Zorilla At Large! (6 page)

No. Harry Henry was going nowhere. Wheeler rested her head in her hands and gave a wail of anguish.

It had taken a long time to get the team together and working as well as she wanted. How could she remove one cog - any cog - and expect the wheels to keep turning?

Fuck the bean flickers! She thumped the desk. No, I don't mean flickers - I mean counters. What do they understand about police work? Everything is numbers to them. What do they care about how many murderers get away as long as the accounts balance?

Fuck them all!

She threw the pile of folders across the room and then Chief Inspector Karen Wheeler did something she hadn't done since primary school.

She cried.

Chapter Seven

While the Serious team was listing words beginning with zed, like a foul-mouthed edition of
Sesame Street
, up the hill, in the town centre, Mavis Morris, attendant in Dedley's museum, was tidying up.

They'd had a school party in and they were always trouble. First there was the litter. Sweet wrappers, crisp packets, crusts torn from sandwiches. And chewing gum. The bastard who invented that abomination ought to be shot, in Mavis's opinion. And, if he was already dead, he should be dug up and shot and then strung up from a lamppost. Yes! That was one exhibition Mavis would pay to see.

After the litter, there were the fingerprints. Mavis attended to these and other assorted smears that besmirched the glass cabinets. It was as if DO NOT TOUCH was in a foreign language. Or the little bastards couldn't read - What were they teaching them in those schools these days?

Glass all polished, Mavis steeled herself to brave the worst of the horror: the toilets. They would be like a dirty protest at a sewage plant during which several bombs had gone off. Stink bombs and all.

She retrieved the equipment and cleaning products from the walk-in cupboard and donned a second pair of rubber gloves over those she was already wearing. She muttered prayers to Messrs Sheen and Muscle for strength.

It was always like this. Every time they mounted a new exhibition the school parties would come flocking in. As usual, the children couldn't give a monkey's for the new exhibits; all they cared about was the old stuff: the fossils and the dinosaur bones. The Viking axes. And what they could filch from the gift shop, the sticky-fingered bastards. If Mavis had a quid for every T. Rex pencil topper that had disappeared up the sleeve or into the pocket of a sticky urchin - well, she might just about break even.

And so the latest display required the least of her attention.
History of the Moving Image
, it said on the posters. The kids weren't bothered. Not now they've got their YouTubes and their selfie sticks and god-knows-what in the palms of their hands.

On her way past the doors, something moved in the corner of her eye...

Glad of the distraction from the Herculean task of cleaning the toilets, Mavis poked her head through the doors. All was stillness, all was in shadow. The screens were all off and the equipment was dormant. Photographs of film stars from pale-faced Buster Keaton to the tanned and buff Oscar Buzz smiled down at her from the star-spangled ceiling.

Oscar Buzz... He'd been to Dedley only last year. Mavis would like five minutes alone with him and her rubber gloves. Pity he'd turned out to be one of
them
. What a bloody waste!

She could put it off no longer and withdrew her head from the doorway. She turned and squawked in alarm. Then she laughed. She addressed the huge, stuffed bear that had startled her.

“Oh! Bloody hell! Had me going for a minute.”

She swatted at the bear with a J-cloth and wheeled her trolley toward the toilets.

Hang about, she froze.

Since when have we had a stuffed bear?

***

It was inevitable. The local papers got wind of the murders, despite the police's best efforts to keep a lid on, and in the interests of boosting their circulation, splashed frightening and erroneous headlines across the front pages. It was as though exclamation marks were going out of fashion. From claims of a serial killer to reported sightings of the marauding, murderous monster that was stalking the good people (and some of the misbehaved) of Dedley and slashing their throats to ribbons.

Superintendent Ball was incensed. He slapped the late edition of the
Dedley Organ
on Chief Inspector Wheeler's desk. “Where are they getting it all, Karen?” He sounded exasperated. Wheeler wouldn't deign to give the newspaper a glance.

“They'm making it up, Kevin. Like newspapers always do. I wouldn't wipe my arse on it.”

“Well, it might come to that, the way these cutbacks are going. Have you got a leak, do you think?”

“Hoi! I was buying those pads for an elderly neighbour.”

“No, I mean, do you think anyone in Serious...”

“Don't you fucking dare!” Wheeler jabbed the air in front of him with an angry finger. Superintendent Ball flinched.

“Look at you, mother lion protecting her cubs! Which reminds me...” he opened the paper. “It doesn't help that our friends at the zoo are running some kind of competition. They're offering a reward for information leading to the recapture of the missing zorilla.”

