“A what?”
Fay stood still, a coffee tray in her arms, as a truly horrible idea occurred to her.
“No,” she said. “It’s impossible. She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t.”
“What’s impossible? What wouldn’t she have done?” If there was one thing Morwen hated, it was not knowing what was going on.
“Open a safari park.”
Morwen laughed heartily. “A safari park! On Bluebell Island. Can you imagine? With elephants, I suppose. And giraffes.”
“And lions.” Fay’s voice was hollow.
Morwen laughed again. “Lions on the island. Whatever next? Lady Chadwick loves her zany ideas. If it’s not fluoride in the water or waves of electricity frying her brain, it’s a safari park.”
As Fay watched, the penny dropped. Morwen’s eyes widened.
“Oh, my goodness. You don’t think …?”
“Yes,” said Fay. “I do think.”
Chapter 6
Lady Chadwick arrived on the stroke of nine o’clock and helped herself to fruit from the buffet.
She seemed subdued, which was unusual for her. Instead of turning the breakfast room upside down with her demands, she greeted Fay politely and ordered a small cheese omelet.
The other guests moderated their voices when she walked in, apparently sensing that they were in the presence of aristocracy.
“It’s weird,” said Fay as she relayed the omelet order to Morwen. “She’s behaving just like a regular person.”
“I think she realizes that she has messed up on a grand scale this time. Has she told you what she wants to speak to you about yet?”
“I think she’s waiting for everyone else to finish up and leave.”
It was only towards the end of breakfast, when Fay brought a basket of toast and a selection of jams and jellies, that Lady Chadwick showed a flash of the old Eve.
“My dear Miss Penrose, whatever do you call this?”
Fay followed the direction of her disdainful finger. “That’s a bottle of Marks & Spencer thick-cut marmalade, Lady Chadwick. It’s excellent quality. Then there’s the three-fruits marmalade here and a bottle of Blackstone and Friars smooth marmalade here. What seems to be the problem?”
“The problem, Miss Penrose, is that the only acceptable breakfast accompaniment is Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade as bespoke by Her Majesty the Queen.”
“The trouble with Cooper’s Marmalade, Lady Chadwick, is that however much the Queen might enjoy it, our guests tend to find it too bitter.”
Fay would never forget the American family that had asked to try some traditional English marmalade. The looks of dismay on their faces when they had bitten into their toast were truly comical.
“What did I just put in my mouth?” the dad demanded, while the children spat out their toast and burst into tears. Since then, Fay and Morwen had ordered the sweeter, more mainstream types of marmalade.
“That’s exactly what’s wrong with the world today,” grumbled Lady Chadwick. “No one knows what fine food tastes like anymore. Everything has to be sweet, as though we were toddlers rather than adults.”
“I’m sorry for the disappointment, M’Lady. I promise to buy a jar of Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade that I will keep especially for your visits. Is there anything else I could get you to have with your toast?”
Lady Chadwick graciously agreed that marmite would be acceptable. Barely repressing a shudder, Fay brought it to her. It was a toss-up in her book as to which was worse – marmite or bitter marmalade.
It was nearly ten before all the guests finally left and Lady Chadwick was alone in the breakfast room. Fay brought her tea on a tray (made from loose tea in a warmed teapot and served with a strainer) and girded herself for the coming confrontation.
“Please sit down, Miss Penrose. There is a matter I wish to discuss with you.”
“Does the matter have fangs and claws and weigh about three-hundred pounds?”
Lady Chadwick’s teacup stopped in mid-air on its way to her lips. She put it down carefully. “How did you know?”
“You told me about your safari park idea a couple of months ago. This morning when I was out walking, something was stalking me. It was something big. When it roared, it frightened the life out of me and the night guard at Sunset Acres. I presume it’s a lion?”
“Correct. He is a big, beautiful male. You should see his mane. It’s magnificent.”
“I’m sure it is. The part I don’t understand is why he is wandering around the village instead of being kept safely in an enclosure at Chadwick Manor.”
“He was in an enclosure. I built him a lovely one - my gardener even helped. We put up a nice fence for him too, with a little wooden hut for him to sleep in at night. I even bought a paddling pool from the toy store so he could have a dip every now and then.”
“How tall was the fence?”
“Oh, it was ever so tall. The height of a six-foot man at least.”
“And what kind of fencing did you use?”
“Just chicken wire. Like one would use to build a chicken coop, you know?”
“Just hazarding a guess here, but I would imagine that he escaped on the first night?”
Fay could imagine the huge male lion ripping through Lady Chadwick’s enclosure as though it were made of tissue paper.
“That’s right. How did you guess?”
“Why didn’t you raise the alarm?”
“I felt a little silly, to be honest. The enclosure I had built was obviously not strong enough and I was afraid that the village council might be a little cross with me for losing my lion.”
“Right.”
“Besides, I thought I could lure him back.”
“How were you going to do that?”
“I’ve been putting out mounds of raw deer meat at the entrance to his enclosure every night. I thought that would entice him back in.”
“And did it?”
