‘I heard they got him.’ He pulled a rolled-up copy of Kent Today from his back pocket. ‘Raoul Jonas. What a bastard.’
The article was by Chrissie McBride. Alongside a photo of Raoul was another picture showing the two arresting officers, Bryan Messenger and Hugh Duffy. Joe scanned the headline. Bella Murder: New Arrest.
‘Looks that way,’ said Joe.
Lycett wiped a hand across his brow.
‘You don’t sound too happy about it.’
Joe stifled a sigh. A girl had been murdered. Her father had died in suspicious circumstances. What was there to be happy about?
‘Early days,’ he said.
‘What about Adam? You’re not telling me he jumped off a cliff of his own accord.’
Joe spread his hands. ‘I’m not telling anyone anything.’
Lycett leaned on his shovel and shook his head.
‘Bloody animal rights nutters. Everything’s so black and white. Why can’t they look at all the good stuff we do?’ He gestured towards one of the baby elephants. ‘Samson would be dead if it weren’t for us.’
Joe followed the man’s gaze, watching as the smaller of the two baby eles snaked his trunk through the bars of the iron gate.
‘What happened to him?’
‘He fell into an old septic tank when he was a few weeks old. We hauled him out but his mother stopped feeding him – probably because he smelt of human shit. Then his father became aggressive towards him and had to be transferred.’ The keeper stooped to pick up a bottle of water and took a swig before continuing. ‘The mother won’t take him back. Not once she’s turned her back on him. So who’s been keeping Samson alive? Raoul bloody Jonas? In his dreams.’
Joe watched as the baby ele dipped his trunk into a trough and transferred the water into his mouth. Standing behind him, one of the females nudged him with her trunk.
‘That’s his aunt, Kashka,’ said Lycett. ‘She’s an all-mother.’
‘Meaning?’
‘She looks out for Samson. The volunteers have a rota to make sure he gets fed, monitoring his faeces for anything untoward. If that’s cruelty to animals then I’m a monkey’s uncle.’
Joe cast a glance towards the girl driving the tractor. Her blonde hair was tied in a ponytail.
‘I imagine Bella’s a hard act to follow,’ he said.
The keeper turned in Joe’s direction, his features creasing into a frown.
‘What on earth is that supposed to mean?’
Joe gave a shrug.
‘She was born and raised here. She knew all the animals, observed them her whole life. Must have been an advantage when it came to looking after them.’
Lycett scrutinized Joe’s face, as though searching for some sort of hidden agenda.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘She’s a hard act to follow.’
He took another swig of water then ducked between the bars of the perimeter fence, joining Joe on the public side of the enclosure.
‘Nearly lunchtime,’ he said. ‘Want to look at the pandas?’
* * *
The crowd in front of the Panda-cam was larger than before but visitor numbers remained low. Poor publicity was keeping people away, even though Ling-Ling had given birth to twins in the early hours and the news had been on TV and radio since lunchtime.
As Lycett and Joe reached the clearing, they found Felix and Liam occupying seats in the third row. An action-replay of the birth was showing on the screen. The panda stood on all fours, swaying from side to side while emitting high-pitched yelps. In the crowd, two young mothers exchanged knowing looks, wincing in sympathy.
And suddenly it was happening. The main event. Joe hadn’t anticipated it would be over so quickly. The camera zoomed in on a tiny bundle of new life as it emerged from deep within Ling-Ling’s folds of fur, wriggled briefly then dropped to the ground.
‘Doesn’t look like a panda,’ said a little girl in the second row.
Joe agreed. The newborn cub looked more like a small alien. A pinky-grey creature, blind and hairless, it was the size of the plastic dinosaurs Luke had loved as a child. The last thing it resembled was a panda. Even its mother looked doubtful about the creature she had brought into the world.
As the cub lay on the ground, squealing and squirming, Ling-Ling circled warily, sniffing the new arrival. She reached out a paw and gave the infant a tentative pat that only intensified the squealing. The high-pitched noise appeared to do the trick, providing the mother with the reassurance she needed: yes, this was her offspring. Joe watched as the bear gently lifted the cub in her mouth. Sitting on her hind legs, she let the tiny creature tumble down, into her lap, and began to wash it with her tongue.
