Zorilla At Large! (10 page)

“Yeah; shame that. Funding fell through. I said he could have the room upstairs for free but he was gutted.”

“Mr... Emmetts,” Miller dredged up the name from the wine-murky waters of her mind, although she was feeling considerably more sober with every passing minute. “Where is your son now?”

“Our Noel?” Emmetts pulled a face. “Could be anywhere. He's always up to something. Artistic temperament. Could be down the gym or somewhere. What is it he always says? An actor's body is his tool. Or something. That's five pounds seventy-five, please, chick.”

Miller paid. She returned to her table but touched neither the wine nor the crisps. Something the landlord had told her had raised a flag in her mind, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She went back to the bar and showed her i.d.

“We'd like to talk to Noel as soon as possible.”

“Is he in trouble?”

“No... we have reason to believe he's in grave danger.”

“What kind of danger?”

“Grave - I just said so, didn't I? Look: if you see him or talk to him, tell him to come down to Serious as soon as possible.”

“Right...” Emmetts looked alarmed. “Hang on; I'll give you his mobile number. He never returns my calls. You might have more luck than me.”

Doubt that, thought Miller bitterly. He's a bloke, isn't he?

***

Brough was waiting at the kerb outside the halls of residence when Pattimore pulled up in Stevens's Ford Capri. All the windows were open but Pattimore still gulped for air when he got out. When he could breathe again, he gestured to the car and offered a single word explanation. “Zorilla.”

“You caught it?”

Pattimore chuckled. “Well, Benny did. Or rather, it caught him. It's a funny story actually. We-”

Brough cut him off. “We have to take Darren Bennett down to Serious.”

“Isn't he safe here?”

“He's been attacked in his room.”

“Fucking hell. Right; you fetch him out while I have another waft around with the air freshener.”

Brough's lips tightened. It was more than a question of being told what to do by a mere detective constable. “Right,” he said and turned to go. He was halted by Pattimore's hand on his elbow.

“Davey...” The younger man searched Brough's eyes imploringly. Brough's face was impassive, unreadable. “Could we, like, have a chat at some point? I'm different now. I'm better. The weekly sessions - I'm still going. They're very pleased with my progress.”

Brough looked coldly at the hand on his sleeve. “I have a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, yeah. And he's hot - you don't need me to tell you - but if we could just clear the air, it would make things easier at work. Don't you think?”

Brough met his gaze. “I'm glad you're dealing with your issues, Jason, but as far as I can see, it's only a problem at work when you bring it up. So let's just get on with it, shall we?”

“Yes. Sir.” Pattimore released the detective inspector's arm and, when Brough went inside, he struck his own forehead with the heel of his hand. “Shit! Fuck! Piss!”

He channelled his emotion into the airing out of the car. The beaded seat covers - hideous things! - would have to go. He ripped them out and stuffed them in a bin. The mats too. Bloody hell, he gagged. He was surprised that no crackpot despot had deployed zorillas in chemical warfare.

A few minutes later, Brough emerged from the building, guarding a man who was twice as broad as he was.

“All right?” Darren Bennett winked at the handsome young detective. His nose crinkled. “Hoi, your best mate won't tell you but I will. You don't half fucking stink, mate. Like you've been fucking rotten cabbages with a shitty stick.”

Pattimore smiled thinly.

“He's not my best mate,” muttered Brough.

They climbed into the Capri. Pattimore drove with his head out of the window like a dog on a joyride, and fifteen heady and breathless minutes later, they all tumbled onto the lawn outside Serious and gave thanks to fuck for not suffocating.

Chapter Fourteen

Harry Henry had to let the butcher go. Enoch Marshall had airtight alibis establishing he was elsewhere at the time of all the murders. He had even been out of the country, sunning his ruddy face in Benidorm - not that you could see any difference - when the infamous Zorilla Killer was slashing away.

“Bollocks,” said Wheeler. “He was my prime rib suspect.”

Harry Henry, in lieu of laughing, pushed his glasses up his nose.

“Think about it,” Wheeler paced around the interview room, gesturing at the chair recently vacated by the burly butcher's fat arse. “The blades... and the strength. It takes some muscle to slash a person's throat in one fell swoop like that. And accurately too...”