“For fuck's sake,” Wheeler sneered at the photograph of the creature's face. “On one page they'm warning people to stay indoors and on the next, they'm sending them out on a wild beaver hunt.”

“It does seem a tad contradictory,” Ball agreed. “I shall prepare a statement.”

“I've got one ready,” said Wheeler. “And it's only two words long.”

“I can imagine. I'll handle the press, Karen. You carry on with –” He didn't need to complete the sentence. Wheeler knew time was running out. She had to make her decision soon.

Ball strode out. Wheeler sat at her desk and peered at the shot of the zorilla.

“Little bastard.” She pulled out a marker pen and adorned the photograph with spectacles and a goatee beard.

***

Brough excused himself from Miller and secluded himself in a cubicle in the Gents. The one nearest the window got the strongest signal - according to that wanker Stevens who was always nipping in for what he called ‘a crafty squint' at a special interest video clip. Even so, Brough found through a process of trial and error that he had to sit on the cistern and place his feet on the lid, holding his smart phone at arm's length as though his eyesight was failing. Perhaps that wanker Stevens would know about that too.

Hey babe whats up

So said an instant message from Oscar Buzz. Brough had trained himself not to cringe at the absence of punctuation and appropriate capitalisation; he would allow his handsome Hollywood boyfriend to get away with anything.

Work is doing my head in

Brough replied.

When can I see you?

There followed an agonising wait for Oscar's answer. A little speech bubble appeared, containing an ellipsis. It seemed to take forever for words to come through.

Can skype u later hun

Brough felt a twinge in his trousers. Skyping with Oscar meant a private movie, a live performance and, as exciting as these always were, it was not what Brough was after.

I mean ‘see you' see you. When may we get together?

Don't know babe am down under for 6 more wks

Brough groaned.

“That you, Dave?” came a voice from the neighbouring cubicle. Brough froze in alarm: Stevens! “Having a crafty squint?”

“I most certainly am not!” was Brough's indignant retort.

Stevens laughed. “Don't mind me. You carry on. Only things are about to get a bit explosive any second now. That kebab I had at lunchtime is about to make a bid for freedom - oogh!”

Brough fled from the Gents before he could hear any more.

“Fuck me,” Stevens wiped tears from his eyes. “Stinks like a fucking zorilla in here.”

***

“You took your time,” Miller accused Brough when he joined her in the car park.

“Well, you know,” Brough blushed, “When nature calls...”

“Or when Oscar bloody Buzz calls, more like. Get in. There's been another murrr-dah!”

“If that's meant to be a Scots accent, Miller, it's a dismal failure - and why a Scots accent anyway?”

“Never mind,” said Miller. “I forgot you've never watched ITV.”

She drove them into town and pulled up outside the museum. The forensics were already swarming over the place, their little white tent the hive.

“Same m.o.” said the SOCO upon seeing the detectives' i.d. “Same three slashes, same remnants of fur. I must warn you though,” he addressed Miller directly, “There's a lot of blood. It's more like an art installation than a crime scene.”

Miller awarded him a cold stare. “I can handle it.”

Brough followed Miller under the strips of police tape across the entrance. “This fur,” he spoke to the SOCO over his shoulder, “Do we know any more about it? What kind of animal?”

“Still awaiting results,” the SOCO shook his head. “But I'd say it was something large.”

Miller grunted. “You can't tell me you believe an animal is responsible for all this.” She gestured to the corridor where the walls and floor were slick with the blood of Mavis Morris.

“Well –” the SOCO began.

“I mean,” Miller cut him off, “Is there any sign of the victims being eaten? Animals don't usually kill for the sake of it.”

“Well, no...”

“So, Miller, how do you account for the animal fur at each scene?” Brough smirked, folding his arms to mirror the SOCO's stance.

Bloody men! Always siding with each other, Miller fumed inwardly. Well, it wouldn't do Brough any good trying to get into the SOCO's plastic over-trousers - Miller had already clocked the wedding ring beneath the latex glove.

“Piece of piss,” she said. “Our murderer wears fur. Honestly, sir, the way you're going on, anyone might think you think the bloody zorilla's the killer.”

Brough gaped. He had been thinking nothing of the sort but he couldn't bear to be out-thought by his detective sergeant. “Good thinking, Miller,” he managed to squeeze out through clenched teeth. “The next question is why.”

“Well, we can ask the bastard that when we catch him.”

“And why here? And why here?” Brough waved at what was left of the museum attendant, currently illuminated by more camera flashes than at a fashion shoot.

“Where's the zed, you mean?” Miller glanced around. “Perhaps they've got a zebra here. Or a Zulu.”