“It’s just a matter of time. The meat disappears overnight. He knows where his home is, and he returns to eat every day. Soon we’ll be able to encourage him back into the enclosure.”
“Do you know what time he usually feeds?”
“Unfortunately, no. I go to sleep at nine o’clock every night. I’ve asked Herbert, my gardener, to stay up overnight in the enclosure to welcome dear Leo and encourage him in, but he didn’t seem to fancy that idea at all.”
“Really?” Fay couldn’t imagine why.
“He’s usually quite obliging. I’ve never known him to dig in his heels like this. One would almost think he was afraid of the animal. I explained to him that dear Leo is quite tame, but he didn’t seem to believe me.”
“Did Leo belong to a circus?”
“Oh no, dear. He was in a Bolivian zoo that recently closed down. They were selling off their stock. But I should think he was quite used to people coming up to his enclosure, wouldn’t you?”
“A wild animal is a wild animal, Lady Chadwick. People who have managed to get into big cat enclosures at zoos have been badly mauled or even killed. I’m afraid Leo is a serious hazard.”
Lady Chadwick poured herself another cup of tea. “This is why I came to see you, Miss Penrose. I must confess I have been feeling a little anxious about dear Leo as the days pass. It would be rather dreadful if someone got hurt as a result of a misunderstanding.”
“And you came to me because of my … experience with police work?” Fay guessed.
“Oh, no. Not at all, dear. I came to you because Penrose House has always been the premier cat rescue center on the island. Your late grandmother used to put out those clever cat traps whenever a cat was running around wild. They worked like a charm. I’m sure Morwen would show you how they work.”
“That’s certainly … an idea. If I may ask, Lady Chadwick – what happened to the paddling pool you put out for Leo?”
“I’m afraid he mauled it quite badly. It was punctured in several places and chewed up. There were just a few scraps left.”
“Right. So, imagine that paddling pool after Leo got hold of it. That’s exactly what one of my cat traps would look like, especially if I baited it with food.”
“Then what are we to do? Should I try harder to persuade Herbert to sit up next to the meat at night?”
Poor Herbert.
“On no account. We can probably thank that meat for the fact that Leo hasn’t attacked anyone on the island yet. He has a reliable source of food in a predictable place, so he isn’t hungry. But our luck won’t hold forever. It’s just a matter of time before Leo gets startled and attacks someone. We need to call animal control from the mainland right now. We need to warn everyone to stay indoors until he has been captured.”
“They won’t hurt him, will they?”
“Not at all. He will be darted and harmlessly removed. I’ll do some investigating and see if we can have him moved to a reputable sanctuary.”
“Moved?”
“Well, yes, Lady Chadwick. I think it’s pretty obvious that you are not in a position to keep him. He needs to go somewhere where he’ll have a large, safe enclosure – maybe a few acres in size. I don’t know much about lions, but I know they need a lot of space.”
She saw doubt on Lady Chadwick’s face which made her uneasy.
“You do understand that you can’t keep him anymore, right?”
“Well…”
“Lady Chadwick!”
“He just needs a stronger…”
“He needs a proper, experienced team to look after him.”
“Oh, all right. All right. They can take him, if you really think it is necessary.”
Fay sighed with relief. “I do. I absolutely do.”
“Very well then.”
She stood up. “I’ll phone around and find a sanctuary that’s willing to take him. The animal control people will then arrange to have him transported there.”
Lady Chadwick stared out the window at the sea that heaved restlessly under a steel-grey sky. “Go ahead, dear. Whatever you think is best.”
Fay leaped into action, leaving Morwen to finish clearing away breakfast. People’s lives were at stake.
She phoned the police station, the town hall, the local school, the mayor, and the island’s radio station to tell them the news. The only surprising part was how willing people were to believe that a large male lion was wandering around loose on the island. Rumors of something big and scary stalking the village had been doing the rounds for days now.
When Fay mentioned Lady Chadwick’s name, people were even more ready to believe her. The consensus seemed to be that this was exactly the kind of thing their resident eccentric aristocrat would do.
Fay was afraid that the island would descend into panic, but people remained calm. The school agreed to keep the children indoors during recess. The radio station undertook to send out broadcasts every half hour warning people to stay indoors until the all-clear had been given. Morwen sent a message to the village WhatsApp group, which elicited a series of surprisingly sensible responses.
When Fay was sure that everything had been done to impose a curfew on the island until Leo was in custody, she finally called animal control. They were based in Truro and promised to get a team onto Bluebell Island within two to three hours. They urged Fay to warn the villagers not to approach the lion, no matter how cute or tame he may appear. No one should step out of their houses or cars to photograph him because lions could move much, much faster than any human.
“You might think that the lion can’t hurt you because he’s thirty feet away,” said the person from the animal control office. “But a male lion in his prime can cross that distance in under two seconds and be on top of you before you could climb back into your car.”
This necessitated Fay spending another half hour on the phone relaying the message to everyone that they should on no account play tag with the lion. Only then could she start looking for sanctuaries that might be interested in taking him.
Chapter 7
This task proved much more difficult than she anticipated.