“But you saw his Facebook, Chief.”

Wheeler waved dismissively. “Photos can be mocked up. Easy as piss these days. A fucking babby can do it.”

“The airport check-in records, the passenger manifests...”

“All right, smart arse.”

“His hotel.”

“Yes, that's enough.”

“The speech he gave at the Butchers Of Spain convention.”

“Fuck off.”

“Yes, Chief.”

“Not literally. All right, so Marshall is not our man. Who else is there?”

“Um, well, there's the choir?”

“You'm not telling me there's a fucking choir going around murdering people! Somebody would have fucking noticed.”

“Well, I'm not suggesting all of them, en masse... but perhaps it's some kind of initiation, a test thing, they have to pass? If they want to sing a solo?”

Wheeler was aghast. “Fuck off. Fuck right off. Fucking literally this fucking time.”

She gripped the back of the chair leading Harry Henry to believe her intention was to brain him with it.

He fucked off.

***

With no one by the name of Taylor listed as a PCSO in the database, let alone on the roster for duty, Brough posed the question: who was the attacker and how did he get in?

Darren Bennett shrugged his wide shoulders. Pattimore had gone home to shower and change.

“I'll have to leave you here,” Brough told the lifeguard. “I'll have to go back and grill those idiot hobby bobbies. They must have seen something.”

“Banging me in the pokey, eh?” Darren Bennett winked, fuelling the fire.

“Not exactly. You can stay in this meeting room.”

“All on my tod? You could send that little blonde piece in to keep me company.”

“Who?” Brough frowned. “D C Pattimore?”

“Is that her name?”

“Miller?!” Brough laughed. And then frowned again. There was a tenner at stake. “I'm afraid she's conducting enquiries elsewhere. Sit tight and someone will bring you a cup of tea before long.”

Brough left. Whatever he may be, Darren Bennett was certainly an incorrigible flirt. He was probably right that minute giving the glad eye to a chair.

And now I have to go and talk to those two brain cells, Brough scowled.

A sudden thought stopped him in his tracks like an unexpected pane of glass.

What if there had been no attacker? What if Darren Bennett had made it up?

Brough's thoughts collided with each other as he paced purposefully along the corridor. Bennett had heard about the escaped animal and the killer on the prowl - the media were conflating the two... What if Bennett lied?

But why?

For attention?

Police attention?

Miller's
attention?

Preposterous!

He dismissed the idea and resumed his course of exit from the Serious building. What if... Bennett was lying about the attack... and he knew details about the colour of the fur and number of claws... Holy shit!

What if Bennett himself was the Zorilla Killer?

The more he considered the idea, the more convincing it became. Brough remembered someone saying it took strength to slash someone's throat out in a single swipe...

And Darren Bennett's muscular arms and upper body were on display for all to see.

Brough stopped at Reception and addressed the duty officer. “Man in meeting room on the second floor,” he nodded to the bank of CCTV monitors. “Watch him.”

***

D I Benny Stevens was on his back on an examining table in the zoo vet's surgery. The zorilla, in its carrying cage, was still attached to his leg. It was sleeping. Lucky bastard. Stevens wished he could.

It comes to something when a little furry rat-bastard has a better night out than you do.

The keepers had abandoned him. They were unwilling to remain in close confinement, they said, with something that stinks so bad. Even if the zorilla could handle it, they couldn't.

Oh har fucking har! Stevens had told them to piss off and they had. The zoo vet was on her way, having been roused from her slumbers. All Stevens could do was lie back and wait.

The zorilla shifted its weight and emitted a kind of chirrup. Stevens propped himself up on his elbows and gazed along the length of his leg. Two little black beads twinkled in the gloom.

“Oh, no!” Stevens panicked. “Don't tell you me you want to fuck me again already?”

You had to admire the animal's stamina, Stevens reflected. Contrary to his boasts to young Pattimore, these days if he could manage once every other night, the detective was doing well.

He felt the creature's claws retract and then a mounting sense of terror as the zorilla padded its way up his thigh and onto his belly.

