by Jo McCready
RJ didn’t argue. She had stumbled as they made their way through immigration, just slightly, but she knew Stuart had seen it.
“And RJ—”
She looked up to meet his eyes.
“I’ll be driving when you bring the car around. You need the rest. Buchanan isn’t a man to be messed with.”
Chapter 27
When they arrived at the zoo, it wasn’t at all what RJ had been expecting. She hadn’t consciously thought about it, but she had expected some kind of run-down, depressing, unkempt facility, not the bright, clean, vibrant business they pulled into. Raised beds of flowers in every color of the rainbow bowed in a pleasant breeze as they got out of the car. There was barely a space left in the giant car park, but an efficient parking attendant showed them the way to a place for their car. They squeezed out of the vehicle, unable to open the doors properly due to so many cars being crammed into the space.
“I think perhaps you’d better stay here,” she told Stuart diplomatically as he opened his door and twisted his way out of the vehicle.
“Right you are. Sorry, I completely forgot.” He touched his rough face and a dry crusty flake fell to the ground. Squeezing back into the car, he opened the windows to provide some cross breeze and took out his phone. “Call me if you need me,” he told her over his shoulder, but she was already gone.
RJ walked down the pathway that sat in the middle of the car park, amongst chattering children and tired parents. A sudden roar came from the depths of the zoo, making some of the children gasp, while others shrieked in fright or laughed in delight, their expressions mirrored on their parent’s faces. Many of the children and adults wore lanyards around their necks. If RJ had been able to read the language, she was certain it would read ‘annual pass’ or something similar. Business appeared to be booming.
There were queues at four ticket windows and an office to the right. This was where she had been instructed to go. She gave her name to the receptionist and sat down. It seemed zoo computer networks weren’t as secure as they could be, or this one’s wasn’t. Not that it would have made much difference. She was quite sure the hackers-slash-computer systems experts at Kingfisher would have been able to get in anywhere. As it was, it had been relatively simple for them to sneak in the back door and insert an appointment for her with the director of the zoo, just after Buchanan’s. It was no error that she’d arrived before him.
The receptionist frowned at her screen, then looked up at RJ before frowning down at her screen again. “Miss—”
“Oh, yes, I know I’m early.” RJ waved her hand dismissively.
The woman looked at her in puzzlement. After a second of rummaging about in her desk, she beckoned RJ over and tried to give her a pass, pointing out the door and tapping her watch.
RJ smiled and shook her head, holding up her hands. She pointed back to her seat and took out her phone. The receptionist shrugged and smiled, sitting back down.
RJ scrolled through her phone and tried to look busy.
The receptionist clicked away on her keyboard until a bulky shadow crossed the doorway. Buchanan strolled in and greeted her with a smile and his name. The receptionist smiled back and directed him to a seat. As he sat down across from her, RJ looked up. They politely acknowledged each other.
In his three-piece suit, he looked like any other respectable businessman—or even an academic. RJ, on the other hand, was dressed in gray trousers and a short-sleeved beige shirt with Winchester Animal Park embroidered on the pocket. The efficiency of the organization in making arrangements and sourcing clothing never ceased to amaze her. She’d found it waiting for her in the room when they went to check in.
“Winchester. English, eh?” Buchanan asked, nodding towards her shirt, his double chin leaning on his collar.
“Why, yes,” she replied in a faux English accent that she felt sure he would see right through. “And you?”
“Scotland. Got a park in need of some big cats. Perfect weather for them just now,” he joked. “They’d be right at home.”
“Forgive me for saying, but your accent is very light.”
“Went to boarding school, then uni down in England, traveled the world some before going back to the family home. I can’t quite place yours, either.”
“No? We moved around a lot when I was younger,” RJ replied but Buchanan had already lost interest. He balanced an argyle-covered ankle on his opposite knee and relaxed back in his chair before checking his watch. His appointment was running late.
