by Stephen Laws
Drew was hurrying toward her, even before she had stopped the car.
There was real excitement on his face as he held the car door open and she climbed out.
“Thanks for coming.”
“How could I resist? I think you’ve got more of a flair for the dramatic than I have.”
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“Up ahead. It’s not far.”
Cath followed as he led the way, waiting for him to say more. When they drew level with the Land Rover, Drew stopped and leaned against it—his gaze fixed on the side of the valley about a hundred feet from them. The area was covered in dense bushes. Cath followed his gaze and could see nothing. She turned a wry smile to Drew as she waited for him to speak. Her attention was drawn to something on the backseat of the Land Rover. There was a long pause as Drew stared. Finally, leaning casually against the vehicle with arms crossed, Cath said:
“So, are you going to tell me why you’ve got a rifle in the back of the Land Rover?”
“It’s not a rifle.”
“Well, it looks like a rifle to me, Drew. Are you sure you’re allowed to have that?”
“I’ve got a shotgun licence. Most farmers have.”
“That’s not a shotgun.”
“And it’s not a rifle—it’s a specialist tranquiliser gun. But it does look like a rifle, I’ll give you that,” he said.
“I was right.”
“Right?”
“We both seem to have a flair for the dramatic. But at the moment, you seem to have the edge over me.”
“You asked me some questions that night. When we were giving our talks—and then later, you tried again when we all went for that meal.” Cath could see that there was sweat on Drew’s brow, a glistening of contained excitement in his eyes. He paused again.
“I’m still listening,” she said.
“You said you felt there might be things I was holding back on.”
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
“Drew, if you pause again, I’m going to have to hit you.”
“Well, I told them—told you—that one of the things that the press and the media tend to seize on with this Big Cat thing is The Hound of the Baskervilles scenario. You know, mysterious unknown creature wandering the moors—always eluding capture. How come one’s never been caught? All that stuff.”
“You demystified it. Very well, I thought.”
“Well, that’s just it. Everything I said—I believe it all. The legislation that made it illegal to keep wild animals as pets. Owners just letting them loose, all of it.”
“There’s a ‘but’ coming. I can sense it.”
“But there is something more to it than that. I told you that I came face to face with a Big Cat on my farm. But I didn’t tell you everything that I felt, everything that I experienced back then. I was so close to this damned thing that it could have torn me apart. Why it didn’t, I’ll never know. And crazy though this might sound—there was something about this thing. Something different. Don’t know if I can explain it properly, and I know that when—when you’re in danger . . . in terror—things can happen to your mind. You maybe see things—not as they are. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes, I do, Drew.”
“But it wasn’t like that when I came face to face with this thing. I knew—just knew that there was something different about this Big Cat. Not a panther, not a puma—not even a hybrid. Just something else. I know that sounds crazy. But then, as time went by and I became more aware of the evidence of these things on my land—and on the surrounding land—it was impossible to ignore that evidence, and I just became more and more overwhelmed by trying to find one of them. Because there’s a pride living out here. I know it.”
Drew paused again. His thoughts had consumed him again.
“Drew!”
“Sorry—” Drew exhaled loudly, trying to find the right words. “What I’m trying to say is—it may well be some kind of crossbreed that no one’s come across before. I’ve laid traps, set up cameras, everything. But these cats—well, they’ve got an uncanny ability to evade detection, and sometimes, just sometimes, a ferocity unequalled by any other Big Cat I’ve learned about.”
“So actually what you’re saying here is—well, that the press and media have got it right.” Cath could not keep the wry tone out of her voice when she spoke again. “That we’re dealing with something that is like The Hound of the Baskervilles after all—except that it’s a cat?”
“Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know. I just know that there’s nothing supernatural about it. They’re just—different.”
“So you’ve got a bloody big rifle, gun, tranquiliser thingie in the back of the vehicle and something that may or may not be The Hound of the Baskervilles is out there somewhere. And you’ve called me out to your farm—but you still haven’t told me why I’m here.”
“I’m glad you came.”
“Do you know how to use that thing?” Cath asked, looking to the backseat.
“I’ve already used it.”
Cath looked hard at him. Drew’s expression was fixed on the slope and bushes above again. When he snatched a glance back at her, there was a puzzling expression on his face. Something of humor, something of resolve—and something in his eyes that looked like elation and fear.
“Sometimes you spend your life looking for something and can’t find it. And yet it’s right on your own doorstep all the time. Right under your nose. The moment that you don’t look for it—it comes and finds you. See the fence up there, just before that undergrowth? I was up there, digging. Been thinking about planting pear trees but—well, I don’t know. Maybe that’s a fool’s errand—anyway, I was digging.
“When I turned, there it was—in the bracken, watching me. Obscured, so I couldn’t see all of it. But it was . . .” Drew struggled to find the words, and couldn’t find them. “I always keep the tranquiliser gun in the back, just in case. I slowly walked back to the Land Rover and—well, after everything that’s happened, I was convinced that by the time I got it out and primed it, the animal would be gone. It wasn’t. It was still there. It had moved, was still obscured and—Christ, I think it might have been stalking me. But this is the thing . . .” Drew was struggling again with the words.