Somehow, Fay had had the idea that the first sanctuary she called - or possibly the second - would be only too delighted to take on an adult male lion of dubious provenance. This was not the case. Not even slightly.
It turned out that there were very few animal sanctuaries in Britain with the capacity to handle large predators. The food bill alone was astronomical. The sanctuaries that did have the space, the money, and the facilities to handle them already had enough lions. More than one of the places she called hinted that she should consider having him euthanized.
Just the thought of it made Fay want to burst into tears. The world population of lions had dropped dramatically in recent decades – mostly due to humans encroaching on their habitats. It wasn’t right that Leo should be destroyed just because humans were careless creatures.
She broadened her search to include zoos and sanctuaries in other countries.
Panic began to gnaw at her when these turned her down too. Not one of them could even recommend a place that might be able to take a lion. Hours had passed and Fay was no closer to solving the problem.
At one o’clock, Morwen brought her some lunch on a tray.
“Still no luck?”
“None whatsoever. They won’t even take him at Predator World in New Jersey, and that was supposed to be my safety sanctuary.”
“Keep trying. There has to be somewhere that will take him. Animal control say they can house him for up to a week while we look for somewhere.”
“I’m on the verge of starting a social media campaign for him,” said Fay. “I’m sure more places would consider him if he were an Instagram celebrity.”
“I don’t think making a lion go viral is as easy as you might think, especially since we don’t even have a photo of him.”
Fay sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. Then she picked up a fork and started eating the chicken salad Morwen had brought her.
“Tell me what’s going on in the big wide world out there. I haven’t seen the outside of my office for hours.”
“The animal control team arrived on the island a while ago. They have three all-terrain vehicles that they’re using to drive around on in search of tracks or scat. They have their dart guns at the ready. Apparently, three of them have worked with lions before.”
“How are the villagers taking it?” asked Fay. “I can see through my window that there are still a few people on the beach and walking around on the boardwalk. It seems quieter than usual, though.”
“Most people are being good about keeping their children off the street. But too many are not taking it seriously. They’re going about their business as usual - as though running into a lion would be no big deal. The tourists are the worst. I suppose they figure that they’ve paid for their vacations and shouldn’t have to miss a minute.”
“You can’t really blame them. This whole situation is unreal.”
“The sooner they catch him the better. Bluebell Island might be small, but it feels big when you have to cover every inch of it in an ATV.”
“Perhaps I can narrow it down for them. As of five o’clock this morning, he was hanging out in the wooded area around Sunset Acres. He stayed close to the hedgerow - for cover, I guess. I probably have Lady Chadwick to thank for the fact that he didn’t choose me for his dinner. She has been putting food out for him every night, and he’s been eating it. In fact …” A different thought occurred to Fay. “That’s another area they could look at. Lady Chadwick built an enclosure for him at Chadwick Manor. She’s been putting deer meat out for him in the enclosure. There’s probably a visible patch of blood there.”
“Gross. I’ll call them now and tell them.” Her eyes fell on Fay’s computer screen. “What have you got there? Is that a possible sanctuary?”
“I wish! It would be the most perfect place. The enclosures are huge, and the keepers work around the clock to keep the animals stimulated and entertained. There’s
a whole write-up here about how important it is to keep their natural behaviors alive when they are living in captivity. It would be absolutely perfect. The sanctuary is right here in England too, in the wilds of Norfolk. But it says on their website that they’re not accepting any new animals at the moment. The place is full.”
“Phone them anyway,” said Morwen.
“There’s no point. I should keep going through my list of sanctuaries in America.”
“Just give them a call. It’ll take two minutes of your time. If they can’t help you, perhaps they’ll refer you to someone who can.”
“Oh, all right. But it’s a waste of time.”
When Morwen left, Fay called the Noah’s Ark Animal Sanctuary in Norfolk, UK. She felt silly even asking, knowing she was going to meet with yet another rejection.
What happened next made her feel as though Morwen had been guided by heavenly intervention when she had insisted on Fay phoning. It turned out that Noah’s Ark’s famous pair of lions, Laurel and Hardy, were sadly reduced to one. Hardy had passed away of old age.
“We haven’t even told our followers on social media yet,” explained the woman. “And we haven’t updated the website. We don’t know if Laurel is going to make it. She is pining terribly. She is still a young lion, but if she refuses to eat, she will fade fast. We’ve been thinking seriously of getting a companion for her – another male. She just adored Hardy even though they were both neutered. We think she will react best to a male.”
Resisting the urge to dance around her office singing at the top of her lungs, Fay talked through all the details with the woman. Leo would have to undergo a full physical before he could be introduced to Laurel, and it would all depend on whether she accepted him. But finally – finally – Fay had a real, concrete lead.
The news came in at four o’clock that afternoon that Leo the lion had been captured by animal control. They had found him dozing in a heavily wooded area about a mile from Sunset Acres.
Fay sent all the information about Noah’s Ark to Lady Chadwick. As Leo’s official owner, she would need to authorize his transfer to Norfolk. Everything was in place for him to be rehomed.
The Cat That Was Bigger Than You Page 4