“Nice kitty...” Stevens was sweating. He dared not move for fear of getting another blast of misty musk.

The zorilla made its way to the detective's chest. It curled in a ball with its head nuzzling against Stevens's throat. It purred.

Stevens released the breath he had been holding in. Within minutes, the little critter was snoring contentedly.

Oh, for fuck's sake...

Slowly, Stevens laid himself flat on the table. He closed his eyes.

Chapter Fifteen

It was a bleary-eyed D S Miller who pulled up outside Brough's flat the following morning. While she waited, she pressed two paracetemols from a blister pack and swallowed them dry, grimacing at the bitter taste they left on her tongue.

Come on, come on... She considered giving him a blast of her car horn despite - or perhaps because of - knowing how much he hated that. The dashboard clock told her they would be late for briefing if he didn't get a wiggle on, and Miller could not face Wheeler's scorn and derision that morning.

Somewhere in the deepest recesses of her bag, Miller's phone buzzed and continued to do so while she delved in a hand and rooted around. By the time her fingers closed around the device, she had missed the call.

Brough.

She was about to call him back when a text message arrived

Don't need lift. See you at briefing.

Marvellous. Now you bloody tell me.

Miller tossed the phone back into the bag and pulled away. She hiccoughed and tasted the bitter pills all over again - Unable to decide if that was a metaphor for something, she drove down to Serious in a rotten mood.

***

And there he was, in the briefing room, Detective Inspector David bloody Brough. He mouthed a ‘sorry' when he saw Miller come in but she glared at him anyway.

“Good morning, bastards and buggers,” Chief Inspector Wheeler greeted her team. She brandished the remote control for the overhead video projector. “I've been having a bit of what-do-you-call-it, incest with this thing so we should have no trouble with the bastard today.”

She waved the remote like a fairy wand. Over her shoulder, the white screen sprang to life. A photograph of a lot of faces in rows appeared, their mouths in wide Os.

“I know what you'm thinking, Benny boy, but these am not a load of blow-up doll rejects.”

D I Stevens emitted a grunt of mock disappointment. He had the appearance of someone who had been up half the night scrubbing himself red raw and certainly, his second-best leather jacket hadn't seen the light of day for quite a while.

“This lot,” Wheeler continued, “Am the Dedley Urban District Singers. Or DUDS, to give them their chillingly accurate acronym. These buggers will murder your favourite song as soon as look at you. One minute with this lot and you'll want to rip your own ears off and fry them. But...”

With a flick of the button, Wheeler zoomed in on a single face top left, and then panned along the rows. The team were impressed by her I.T. skills. Usually by this point, the projector would have burst into flames.

“...Is the face of our killer among this tone-deaf bunch of cunts? Is it him, with the glasses? Or her, with the hair? Or this one who looks like he's been dug up and shat on? Well, that's what you've got to find out. Which one of these is so aggrieved to miss out on lottery funding that they kill off the opposition in an envious rage?”

She squinted past the projector beam. The team were sitting in various poses of rapt attention but they didn't fool her.

“All right, all right; it's not a guessing game. This is why we do the legwork. In order to find out. Um, yes, Jason love?”

Pattimore's hand was aloft. “Um,” he took it down. “I think we should first approach the, ah, choirmaster, if that's what they'm called. Whoever's got most invested in the choir in terms of time and effort...”

Wheeler nodded slowly. “Give that boy a cornflake. No reason why we shouldn't start with the most bastard obvious, is there?”

Pattimore shrank in his seat, glad of the gloom to hide his blushes.

“Right. Stevens, Pattimore, you'm to track down the choir and eliminate them - but only from our enquiries, although fuck knows you'd be doing everyone a favour if you wiped them from the face of the Earth. Harry will provide the contact details for each and every one of these sorry sacks of shit; won't you, Harry?”

“Um...”

“And congratu-fucking-lations on finding that skunk, lads. Well fucking done.” She clapped her hands and encouraged the others to do the same. Unfortunately, Wheeler's applause triggered the remote she was still holding. The photo of the DUDS was replaced by YouTube footage of D I Stevens performing his drag act.