“Go on.”
“You can see that the bushes and bracken on that side of the hill isn’t that dense. Enough to provide cover for birds or smaller mammals. But not enough to provide cover for an animal that size. This Big Cat—puma, panther, whatever—is black. I should have been able to see it at that range—maybe twenty-five yards—in such sparse cover. But I couldn’t, Cath. I couldn’t see it properly as it moved.” The quiver of excitement in Drew’s voice raised the hair on the back of Cath’s neck. “There’s something—I don’t know what—but there was something going on. Some kind of camouflage effect that I just couldn’t work out. I couldn’t see it properly, Cath!”
“You said you used the gun.”
Drew nodded. There was sweat on his brow again. “One shot. Snapped it off.”
“And you hit it?”
“Yep. I heard the thing cry out. Then it was gone up the hill. Couldn’t see it properly—just the bracken and the bushes flailing about. I followed. And I know where it’s gone. It’s holed up in what I think is its lair. A small fissure, not even big enough to call a cave—and I’ve looked in that place hundreds of times. Never been any sign, any evidence—so I guess they must have just moved in there recently. Here I am, hunting high and low for these things—and they’ve moved in right next door to me, in sight of the cottage. Hiding in plain sight!”
“Look, Drew. Is this safe? I mean—shouldn’t we be telling someone. The police, or . . .”
“No! Sorry—I didn’t mean to snap at you. No, Cath. I promise you that it’s safe. The drug in that dart will have worked by now. These are big animals, and it takes time for it to take effect. I rang you just after I’d taken the shot, it’s taken
you twenty minutes or so to get here—so by now, that thing will be completely knocked out. Completely sedated.”
“So what do we do now?”
Drew made a back-thumb gesture to the seat behind him. On that seat, next to the tranquiliser gun was a camera in its case.
“I take photographs. Measurements. Get the evidence I need. Then we leave it. Let it get on with its life. And I—we—get on with ours. That’s all I’ve ever wanted—real evidence that these things exist. If we got the police involved—the authorities—then who knows what would happen. People swarming all over the place. Maybe ruining the habitat for them and us.”
“You make this sound so—personal.”
“It is. Always has been.”
“I was right.”
“Right?”
“When it comes to dramatic flair, you definitely have the edge over me.”
“Maybe something new for you to write about now?”
“I’ve a feeling that the manuscript I’ve been struggling with these past few months is going into the garbage bin.”
“What do you say, then? You want to be a part of this adventure?”
“Just don’t get us killed, Drew. I’ve a daughter and an interfering housekeeper-companion to support.”
Drew grinned, and led the way up ahead to the gorse bushes.
EIGHTEEN
When the door had closed and Trudi had gone, Dietersen made a mental note to discuss the question of attitude with her when his business associate had gone. She had done as instructed, and done it well enough—but the smile wasn’t real. In business and in life, Dietersen had always championed the philosophy that you should always be honest, even if you had to fake it—and when he’d given Trudi her instructions, he’d expected nothing less than full acquiescence and an expression of real joy in the task. Not that his associate had noticed it, but Dietersen had sensed the less- than-happy look in her eyes and later, she would suffer for it.
Bobby Fuller—Dietersen’s associate—readjusted his fly zip and reached for the brandy glass again. One designer-jeaned leg hung over the armrest of the leather armchair, Fuller grinned and revealed a gold front tooth. He wriggled in the chair like the twenty-year-old kid he really was, revelling in exaggerated comfort, the leather of his jacket squeaking against the leather of the chair.
“I like your hospitality, Kapler.” The accent was Northern Irish. “You know how to treat your guests.”
“Nothing but the best for you, Bobby. As always.” Fuller gestured to the three black suitcases he had brought in with him, standing by the drinks cabinet. “Want to check out the goods?”
Kapler nodded.
Fuller pulled himself from the chair, with more exaggeration at relinquishing such luxury and moved to one of the suitcases. Hefting it to a nearby table, he took a key from his jacket pocket; made a theatrical show of opening both locks, flipped the hasps and made a bowed: “Ta-dahhh!”
Dietersen moved to the suitcase, hefted a plastic bag of white powder and looked back as Fuller returned to his seat and his drink. “This is where I’m supposed to cut a little hole, lick a finger, dip it in and check it out. Right?”
“If you like.”
“No, I don’t like. I’ll like it even less, Bobby, if there’s other white stuff that shouldn’t be.”
“Mr. Dietersen—Kapler—we’ve done business before. You know my connections. Have I ever been unprofessional before?”
“Never had a deal as big as this before, Bobby.”
“You’re starting to hurt my feelings.”
Dietersen moved to the other side of the drinks cabinet, opened a hidden cupboard and took out what appeared to be a Gladstone bag. Hefting it next to the suitcase on the table, he opened it and smiled. Bobby finished his drink, ‘pinged’ the glass with a finger and gave another look of exaggerated hopefulness at Dietersen when he looked over.
“Help yourself,” said Dietersen. When he reached into the Gladstone bag, there was a tinkle of glass vials.