The SOCO nudged Brough. “What is she babbling about?”

“Our latest thinking is that all the victims are linked by the letter zed. Any ideas?”

“I don't know...” the SOCO pursed his lips. “I haven't set foot in a museum since I was in primary school.” He nodded to a poster advertising the history of the moving image. “That any good?”

Brough's eyes widened. “Possibly... I wonder...”

He pushed through to the exhibition hall. Miller followed.

“Sir?”

“Eureka!” Brough stood proudly at one of the displays. On a plinth was a slotted drum on a stand. Around the inside was a series of pictures. “You spin the drum,” Brough explained, “And the little man jumps up and down.”

“Really?” said Miller.

“No, not really, Miller. It's an optical illusion. The persistence of vision. You see-”

“So what?” Miller interrupted before he could launch into a lecture.

“Here's our zed, Miller,” Brough rolled his eyes. “This remarkable device is called a zoetrope.”

Miller blinked. The SOCO wrinkled his nose.

“And you think that's what got that poor woman ripped open?”

“Well...” Brough didn't know what to add.

“Personally, I'd run with the large animal idea. A trained gorilla or some such. Could happen.”

“Unlikely,” said Brough. “I think Miller's right. Our killer wears fur, not grows it.”

Miller's chest swelled with pride. She smiled sweetly at both men and returned to her car.

As soon as she was in the open air, she gasped. The cloying stench of the blood had made her nauseous but she'd be buggered if she was going to let those chauvinists know that.

Chapter Eight

“Zoo, zorilla, Zumba, zoetrope...” Wheeler counted off the words. “Whatever's next?” She scanned the gathered faces around the briefing room.

“We could warn people to keep off the zebra crossings,” suggested Pattimore.

“Twat,” said Stevens.

“Actually, that's not a complete load of shit,” said Wheeler. “Impossible to police, of course, but...”

Stevens sank back in his chair, folded his arms and chuntered into his moustache.

“I don't know,” said Brough. “There's CCTV at most crossings and we could deploy the PCSOs.”

Pattimore sent Brough a smile brimming with gratitude for the support for his idea. Brough looked away sharply, maintaining an expression that could have won him any poker tournament going.

“OK,” said Wheeler, “We'll give that a go. Any more ideas? And has that little shithead turned up yet?”

“The zorilla, Chief?”

“Yes, Harry; the zorilla.” She rounded on Stevens. “Tell me you've had a whiff of it at least.”

“Sorry, Chief. Harry's the only one who's had a close encounter.”

“That was a different bloody animal. And you took it back to the zoo, didn't you, Harry?”

“Um, yes, Chief. And then I went to the dry cleaner's. About that,” he pushed his glasses up his nose. “If I bring in the receipt, will you reimburse - ?”

“You can stick that up your arse!” Wheeler snapped with surprising vehemence. “We haven't the budget to support your habit of going around in clean clothes.”

“Yeah,” said Stevens.

“Meanwhile,” Wheeler ignored the moustachioed prat, “Try to think of more things around the town that begin with zed. Anybody?”

The detectives' brows creased in thought. Several long minutes passed before Harry Henry jumped up, knocking over a table in the process.

“Zucchini!” he cried with an air of triumph.

“And what the fuck is that?” said Wheeler.

“He means courgettes,” said Brough. “That's what they call them across the pond.”

“Oh, of course you'd know that,” Stevens scowled. “Any excuse to bring that up!”

Wheeler flapped at him to be quiet.

“What about them?” She looked from Brough to Harry Henry and back again.

“Um...” Harry deflated. “I only said it because sometimes me and the wife play the Alphabet Game and-”

“Oh, God!” Brough cut him off. “No need to go into all that again. Perhaps the killer's next target will have something to do with courgettes - zucchini. Someone who sells them...”

“Or...” Miller chimed in, “Someone who buys them...”

Wheeler's face scrunched up like a discarded paper bag. “I'm not buying it. You'm assuming our killer's a Yank. Fucking courgettes. It's a stretch.”

“It could just as easily be a Yank,” said Stevens with a spiteful glare in Brough's direction. “Easy as it could be a performing fucking monkey.”

“Zodiac!” blurted Harry Henry. The others looked at him as though he had some form of Tourette's.

“Sit down, Harry, before you burst,” Wheeler advised.

“No, I mean the horoscopes. Find out when the victims all have their birthdays. Perhaps he's doing one for each astrological sign...”

Silence reigned while the Serious team took this idea on board.

“But what's that got to do with the zorilla and the fucking zoe-whatsit and the Zumba woman,” complained Stevens.