“Hoi!” Stevens leapt to his feet. “I thought you'd taken that down.” He tried to wrest the remote from Wheeler's grasp.

“Two million hits, Benny boy,” Wheeler laughed. “You'm an internet sensation.”

Eventually, she relented. She aimed the remote and the video clip was replaced by a flyer for the knitting circle. Stevens went back to his seat, his face like thunder. Wheeler cleared her throat, signalling the brief amusing interlude was over.

“The Castoffs,” she read. “Is that supposed to be a pun? Why does every bastard and his mother's business have to a bastard pun? Anyway, this lot were turned down and they'm armed to the teeth with sharp implements. Same motive applies. Brough, Miller, this lot's yours. Harry will do the honours with the names and addresses.”

“Um...” said Harry.

“Right then,” Wheeler's thumb was poised. “F-”

She was interrupted by the abrupt entrance of Superintendent Ball and a woman in the green and khaki livery of the zoo.

“Apologies, Karen,” Ball grimaced. “This is urgent, apparently.”

The woman from the zoo scanned the room until her gaze settled on Stevens.

“Right, you!” she levelled an angry finger at him. “Where's our fucking zorilla?”

***

Brough and Miller left Stevens to his inquisitor and headed out. The duty officer on Reception hailed the detective inspector.

“Just come in. For you.” He placed a huge bunch of flowers on the counter.

“Wow...” said Brough, searching for the card. He knew before he read it, the flowers were from Oscar.

Missing your hot ass. Skype me. O.

Brough pocketed the card. Miller rolled her eyes.

“If you think you'm putting those things in my car, sir, you can take a running jump.”

“You're just jealous, Miller.”

“No, I'm allergic.”

“Since when?”

He followed her across the car-park, struggling beneath the bulk of the flowers. He looked like a walking vase.

“Listen,” he heaved the flowers onto the roof of Miller's car. “Where are we going?”

“To see those knitting bastards.”

“And where shall we find those knitting bastards?”

“Um,” she checked the first page of the sheaf of papers Harry had provided. “Dedley South community centre.”

“Don't you think these blooms will brighten the place up? The people there must be crying out for a bit of greenery, a bit of colour in their lives.”

“You're really going to give them away?”

“I get flowers all the time. Oscar makes Elton John seem like a hay fever sufferer.”

“Does he.” Miller rolled her eyes again. “Go on then.” She got into the car, leaving Brough to struggle with getting the elaborate arrangement into the back seat.

They headed to South Dedley and the heart of several blocks of council houses, known as the Sink Estate, named after an erstwhile civic dignitary, Leslie Sink, who had been Mayor of Dedley three times.

“I was wrong about the splash of colour,” Brough murmured as Miller's car crawled through the dismal streets with their potholes and broken paving. Technicolor graffiti tags adorned every expanse of brick wall. Litter skittered around, hopping over dog shit. People in jogging bottoms lounged against boarded shop windows, nursing a can of industrial-strength lager. It was nine thirty a.m.

“Golly,” said Brough. “If ever a place could use an injection of lottery cash...”

“I don't think it's cash they'm injecting around here,” said Miller grimly.

The community centre was a single-storey edifice coated in graffiti-proof pebble-dash. It was an oasis of pink among the grey. Not to be outdone, the local street artists had scratched their designs into the paintwork of the front doors. Art, like life, will always find a way. And perhaps it was doing the community a service to inform anyone who happened by that someone called Shazza was a slag. There was even a mobile number provided.

When the detectives entered, a mother-and-baby session was underway, which seemed to Brough to be a festival of noise and smells he would rather do without. He and Miller hung back in the doorway. Miller nudged him to look at a noticeboard. There was one of the Castoffs' posters.

“He's a bit grown-up,” a woman whose roots needed attention approached, looking Brough up and down.

“I'm a detective,” said Brough, flashing his i.d.

“You must be a proud mum,” the woman laughed. Miller laughed too, before producing her own warrant card.

“We'm not here for the mother-and-baby,” she said.

The woman's eyes rested on the enormous bunch of flowers. “They look like they could do with some water,” she diagnosed.

Brough handed them over; the woman staggered, almost collapsing. “Be my guest,” he said.