A caption appeared on-screen.
Baby Panda #1. Female. 4.3 ounces.
A chorus of aaahs spread through the crowd as the screen cut to another sequence showing the mother repeating the process: a second tiny pink alien wriggled its way into the world. A smattering of applause greeted the next caption.
Baby Panda #2. Male. 5.6 ounces.
‘Miraculous,’ said Felix softly.
Joe nodded. ‘Almost literally. The females are only in heat three days a year.’
‘Story of my life,’ said Liam, winking at Joe. His smile dried on his lips as he caught Felix’s glare. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Bad day for jokes.’ He cast a look around the crowd and turned to Joe. ‘Not exactly standing room only.’
The lawyer sighed and got to his feet.
‘I’m going back to the house.’
He headed away, Lycett falling into step.
‘Tell Saffron I’ll be back in a minute,’ called O’Mara.
The two men gave no sign of having heard.
Watching them go, Liam turned to Joe.
‘Should I be feeling guilty?’
Joe raised an eyebrow. ‘About what?’
‘Having some time to myself, away from the house. You have no idea how intense things are. Saffron is devastated and Isobel’s in bits but there’s only so much a man can take without a breather.’ He seemed to take Joe’s silence for agreement. He looked up at the screen. ‘Besides, how often do you get to see something like this?’
Joe followed the Irishman’s gaze. The Panda-cam had cut back to real time. It was early evening in Chengdu. Ling-Ling was resting, arm curled around one of the cubs. There was no sign of its sibling.
‘Twins,’ said O’Mara, smiling. ‘What are the odds?’
‘Fifty per cent of panda births are twins,’ said Joe. ‘The mother usually abandons one of them.’
The girl in the second row was eavesdropping. She turned to Joe, worry etched on her face.
‘Did you say “abandons”?’
Drawing breath to reply, Joe was distracted by the sight of Felix retracing his steps, accompanied by Isobel. The woman was weaving her way unsteadily towards the Panda-cam. Her hair was greasy, her clothes dishevelled, her eyes red from crying. As Felix followed in her wake, worry etched on his face, his sister reached the benches and sat beside Joe. He could smell alcohol on her breath.
‘I’m very sorry about Adam,’ he said.
He was about to add something about her husband being a good man but stopped himself. Was it true? The woman avoided Joe’s eye. She appeared to be in some kind of trance. A moment later, she seemed to notice the little girl staring at her, taking stock of her unkempt appearance.
‘Don’t mind me,’ she said with a smile. ‘I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.’ She nodded towards the screen. ‘God knows I’ve heard enough about these bloody pandas. It was all Bella and Adam could talk about for months.’
The girl seemed irritated by the interruption.
‘Why does the panda abandon her baby?’
Joe tried to strike a reassuring note. ‘It’s not her fault. She doesn’t have enough milk to look after both.’
The girl frowned. Joe continued, aware that Isobel was taking an interest in his impromptu lecture.
&nbs
p; ‘If Ling-Ling can’t care for both cubs, the keepers know how to keep them alive.’
He tried a smile but the girl seemed more upset than ever.
‘What do they do?’
‘They fool her into believing she’s raising one cub instead of two.’
‘How?’
‘They put the abandoned cub in an incubator. Then they swap it for its twin, up to ten times a day. The mother suckles both, but without realising it.’ He was aware of Isobel shifting in her seat. Her breathing was growing louder. He caught Felix’s eye. The lawyer whispered in his sister’s ear. Joe couldn’t make out what was being said.
‘What if there’s no incubator?’ The girl was still focused on the pandas. ‘What if the cubs are born in the wild?’
Joe was anxious to draw the conversation to a close.
‘That’s why some people think zoos are a good idea.’
The girl’s father, a bearded man in his thirties, gave Joe the thumbs-up behind his daughter’s back then passed her a leaflet.