“I don't know,” said Harry Henry meekly. He lowered himself into his chair.

“I thought he was on to something then,” said Stevens. “Bloody half-baked-”

“All right, all right!” Wheeler waved him down. “Let's face it. So far we've got fuck all. So, for now, we'll go with Jason's idea of watching the zebra crossings.”

Pattimore beamed with the pride of a newly-appointed head prefect.

“Meanwhile, be on the lookout for any other zeds that might be about. Keep 'em peeled - and I don't mean your fucking courgettes. Now,” she didn't bother with the thumb on this occasion, “Fuck off.”

***

With the team despatched to do fuck-knows-what, Wheeler yet again shut herself in her office. She circled her desk, keeping a wary eye on the heap of personnel folders as if it was an animal that might pounce at any second. Do zorillas pounce, she wondered? Perhaps they don't need to, if they'm herbivores - Or am they - what's the word? - Omni... buses? Wait. That cor be right...

Get a grip, Karen, she admonished herself. Forget the bastard zorilla at large and apply yourself to the task at hand.

She climbed onto her chair and reached for the file on the top of the pile.

It was Miller's.

“Ah, Melanie, Melanie, Melanie...” Wheeler said out loud. Miller's pleasant, round face smiled innocuously from her mugshot.

Wheeler had always considered Miller a silly bint but - and here was the crotch of the matter - Miller was the only bint in the team. Discounting herself, of course.

She'd had her ups and downs. Especially in recent times, had Miller. Losing her mother - twice: the first time to dementia and the second to the Grim (some might say ‘Merciful') Reaper. Then there were Miller's man troubles. Her relationship with former Serious man D S Woodcock had almost resulted in matrimony but, for some reason, it had all gone tits-up and Woodcock had transferred. But, all through it and the subsequent upheavals with her next fella - some odd bod who dug graves in the local boneyard; he'd turned out to be a strange one - but all through it, Miller had never let it affect her police work.

Not that she had ever been much cop, har har.

No, that wasn't fair. Since Brough had come to town, Miller had upped her game. Like she was trying to impress somebody - like she was trying to impress Brough?

“You silly bint,” Wheeler addressed the photograph. “You can't still be holding a torch for that shirt lifter. The time has come to grow up and smell the poppers. Brough the bum boy is never going to be the man for you.”

She stared at the photograph. Could Miller be that deluded? Or was she over all that shit now?

Perhaps Brough had rubbed off on her - by which Wheeler meant his influence not his cock. Perhaps Miller had become a better detective because she wanted to show him what he was missing. Perhaps she was chucking herself into her work to help her get through the tough times.

Whatever.

Saving a detective sergeant's salary wouldn't be enough to get Serious out of financial trouble.

And Wheeler couldn't do the dirty on a fellow female - by which she meant give Miller the push, not some kind of lesbionic activity.

She put the photo back in the file and closed the cover.

Not Miller then.

Then who?

***

“Hoi, mate. What am you pair doing in them bushes?”

Stevens bolted upright. Crouched beside him, Pattimore giggled.

“Piss off, kid,” Stevens scowled at the child in a tracksuit. The boy had sports logos shaved into his hair although he was built like he'd only ever win a trophy as Chip Shop's Best Customer.

“Am you pervs or coppers?”

“What's it to you, lard arse?”

“Only cause if you'm pervs, I'm calling the coppers, and if you'm coppers, I want to talk to you.”

“All right?” Pattimore emerged from the foliage. He flashed his i.d. “Is there a problem?”

“Get a lot of perverts in this park, do you, chubster?” Stevens stepped out onto the path. “Wouldn't think they'd give you much trouble.”

The boy looked affronted. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Well... look at you...”

The boy stuck his nose in the air with haughty indignation. “There's more of me to love.”

Stevens laughed. “I suppose a bunch of pervs could go shares, like. Bargain bucket kind of deal.”

“Lanky twat,” the boy diagnosed.

“How can we help?” Pattimore intervened. “Why do you need to talk to the police?”

“Look; I found it.”

Chipolata fingers unzipped the tracksuit top. The boy pulled out a mass of fur and claws but he seemed oblivious of the animal's struggles.

“The fuck is that?” said Stevens, backing away.

“It's that whatsit,” said the boy, “What run off from the zoo.”

Pattimore laughed. “Mate, that's just a black cat somebody's been at with a bottle of Tipp-Ex.”

“It bloody isn't!” the boy asserted.

“It bloody is,” said Stevens. “Go on; fuck off.”

The boy stood his ground. “I want my reward!”