The woman set the colourful burden on a nearby chair. “So what is this in aid of? Some kind of outreach project? Think if you butter me up with some flowers, I'll grass up half the wenches in here for prostitution and drug-dealing?”

“Um...” said Miller.

“Pulling your leg, love,” the woman cackled. “As if I'd ever grass...”

“What can you tell us about the Castoffs?” Brough took the poster from the board.

“The who? Immigrant family, are they, chick?”

“Knitting circle,” said Brough. The woman squinted at the paper.

“Oh, them. They used to meet up in here. Of a Thursday. Not anymore. Bad business...”

“Really?” Miller's eyebrows went up. “Or are you pulling my other leg now?”

“No, love. They couldn't get the members - not like you, I bet. Pretty thing like you. I bet you get no end of mem-”

“So, they disbanded?” Brough interrupted.

“The whole thing unravelled,” said the woman.

“Have you a contact number, for the organiser?” Miller pulled out a notebook.

The woman puckered her lips. “I told you. I ain't no grass.”

“You can keep the flowers,” said Brough.

“Big deal.”

“Or we can take you in for obstructing police business.”

“Well, now you put it like that. Hold up.” The woman shuffled away - they noticed she was wearing carpet slippers. Miller peered at the mothers and babies. There was a lot of chatting going on, over the noise of children shrieking in happiness and distress. There were lots of nappies being changed.

“Don't get broody, Miller,” Brough teased.

“Piss off, sir.”

The woman returned with a slip of paper. “Jessie somebody, I think. Couldn't get the subs to pay the hire charges for this place.”

“Thank you,” said Miller

“And you are?” Brough asked.

“Oh, I'm nobody,” said the woman. “I'm just the key holder here. I let them in and let them out again.”

“Could we take a name though, love?” said Miller. “Just to put in our report, like.”

The woman sniffed. “I'm Shazza,” she said.

***

They got back to Miller's car in time to chase off a couple of ne'er-do-wells who had their eyes on the tyres for some nefarious purpose or other. They drove a few streets away where the grass was the legal variety. Brough leafed through Harry Henry's sheaf of papers.

“I suppose most of these we can ditch,” he reflected. “If they weren't turning up, they're not going to be bothered that the group disbanded.”

“Don't be so sure,” said Miller. “Perhaps the lottery bid was a last attempt to keep the thing going. And when that went tits-up...”

“Just trying to save us a lot of legwork,” Brough sighed.

“You just want to hurry up and Skype your boyfriend,” said Miller.

“Can you blame me?”

“Well, no...” Miller started the engine again. “But, if I might make an observation, sir: this is not like you. You've always had your mind on the job. Even when you were with, um, Jason-”

“No, Miller. I do not give you permission to make an observation on my private life. Now, please, just let's go and talk to this - this Jessie something - and see where that gets us, all right?”

“Yes, sir.”

They travelled across town in moody silence.

***

“How many more times?” Stevens wailed. “I don't bloody know! I fell asleep, didn't I? When I woke up, the bastard was gone.”

The woman from the zoo remained as sceptical as ever. Beside her, Wheeler was growing impatient.

“Come off it, Benny,” she snarled. “That skunk thing didn't open the door by it-fucking-self.”

“You don't know that,” said Stevens. “They'm smarter than they look, those things.”

Wheeler narrowed her eyes and peered into his. “You admire it!” she accused. Stevens flinched.

“I just don't think you should underestimate it; that's all I'm saying.”

“Well,” Wheeler turned to the zoo keeper. “This ain't getting the bastard found, is it? I'm sure D I Stevens knows it would do the wammal no good to be out in the open. Especially not in this town with its fondness for kebabs from roadside vans. I just wish I could spare him to help you look, chick, but I need the manpower to track down a fucking killer.”

“But –” the woman tried to protest, but Wheeler was already steering her to the door.

“We've already found the fucker for you once, love,” Wheeler beamed. “You're on your own now.”

She pushed her out and closed the door. Perhaps the time had come to have That Talk and break it to Stevens that his days were numbered.

Superintendent Ball's head appeared in the doorway. “Karen, a word?” he smiled but his eyes were hard.