‘It says you can suggest names,’ he said. ‘For the cubs. They send the suggestions to China. If they pick yours, you get a year’s free admission.’ The girl didn’t miss a beat.
‘Daisy for the girl. Hero for the boy.’
Isobel’s breathing was coming in fits and starts. She slumped to one side, falling onto Joe’s shoulder, eyes swivelling in her head. Felix put an arm around her, supporting her back. He turned to Joe.
‘Help me get her to the house. This is going to get ugly.’
* * *
Joe was no stranger to panic attacks. He had suffered several over the last year but none as severe as this. Isobel lay on the kitchen floor, hunched in the foetal position, gasping for breath. Her eyes were shut one minute, staring wildly the next.
He thought back to the woman he’d met just days earlier. Anxious about her missing daughter. Distracted but composed. Elegant. Now, her hair was matted, her fingernails encrusted with what looked like flecks of red nail varnish. The unmistakable stench of urine emanated from her grubby tracksuit.
Standing with Felix and Liam, Joe watched as Saffron – her own face stained with tears – attempted to get through to her mother.
‘It’s all right, Mummy. You’ll be fine, you always are.’
Her tone was brusque, a no-nonsense approach that seemed to make matters worse. Isobel began to pant harder, her breath coming in spasms as her body juddered. Joe knelt at her side, keeping his voice low.
‘Isobel,’ he said. ‘It’s Joe Cassidy. I’m a friend of…’ He hesitated, not wanting to worsen the woman’s distress by mentioning Adam’s name. ‘I’m a friend of the family. You’re at home. You’re safe. Your family is here – Saffron, Felix, Liam. You’re going to be OK.’
There was no sign that his words were getting through. He touched his fingers to the back of her hand, applying gentle pressure and reassurance. ‘I need you to take a breath and hold it while I count to two. One… two…’
Still no indication that she could hear. He leaned in closer.
‘Breathe in then hold your breath for a couple of seconds. On my count. One… two. One… two. One… two.’ He maintained the pressure on her hand. ‘One… two. One… two.’
The woman didn’t seem to be registering his efforts to help. He persevered. He knew what she was going through.
* * *
The first panic attack came out of the blue. A train journey to London, heading for an appointment with the counsellor. He was huddled in an overcoat. Staring out at the snow-flecked fields of Kent. Shivering despite the hot air blasting from the heating system.
Then, without warning, a deafening whoomph! as the train slammed into a tunnel. And suddenly he was back underground, raising the manhole cover in the playground, clambering down the metal ladder in the drainage shaft, step by echoing step.
He’d insisted on being the first to go into the shaft. There could be little doubt about what lay ahead. The Salamander had been taunting them ever since his arrest. After twenty-five years of rapes and murders, his victims getting younger all the time, this subterranean secret was all he had left. His only source of power.
‘You know nothing. Only I know. How. When. Where. Who.’
‘You need to tell me.’ Joe must have said it a hundred times. ‘Not for my sake, for the parents’. Tell me where the girls are.’ No response. Just a smile.
Joe had taken to prowling around the man’s deserted house, sometimes at night, searching for anything that might provide the key. It had taken many solo visits before the terrarium had become the focus of his attention. The salamanders had long since been rehomed by the RSPCA but the tank remained in a corner of the kitchen, filled with compost, bark chippings and covered with moss. Joe knew two things about salamanders: they were nocturnal and they liked to burrow deep into their habitat, seeking out hiding places.
Next day, he went out on a limb.
‘You’ve hidden them underground.’
It was a bluff but a flicker in the man’s eyes told Joe he was on the right track.
‘They’re not pets,’ he said, ‘they’re children. They have people who love them. People who need to know where they are. I will never stop asking this question: where are they?’
When the man had given up his secret, it was not out of pity, but because the world had moved on. To fresh outrages. New tragedies. His name no longer made headlines.
‘Playground. Drainage shaft.’