A door opened further down the corridor and two men came striding up. “Thank you for that, Günter,” said the elder, shaking the younger man’s hand. “It certainly is something to consider.” The young man had no clue as to what RJ saw as obvious—whatever he had asked for was never going to be granted, not in a million years. The men said their goodbyes and the elder turned to the receptionist, who spoke quietly to him in their own language.
When he turned back around to face them, he had a huge fake smile plastered on his face “Ah, Mr. Buchanan, how very nice to meet you. Won’t you come on through?”
Buchanan stood to shake his hand, and as he did, RJ also stood. Buchanan stopped mid-shake and looked at her in confusion.
“Mr. Petrov, Riley Black from Winchester Animal Park. I see you’re running late and wonder if I might make a suggestion.”
Petrov looked at her in curiosity. Buchanan’s expression was quickly turning to one of suppressed anger.
“It seems both myself and Mr. Buchanan are here with the same business in mind. Perhaps we should combine the meetings? Save us all some time. After all, we’re all here for the same purpose. For the benefit of the animals.”
Petrov directed a bright and toothy smile towards her. “A splendid idea. That is, if you have no objections, Mr. Buchanan?” He raised his eyebrows in question.
Buchanan had little choice but to agree. His tight-lipped smile and the daggers in his eyes, however, told a different story.
Once they were in the director’s office, he pulled a plastic chair over to join the leather chair in front of his desk. RJ chose the leather and pulled it closer to the desk, putting Buchanan at a disadvantage before he even sat down.
“I understand you have some cats that require new homes,” RJ started as soon as their bottoms hit the chairs, keen to gain the upper hand in the conversation, as well as the position in the room.
“Yes, yes, we do.” Petrov looked down at the papers in front of him. “Miss Black, would you tell me a bit about your establishment? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with it.”
“Certainly.” RJ smiled her most charming smile. “We’re a rather new park. Just three years old.” She rattled off the facts supplied to her from the newly set-up webpage that someone at Kingfisher had managed to rattle up in the last twenty-four hours. “My husband and I set it up together. The aim of our park is education. It’s all about inspiring young people about nature and the best ways we can look after the valuable resource that is our planet. As such, I’m sure you can understand that we need some way to pull people in, attract attention to our park. We’ve invested heavily in our big cat section. It was important for us to get it right before we started sourcing animals. We’ve just recently finished, hence why I’m here.”
She looked at Buchanan.
“And Mr. Buchanan, you’ve already explained about your safari park when we spoke on the phone,” Petrov offered.
“Safari park? Are you planning on letting them roam, Mr. Buchanan?” she asked him, watching to gauge his reaction to the idea.
Without missing a beat, Buchanan answered, “Not roam, my dear. A select few of our animals are held in larger enclosures. We also have an area where people can visit our animals in carefully built habitats.” He directed his attention to Petrov again. “I have the plans here, if you’d like to look.” He shook the document holder in Petrov’s direction. Petrov smiled indulgently, and Buchanan, keen to impress, unscrewed the lid with a flourish. He rolled o
ut the plans on the desk in front of them.
RJ could see Petrov was immediately impressed. He took in the ponds and the waterfalls, the native trees, hidey holes in a faux rock face, and natural stimulations of every kind imaginable. “The space that you must have to do something of this size and scope, Mr. Buchanan. I must say, these are inspiring. Who did you have design these for you?”
“I did them myself, Mr. Petrov. I’ve been refining these ideas for years. These animals only deserve the best. I aim to give it to them.”
RJ wondered if she’d have been able to see through Buchanan’s act if she didn’t already know what a power-hungry, ruthless liar he was. The plans were a nice touch. No doubt he had different plans drawn up for each type of cat and other animals—designs that were so well-suited to each animal that they couldn’t fail to impress a zoo looking to rehome its animals.
