allow her access via a ramped tunnel on the far side and back into the main exhibit area. Amur wouldn’t try to leap the moat because on the far side of it there was only the ninety-degree vertical of smooth concrete and glass that Berkley checked daily for defects.

No, that couldn’t be right. He could see straight across into the visitor area of the zoo. The smooth wall had simply vanished. The tiger
could
have leaped that gap.

The trespasser walked across to the zookeeper. That thing in his hand wasn’t a mobile phone. The shape was too irregular, the flashing lights too bizarre.

‘What’s going on, Gareth?’

The young man made a flicking gesture at him. A flat piece of card spun from Gareth’s fingers, and the zookeeper flinched involuntarily. It looked like a photograph of some kind, maybe one of the big postcards they sold in the zoo shop. Berkley grew angry. He stooped to pick the card up from the sandy ground, and saw it wasn’t a photo but a line drawing of a monstrous creature, accompanied by some sort of numerical assessment.

Berkley considered the intruder with contempt. ‘Stop playing games, Gareth. You were bugger all use when you were on work experience, but surely you remember the rules about the large cats?’

‘Solitary animals,’ Gareth smiled. ‘They don’t run with the pack. I like that about them.’

‘This isn’t funny, Gareth.’

‘But you like a joke, don’t you, Mr Berkley?’ sneered Gareth. ‘Do you remember how I learned about the big cats? How you thought it was such fun to let me through the outer gate and then lock me in. Before I knew there was an inner safety gate, of course. You let me crap myself with fear. I literally crapped myself. Did you know that, Mr Berkley? Did you?’

The man had lost his mind, thought Berkley. No matter what gags the zoo staff played on the students, that couldn’t explain, wouldn’t excuse, this. He eyed the insane gap in the far enclosure wall. His mind reeled as he considered the priorities. Alert the other zoo staff. Work his way to one of the tranquilliser guns stashed in one of five secure locations around the park. But first, get this crazy guy to safety.

‘All right, lad.’ Berkley stood, and held out an encouraging hand. ‘Let’s get you of here.’

Gareth wasn’t listening. He pointed to the card that Berkley now held. ‘Reckon you can handle big animals, do you, Mr Berkley?’

Berkley brushed sand off the card illustration. It had a colourful motif on the reverse: MonstaQuest. The face revealed a stylised cartoon. A two-headed dragon leered at him, both sets of slavering jaws filled with an improbable number of needle-sharp teeth.

Gareth stood close to him now, and handed over another of the MonstaQuest cards. The new one represented a storm, angled blue lines marking out the falling rain. Barely had Berkley registered this than he felt the patter of water on his head and shoulders. Within seconds, it was like someone had turned a hose on him. The sky above remained a cloudless icy blue, but all around his feet the ground was darkening and the sand was thickening into slurry.

The slam of the compound gate told him that Gareth had left. Berkley heard the bolt draw across. With a yell, he staggered over to the exit. The gate was secure and locked. Gareth was nowhere to be seen.

Berkley moved back into the enclosure. Beyond where the missing wall should have been, he could make out that the rest of the park was still dry. But there was no way to get across the moat.

And how could it be raining solely in the tiger compound?

Now there was another sound. A shrieking cacophony of bestial noise like he’d never heard in his twenty years at the zoo. A scaly pointed tail flicked into his side, winding him and throwing him to the hard ground. Berkley rolled onto his back, smearing sand and grit on his cheeks as he swiped at the rain that streamed down his face.

A creature leered down at him. It was the impossible double-headed dragon from the MonstaQuest card. Both its heads bellowed and slavered in uncontained rage, as though fighting between themselves for priority.

The monster stood between him and the locked exit gate. The moat was impossible to clear. Berkley scrambled over to the tree in the centre of the compound, but the wires around the base jolted him with a painful electric shock.

Malcolm Berkley lay panting in the mud and the rain. He managed to close his eyes and scream just before the nightmare creature decided which of its jaws would strike first.

SEVEN

Toshiko wasn’t impressed with Lloyd Maddock. The prematurely balding general manager of the Pendefig Mall had been sneeringly dismissive when she first approached him. He had flip-flopped completely once she’d flashed her winning smile and reminded him of the appointment she’d sneaked into his online calendar. An unscheduled review of security by the Pendefig parent company. So it was a bit rich now for him to be telling her, in his plummy, pause-filled Swansea accent, that his
brilliant
team always worked
so hard
to give customers the best shopping experience in Wales, when his ‘specially trained Customer Services team’ were busy bundling his customers off-site as the fire alarm clamoured and echoed around them.