Both detectives laughed.

“You'll have to source your fucking pie vouchers elsewhere,” said Stevens. “Go on; piss off and take your painted pussy with you.”

“Fascists.”

“Wait,” said Pattimore. “Give it here.”

The boy was reluctant to surrender the creature without financial recompense. Perhaps other coppers would be less discerning.

“All right,” Pattimore continued, “I'm arresting you for cruelty to an animal.”

The boy let out a yelp. “You cor do that! I've took good care of it. Even give it half of my saveloy.” He pressed the squirming feline close against his chest.

Pattimore softened his approach. “Think about it. Cats lick themselves clean. How's he going to feel if he licks that shit off? It'd be like you fed him poison.”

The boy's brow wrinkled in thought, giving him the appearance of a constipated cherub. He stroked the cat's back and grimaced at the stickiness that transferred to his palm. With a sigh of resignation, he handed over the animal.

“Now piss off,” said Stevens.

The boy scarpered.

“Fucking chavs,” Stevens watched him go. “Always up to something.”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Pattimore. The cat seemed calmer, cradled in the detective constable's arms. It let out a purr. “The kid has given me an idea.”

“Me and all. What time's the chippy open?”

“Not that. Do you remember those cartoons? They don't show them anymore but there was this cat and every time she'd get paint on her somehow, in a big stripe all along her back. Next thing she knows she's being sexually harassed by a skunk with a French accent, who thinks she's a lady skunk. She can't get rid of him.”

Stevens blinked. “So, your idea is we watch cartoons?”

“No! I think we need a decoy or something. We need something to lure the zorilla out where we can nab him.”

“I'm not dressing up as a lady skunk!”

“Let's hope it won't come to that. But think about it: at the zoo they've got a female, haven't they? What about if we borrow it - or get some of its scent? Its phero-whatsits.”

A light came on behind Stevens's eyes. “Genius!” he clapped a hand on Pattimore's shoulder. The cat hissed at him. “But first, let's get fish and chips. I'm starving.”

“First,” Pattimore amended, “We'm taking this little fella to the vet. Get this muck off him.”

Stevens rolled his eyes. Sometimes Pattimore was too bloody soft for police work.

***

Chad Roe climbed down the ladder. He put the rag and can of polish in the broad pockets of his dungarees and looked up at what he had done.

In direct sunlight, the structure was gleaming so much from his last-minute attentions he had to shield his eyes. Using one hand as a visor, he walked around the base of the structure. The other sides merely reflected the sky, its blues and its wisps of white.

It's beautiful, Chad did some reflecting of his own. And, as the sun moves across the sky, the reflections would change. It was a magical effect. No two moments would be the same. He had created an ever-changing work of art and was feeling pretty damn smug about it.

There had been controversy. Of course. With great art there always is. The bigger the stink, the greater the art, in Chad's opinion. In fact, he knew for some artists it was the creation of the outcry that was the work of art. The more the critics threw up their hands, and the more the tabloids decried what they saw as the misuse of public funds, the more successful the artists could consider themselves.

But not Chad. Yes, he courted controversy - on an international scale whenever possible - but he had also created something beautiful. He had added to the beauty of the world as a whole and to the dull and dreary town of Dedley in particular.

There were always short-sighted idiots wherever he went. What's wrong with my design, he bleated, whenever the project had met with a delay? Everyone loves a pyramid. A pyramid speaks of both permanence - those ones in Egypt are still very much with us, aren't they? - and of the ultimately transient nature of civilisations and each and every human life. The idea persists although the pyramid builders do not.

And why glass? Well... what with all the reflections and all, it's pretty. And what's wrong with pretty?

Having won around the borough council to the nature of his design, Chad had met with opposition regarding the location of his work of public art. To most it seemed like pure folly to erect a glass pyramid in the middle of a traffic roundabout at one of Dedley's busiest intersections. Wouldn't the bloody thing be better off in a park?

In a park, Chad countered, the risk of vandalism was too high. But on the roundabout, the piece would be visible to many and accessible to none. No one visits traffic islands, do they?

The project was green-lighted; Chad got his way and the thing was built. The local firm of glassblowers - nowadays little more than a working museum - was glad of the work and now, here was Chad conducting his final inspection and giving the piece a last spit-and-polish before the unveiling or dedication or whatever the council and the lottery committee had in mind.

Chad's phone rang.

“Roberta!” he smarmed. “I was just thinking of you... I'm there now. It's looking so - so very beautiful. When the light catches it just right - ahh! I could not thank you adequately had I a thousand lifetimes.”