Petrov looked up from the plans and smiled at each of them. “As you know, our leopard Kano gave birth eighteen months ago to five healthy cubs—very unusual and very lucky for us. A great example of the work we do at this zoo.” His chest puffed out with pride. “We are due to exchange one for another in Australia to give us diversity in our breeding program; another is already earmarked for another zoo, which means we have three left.” He made a few clicks on his computer and turned the screen to show them a live video feed of the cubs currently in their sleeping pen, climbing all over each other, biting, clawing and doing just about everything but sleep.
“They look remarkably healthy. Beautiful animals. I can take two off your hands,” Buchanan stated. “As you can see from my plans, I have two enclosures side by side. Once the cubs are ready to be separated, I can give them the space that they need.”
“It’s highly unusual that we send two to the same facility,” Petrov said, frowning slightly.
“Do any other facilities have habitats as impressive as this one?” Buchanan asked.
RJ figured Buchanan possessed the same knowledge Kingfisher had passed onto her. Petrov had been trying, unsuccessfully, since the cubs were born, to find suitable new homes for them all. They were nearing the age where they needed to be separated from their mother and Petrov had neither the space nor the resources to keep them at their current home.
Petrov rubbed his chin and looked at Buchanan’s designs again.
“Mr. Petrov?” RJ tentatively stuck her finger in the air to get his attention.
He looked up and blinked, as if he’d forgotten she was in the room.
“My park specializes in big cats. I can assure you of no better home for Kano’s offspring. We’ll take all three and provide a generous donation to your zoo.”
Buchanan stared at her, his face flushed red. “Now, hang on there a minute.”
“How generous?” asked Petrov.
Running a zoo was an expensive business, even one as popular as this one. RJ wagered on the assumption that animal welfare was a top priority for Petrov, but money was a close second. She set her jaw, and watching Buchanan in her periphery vision, focused her gaze on Petrov. “One hundred thousand pounds.”
She saw him do a quick calculation in his head as Buchanan tried to pick his jaw up from the floor.
“You have a deal, Miss Black,” Petrov told her with a self-satisfied smile.
“Fantastic, I’ll be in touch to make the arrangements.” She stood, shook his hand, nodded curtly to Buchanan and walked out the door.
She didn’t get far across the car park before Buchanan caught up with her. His meaty hand grabbed her shoulder and forced her to turn to face him.
“Just what do you think you’re playing at?” he blustered, almost spitting on her in his anger. “We could both have gotten animals there. You didn’t have to go and pull the rug from under me like that. Winchester Animal Park? There’s no such place. I know every animal park in the UK. What’s your game here?”
“No, there isn’t a Winchester Animal Park, but I’d do anything to make sure you didn’t get your grubby little paws on those leopard cubs or any other animals.”
Buchanan’s face was scarlet with rage. RJ flicked a glance over his shoulder as Stuart approached. Luckily, Buchanan was too worked up to notice, and within in a second, Stuart plunged a syringe in Buchanan’s neck.
Chapter 28
A large crate arrived in front of the home of the Metropolitan Police—ironically called, in this case, New Scotland Yard—in the early hours of the morning two days after RJ’s trip to the zoo. A forklift delivered the crate, then disappeared inside the bowels of a nondescript white truck that casually made its way through the streets of London. No record of the truck was ever found. Somehow, any CCTV in the vicinity malfunctioned and started to replay an image showing one hour previously. Only those watching extremely carefully would have noticed, but with banks of screens to watch, no one noticed anything on the cold and foggy morning after the heatwave had finally blown over. It would have been preferable to drop the crate off at the Headquarters of Police Scotland at Tulliallan, but it was far easier to disappear in London. The MET would soon transfer the contents. An added bonus was the publicity the London drop-off would generate.
The unusual object soon caught the attention of passersby and of the occupants in New Scotland Yard, who cautiously came out to investigate. The air holes caused much conjecture as to its contents, but, all in all, everyone who saw it was completely puzzled as to what it was and how it had managed to arrive undetected.
