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.”
“Mmm,” said Roberta Woolton, “I had intended this to be a quick call.”
They laughed. Roberta finished first.
“Now listen, darling, I’m afraid there’s a bit of a howdye-do... Yes, of course about the blasted pyramid! What else? Those philistines on the council are stamping their feet on this one, and my influence over my husband only goes so far.”
Chad listened with mounting horror as Roberta related the latest preposterous proviso those iconoclastic shitwits wanted to impose.
“Warning tape? Black and yellow warning tape! All over my lovely pyramid?”
“There are health and safety concerns, my darling. In certain conditions, the thing is invisible. How many pigeons have broken their necks on it now?”
“Umm...” Chad thought about the rag in his pocket. He’d just finished wiping off the smear of the latest casualty.
“And there are times of day when the sun bounces off it. It’s utterly blinding, darling. It’s a hazard to motorists... Chad? Are you listening?”
“Umm... Hold on a second.”
Chad edged around the base of the pyramid. A thud had distracted him from Roberta’s ranting. Probably another bloody pigeon come headlong into its doom. Perhaps he should collect all the corpses and make a companion piece: a pyramid of dead pigeons showing how beauty dies for art... Or something...
Chad was inspired and was already filling out the lottery grant application in his head when he noticed a shadow at the farthest side. Too large to be a pigeon - too large to be a man, come to think of it.
“I say!” he called out, striding around the corner.
“Chad?” Roberta’s voice issued from the device in his hand.
“You there! You can’t be on here.”
“Chad?”
“Oh, no! Oh, fuck, no!”
“Chad?!”
But all Roberta Woolton could hear was the scream of the artist, suddenly curtailed. There followed a spine-chilling gurgle and the sound of something heavy hitting the ground.
“Chad? CHAD?!
”
Chad’s phone landed several feet from his body. Now all there was in Roberta’s ear was the dull rumble of traffic and the occasional car horn as yet another blinded motorist veered across the lanes.
Chapter Nine
To say that the motorists approaching Dedley from the south were inconvenienced would be an understatement. The tailback of traffic extended for miles - almost to Stourbridge. The intersection was closed to all comers. The police barricaded the routes leading to the traffic island, which was now a crime scene.
It was Roberta Woolton who alerted the emergency services, summoning everyone but the coast guard. Something had happened to Chad Roe, she told them, but being a couple of miles away in the student halls of residence when it happened, she didn’t quite know what.
It did not take the police long to establish that the late artist was the latest victim of the maniac the papers had dubbed the Zorilla Killer.
Brough and Miller arrived at the scene, dazzled by camera flashes rebounding off the glass, recording as evidence the spatter of scarlet that had sprayed from Chad Roe’s gizzard.
“Talk about putting one’s lifeblood into your work,” said Brough.
“You’re not funny,” said Miller. “And I thought you was into all this...” she gestured at the pyramid.
“What, Miller? Municipal kitsch? Glassware? Egyptology?”
“Modern art.”
“Well, I am if it’s good. This - this is just rubbish. And a hazard to motorists.”
“Says the eternal passenger.”
The SOCO approached from around a corner. In his all-white coverall he looked like a low-budget alien emerging from its craft.
“We must stop meeting like this,” he laughed.
“I suppose we will eventually,” said Brough. “Either when we’ve caught the bastard or when the town runs out of people for him to murder.”
“Are we certain it’s the same bastard?” said Miller. “And not just an art critic making a point?”
The men ignored her.
“Same three wounds,” said the SOCO. “I’d bet they’re all inflicted simultaneously. One slash. One powerful slash.”
“And what might he be using?”
The SOCO pulled a face but the expression was lost behind the mask over his nose and mouth. “Something with three blades...”
“Like what?”
“Not claws then?” said Miller.
The men stared at her.
“Well,” she continued, “I thought, what with the fur found at every scene - Have you found any here?”
“As a matter of fact, we have. It’ll take the lab to confirm it’s the same type of fur as last time but I’d wager it is.”
Miller nodded. A little put out, Brough cleared his throat.
“And are we any closer to establishing the source of the fur? What kind of animal it comes from.”
“You need to check your messages, mate,” said the SOCO. “Lab delivered their results yesterday. It’s bear.”
“Bear?” said Miller. She and Brough exchanged glances.
“You’re not saying there’s a bear - an actual bear - going around slashing people’s throats because of the letter zed?”
“Eh?” said the SOCO. Enough of his face was visible for them to see his eyebrows dipping. “Zed?”
“He’s right, sir,” Miller looked around. “There’s no zeds here. Just a pyramid.”
Brough’s mind raced. His eyes darted in all directions and he chewed his lower lip as he paced. Suddenly, he stopped.
“Ziggurat!” he cried.
“No, thanks,” said Miller. “I don’t smoke.”
***
The gift shop at Dedley Zoo stocked plush versions of most of its popular animal attractions. For twenty quid you could get a floppy-necked giraffe or a bendy-armed chimpanzee or even a lemur shaped like a neck pillow. But there were no zorillas to be had. Not even for ready cash.