Three words that brought an answer. After a year of questions. A year of sleepless nights. A year of torment for the families. Of fury and frustration for Joe and his team. And, he could only assume, years of guilt weighing on the consciences of the Salamander’s other victims, the women who had never dared to come forward.
The man might have been boasting about the number of victims but Joe thought it unlikely. The tally of targets had the ring of truth. Times, dates, places. How many women lay awake at night, obsessing over what they might have prevented?
If only… if only…
Who could blame them?
Who wouldn’t try to forget?
Joe had gripped the rungs of the ladder inside the shaft. His torch had cut through the darkness but the girls had had nothing to illuminate their dungeon. They had heard rats scurrying. Trains thundering by. The darkness was total. The terror beyond imagining.
For a year.
Nearing the bottom of the shaft, Joe had come to a steel platform, two feet by five. The girls were hanging beneath the gantry, just as the man had described, lengths of wire around their necks, their feet dangling inches from the ground. He had spent months planning every detail.
How to lure them into his van.
How to get them underground.
How to keep them alive.
What to do to their bodies.
That first panic attack wasn’t the worst. Joe would learn to grade the severity of the episodes; the first had been a six, maybe a seven. But it marked a turning point. If ever he’d doubted that he needed help, if he had joined in with colleagues down-playing the effect of PTSD – that first attack on the train had opened his eyes. Never again would he dismiss someone as a ‘drama queen’.
Never again would he tell someone to ‘get a grip’.
* * *
Isobel was calmer now, the palpitations subsiding. Joe turned to her daughter.
‘It will help if you stroke her hair.’
Saffron knelt on the floor and followed Joe’s suggestion, placing a hand on her mother’s head. Isobel twitched a couple of times then began to breathe more evenly. The worst was over.
‘Shall I call a doctor?’ The Irish lilt in Joe’s ear. Liam.
He shook his head. ‘Get her to bed or onto a sofa. Give her a hot drink.’
Another ten minutes passed before the woman was sufficiently recovered to allow the men to hoist her from the floor and carry her into the drawing room.
She slumped onto a sofa, burying her face in a vel
vet cushion. Joe draped his jacket over her. She opened her eyes, watching as Saffron entered with a cup of herbal tea.
She was calmer now, breathing normally, but oblivious to the hushed concern that surrounded her. Felix drew Joe aside.
‘Panic attacks are a family affliction,’ he said. ‘The women, anyway.’
Joe recalled Adam telling him about Bella’s panic attack on the day she died, lashing out to scratch her father’s wrists.
‘I’ve suggested she goes back to the shrink,’ said Felix. ‘But she won’t hear of it.’
‘Any idea what triggered this?’ said Joe.
‘Shock, grief, exhaustion,’ said the lawyer. ‘She’s barely slept since Bella died. Now Adam’s gone. No wonder she’s been putting away enough booze to sink a battleship.’
‘What was she doing before she came outside?’ said Joe.
Saffron scooped a strand of blonde hair behind her ear then pointed to the laptop that was relaying the live feed from China. On the screen, Ling-Ling was asleep, her arm around one of her cubs. There was no sign of its twin.
‘I was watching the Panda-cam,’ Saffron said. ‘They showed the birth. An action-replay. I barely noticed Mummy coming in. We sat watching, not saying anything. Next time I looked up, she’d gone.’
Isobel opened her eyes. She blinked, taking stock of the faces around her. Felix reached out a hand but she shrank from his touch, eyes widening in alarm. A sigh of exasperation escaped the lawyer’s lips.
‘Here’s some camomile tea,’ said Saffron.
Isobel lashed out, knocking the cup to the floor. She tried to speak, but no sound came from her mouth. She tried again. Her voice was barely audible.
‘Get out.’
Joe nodded. ‘We’ll leave you to it.’
He headed for the door but Isobel shook her head.
‘Not you – them.’ She glared at the others.
Liam sighed. He put a hand on Saffron’s shoulder. ‘Let’s do as she says.’
He led the others from the room and closed the door, leaving Joe alone with Isobel. He could smell the urine on her clothes.
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