“Great taste in brandy, Kapler.” Fuller poured a full glass. “And women. Any chance of a—you know—return visit from Trudi before we complete our transaction?”
“You just concentrate on the happy chemicals from that brandy bottle. I’ll concentrate on the chemicals from this bag that will tell me whether we can conclude our business—then we’ll see about other arrangements.”
“Businessman, ladies’ man—and a chemist as well, Kapler?”
Dietersen gave a grin like a shark. “I’ve found that having more than one string to my bow has seen me through.”
Fuller was unfazed and confident.
There was a knock at the door.
“Kapler?” It was Trudi.
Enraged, Dietersen’s shark grin had turned into something altogether more ferocious. Spittle flew when he snapped: “I told you! No interruptions until we’re finished in here.”
“Please, Kapler . . .”
“Hey, man. Let her in. I can use some more company.”
“Not until we’re finished!”
The door crashed open, and when Trudi was propelled into the living room to land between Fuller’s legs, there was blood on her back, blood on her face—and the glass-eye doll look of death in her eyes.
“Oh you’re finished all right,” said a voice from the doorway.
NINETEEN
“It’s in there,” Drew said. “I know it’s still in there.”
Cath drew closer to him, peering through the long grass ahead. The ragged aperture in the side of the hill was perfectly camouflaged by the fissuring of rock. It was only when they were almost upon it that it became apparent there was a cave entrance of sorts here—if cave it could be called in this sloping hillside. There was a rope net across that fissure, pegged into the rock and the surrounding grass slope. Cath looked back at Drew and the intensity of his expression. She had refrained from asking any more questions, had struggled to keep up with him as they climbed to their vantage point; scrub and bushes masking the rock and the aperture.
“So what happens now?”
“There’s another entrance, or exit, to the cave there. About sixty or seventy feet around by those bushes. I’ve blocked it—wedged some boarding I had in the back of the Land Rover across it. The net here hasn’t been sprung, and if that boarding is intact around the back, then it must still be in there.”
“What do you mean—if the net hasn’t been sprung?”
“The net’s not fixed. It’s a trap. If anything hits it with any degree of force, either from the outside or the inside, then those clamps do their work. See them there?”
Cath followed his pointing finger and saw the dull glint of mental hasps or stanchion fastenings in the fissured rock around the entrance and in the ground at the base of the cave.
“Those clamps are sprung—the net instantly contracts and wraps around whatever hit it. Then the cat is in the bag! So it hasn’t sprung, which is good. Let’s check the back.”
They made their way around the side of the hill. A wind had begun to rise, ruffling the bushes and gorse. Cath couldn’t shake the feeling that this was somehow nature’s way of saying that they shouldn’t be here. Suddenly, she began to feel ridiculous—less than an hour ago she’d been at home; now here she was on a big-game hunt in the middle of the English countryside. She laughed as they moved, and Drew looked back quizzically.
“Could have used that net on Kapler Dietersen,” she said.
“Don’t think anyone could net something as slippery as that.”
When Drew shoved aside a dense patch of undergrowth and gorse, Cath saw the boarding he had jammed into the rock on the hillside. The gap that it was covering was barely large enough for a Big Cat or a human to squeeze through. She pushed on after him. Drew yanked the boarding out, and as he did so she could hear a dull and hollow echoing from this fissure, like the sound of a deep well—evidence of the cave beyond.
“With the noise we’re making,” Drew said, “if that cat w
as still awake, we’d know about it by now.” He discarded the boarding into the bushes. Cath could feel cold air coming from the gap. Drew pulled a flashlight from his belt, switched it on and leaned forward, shining it inside the gap.
“You got the camera?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going in. You still up for this?”
“Drew?”
“Yes?”
“What if there are other—things—in there? Other Big Cats, I mean. I’m not an expert—like you—but isn’t this a bit like, well, going into the lion’s den?”
“Believe me, if there was another cat in here we’d already know about it.”
“Shouldn’t we be armed, or something . . .”
But it was too late. Drew had already squeezed through the aperture into the darkness.
“Oh God—what on earth am I doing?” hissed Cath. And in the next moment, she squeezed into the darkness after him.
Drew’s beam criss-crossed the darkness, and Cath could see that the cave was not large. They were on an incline here, leading down into the hillside—but already it was possible to see daylight shining in through the entrance on the other side; the criss-cross shadow of the net on the ragged stone and damp earth ahead. There were loose stones and pebbles beneath their feet, and when Drew stumbled and grabbed for a handhold, the torch beam swung crazily. Cath grabbed for his arm, and as he righted himself—they both became aware of the smell.
“Oh God,” Cath said, gagging: “What on earth is that?”
“Big Cat musk,” said Drew. “They have been using this place for a den. I can’t believe it. I was in here—oh, maybe three weeks ago—and they’d never been in here before. But that musk tells me they must have moved in shortly after I’d searched the place.”
“Drew, if there’s a live one in here . . .”
Drew had rounded a ridge of rock and moss and was bathed in daylight from the other entrance. Cath saw the look of frustration and weariness on his face as he switched off the light and jammed it into his belt. He bent double, exhaling—looking like someone who had just finished a sprint.