They cordoned the area off to keep the public at bay before visually examining the exterior of the crate, careful not to get too close. What they found was a large black stamp on all sides detailing the contents to be a dangerous animal. No documentation was attached and no sounds came from the crate.
The bomb squad was called to investigate further, and the cordons were pushed back as a remote robot slowly approached the wooden box and gently inserted a small camera into one of the holes on the north side.
A crowd of police personnel gathered around the handheld computer that the operator held. The camera swiveled round to give a better view of the interior. “Is that . . . is that human?”
“Looks to be,” replied another of the bomb officers as he squinted at the image. He took off his glasses to check that his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him, then put them back on.
“Dead?”
“Unable to tell.”
The camera was taken out and reinserted in various holes to ensure that there were no hidden bombs or booby traps. Once it was decided that the crate was safe, an officer was sent off to find a crow bar. The same officer had the luck to lever open the lid, knowing what he would find but at the same time completely oblivious to whom the box contained.
A doctor stood by and leaned in as soon as the top was off. He checked the occupant’s pulse, which was beating strongly, and motioned to the crime-scene photographers to step in quickly before an ambulance took the man away, although not before a member of the forensics team removed the manila envelope that had been pinned to front of the unconscious man’s shirt.
The contents of the envelope detailed who the man was, his crimes, and the contact details of a Fiscal Alexander Dunn who should be called upon to provide evidence in the man’s illegal activities. A letter at the back of the substantial information pack gave the name of a previously unknown animal rights organization—Animal Solidarity Society or ASS for short—as the senders of the data and the rest of the contents of the crate.
A document in the pack stated that the crate was identical to the ones Buchanan used to ship his animals, from the straw on the floor and the air holes on all sides, to the water that was supplied, and the drug used to induce sleep and make for easy transportation. This information was phoned through to the hospital as soon as it was found, but by that time, the man had woken up groggy and was demanding to speak to his lawyer.
The police stationed outside his door relayed the information back to their superiors, who agreed that the man should speak to his lawyer a
nd that he would need a damn good one to get out of the fix he was in. They all agreed that even the best lawyer in the country wouldn’t be able to get him out of it. The man was sure to go to prison for a long time.
No information could be found on the elusive Animal Solidarity Society. A single recent graduate from the Police College was assigned to the task. He found little, other than a very generic website that contained only one page—a page that summarized the crimes Buchanan had committed. The website could not be traced, which seemed unusual for such a simply designed site. The new recruit didn’t give it much thought, and soon he was reassigned to help crack a terrorist plot to blow up the offices of BBC Scotland. One lone officer had investigated the society for less than five hours. Far more resources had been used to investigate the crimes laid out in the package the society had provided.
#
At the exact same time that the crate was delivered, a small bundle of black crawled out from a cave on an estate in Scotland and opened its sleep-shut eyes against the rising sun of the morning. It looked back and mewled. Another bundle, identical to the first, wobbled out on shaky legs. A rabbit took fright at the sudden noise, shooting out from behind a fragrant gorse bush, and the cubs gave chase. The rabbit was far too quick and darted this way and that before finding a hole and plunging down into the safe dark of the burrow below.
The little black cats came up short at the hole, far too big to follow the rabbit down. The first swatted his paw ineffectually inside the hole; his brother caught sight of another rabbit and went after it. The first soon followed. It was days later before they made their first kill. They tore at it and ate the meat, ravenously, fighting over the last few pieces. A day later, they caught another and the next day another still. As they got better at the hunt, they got bigger in size.
#
RJ was glad she had been on a plane flying home across the Atlantic when the crate was discovered and consequently reported in the press. She hoped it would give her uncle and the others at Kingfisher time to calm down and view the situation logically. No such luck. There were twelve messages waiting for her when the plane touched down and she turned her phone on. She didn’t bother listening to the messages, but a text came through, ordering her to go straight to HQ and Benjamin’s office when she arrived.