“Could you check out the back?” pleaded D C Pattimore, flashing his i.d.
Behind the counter, a woman whose name badge revealed she was called Babs puckered her mouth. “No point, is there?” she said. “They haven’t come in yet. I should know; I did the order. We have got these, though. Can’t shift them.”
She reached under the counter and plonked a heavy mass of fake fur, felt and googly eyes before the startled detectives.
“Fuck is that?” said Stevens, staring.
“A wombat?” ventured Pattimore.
“No, love,” said Babs. “It’s a capybara. Rodent from South America or somewhere.”
“So it’s a big rat. So fucking what?”
Babs ignored the one with the outdated moustache and directed her words to the younger, prettier one. “I can do you two of these for a fiver.”
Pattimore peered at the thing from a range of angles. He picked it up as though to guess its weight. “Just the one’ll do. Don’t suppose you’ve got any dye or paints or something?”
The puckered mouth put in another appearance. “Can do you some face paints. The kiddies like to go home looking like tigers or ladybirds.”
She placed a brightly-coloured box of brightly-coloured paints on the counter.
“The paints and the rat, six knicker.”
Stevens presented his i.d. “Official police business, love.”
Babs stood her ground. They had reached a standoff.
At last Pattimore capitulated and pulled out his wallet. “I’ll need a receipt,” he muttered.
“Of course, chick.”
Babs rang up the sale. “Bag?” she asked.
“You can say that again,” sneered Stevens.
The detectives returned to Stevens’s Ford Capri. To the car owner’s annoyance, Pattimore displayed their purchases on the bonnet.
“Mind the fucking paintwork!”
“Paint work is exactly what we’m doing. Or at least I am. I got a GCSE in Art. I’ll try to make this capy-whatsit look more like a zorilla while you go and get the pheromones.”
“And how do you propose I do that, Michael fucking Angelo?”
Pattimore laughed. “I don’t expect you to actually go ferreting around its arse. Ask the head keeper. He wants us to find the bastard animal, doesn’t he?”
Stevens sniffed. He had to remind himself who was the constable and who was the inspector in this partnership.
He sloped off to see the head keeper.
“Just been on the blower to your lot,” Stevens was informed.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes,” said the head keeper. “Had to assure them all of our bears are present and accounted for. You don’t know what that’s all about, do you? Bears?”
“Not a fucking clue, mate. Now, a bottle of your finest ferret fanny juice, if you please.”
The head keeper gaped, aghast.
“Or a jar,” Stevens shrugged. “I’m not fussy.”
***
Roberta Woolton was brought down to Serious to give a witness statement. Chief Inspector Wheeler insisted on conducting the interview herself, out of courtesy for the witness’s standing in the community. Sometimes you have to butter these people up if you want to keep earning your daily bread.
Calmly, some might say coldly, the ear-witness went through the conversation she’d had with Chad Roe and tried her hardest to describe the sounds she had heard.
“You hung up?” said Wheeler.
“Well, I had to, so I could call the police,” said Roberta, nettled by the question.
“Suppose,” said Wheeler. “Are you sure that’s everything? Would you like to go through it again?”
“Oh God, no,” said Roberta. “What I would like is to go home - well, go to the office, and go about my busin
ess. Why would anyone want to kill Chad?”
“That’s what we’m trying to find out,” said Wheeler. “Can you tell us anything else about him?”
“Such as?”
“Such as, how you came to know him?”
“Well, he applied for a lottery grant. I’d seen his work in the Sunday supplements, of course, like everyone.”
“Um,” said Wheeler.
“The committee was unanimous. I’d never seen them come to a decision so quickly. To have an original Roe right here in Dedley! It could only be good for the town.”
“Committee?”
“The local lottery. I am the chair.”
“I don’t care if you’m the fucking sideboard,” Wheeler muttered. “And so everyone on this committee agreed about the - what do you call it? - sculpture?”
“Yes. It was the borough council who tried to put a spanner in the works. Why?”
“Oh,” Wheeler’s head bobbed from side to side. “Just thinking... Anyone who might have objected...”
Roberta laughed bitterly. “I don’t think any of those old dodderers on the council would be capable of murder, Chief Inspector. It’s ludicrous.”
“Isn’t your husband a bigwig on the council? King of the old dodderers?”
Roberta bristled. “My husband keeps that council ticking over. I was able to quell any dissension - using my influence on my husband, I mean.”
Wheeler’s nose wrinkled. “Is that kosher?”
“I’m not Jewish.”
“Wheels within wheels, Chief Inspector. It’s how things get done in a town like this. In fact, it’s what makes the world go around. And I am very good at getting what I want.”
Wheeler smiled. The kind of smile you might find on a snake that has realised its jaws could distend wide enough to accommodate you.
“You’m going back to the safe house, chick. Where we can keep an eye on you. For your protection, of course.”
Roberta reddened. “This is preposterous! You can’t keep me locked up - I have done nothing. None of us has.”
“Then tell us everything you know and we can catch the bugger all the quicker, can’t we?”
“I’ve told you everything.”
Zorilla At Large! Page 7