Night of the Animals

by Bill Broun

  “No worries, Atwell,” she said, trying to sound weary (but not too weary).

  “Well, ma’am, at first I was thinking it’s probably nothing, yeah? But now I think it’s—a something. A potential emergency.”

  “I’m sorry? What?”

  Atwell continued, “I’m parked on the Broad Walk, in the pandaglider, of course—I’m not getting out alone—and several sets of lights have come on at the zoo and—are you sure you’re OK, ma’am? And there’s an occupied autonews glider here, with its dish set up, and at least one solar-frightcopter.”

  “A frightcopter?” said Astrid. “Bloody hell. Probably triggered by the autoreporters. That’s how these things go—lights trigger autonews, autonews triggers Watch, Watch sends up frightcopters, then we beg Watch to go home, and the bastards blame us for everything.” She needed to put a stop to this nonsense. It was rarely good to draw scrutiny from the Watch. You never knew how it would end up—with a demotion, a new title, reclassification, or a Nexar hood, or dinner with the king. “Did you call the night keeper? That’s protocol.”

  “Night keeper, ma’am?”

  “At the zoo, Atwell. There’s this legendary weirdo. He’s in the old Reptile House—name’s Dawkins.” Astrid knew every centimeter of the three thousand hectares in the royal parks, and especially those she was charged with policing—Hyde, Kensington Gardens, and Regent’s. Directional details were a point of pride. She could explain every curve of the Serpentine, or navigate blindfolded through the fifty thousand roses of Queen Mary’s Garden. But the zoo. Now that was a bit of a blank for Astrid. It was part of the royal parks, but not, too. It was in her constabulary’s domain, but not really. The police ignored it. It wasn’t even wholly London, not when she thought about it.

  New Parkies were required to attend zoo crisis drills, but no one took them seriously. Astrid recalled her own training sessions on the zoo several years back when she hired on; and three years ago (through a special arrangement with the Metropolitan Police), she herself had been allowed to help train the keepers to use their neuralzingers, which were kept in a locked case at the security office. The guns were effective against even the largest mammals, but no keeper had ever used one that she recalled.

  Like the Open Air Theatre, the zoo was fenced in and required a fee, and generally, you didn’t worry about it from a policing perspective. Jurisdictionally, it wasn’t parkland, and constables normally would have required explicit permission to enter the zoo, even if in hot pursuit. In fact, the zoo had developed its own security squad, sanctioned by Royal Parks bylaws, and this included an animal recovery team. The team members were all very specialized but very relaxed. One man wore dreadlocks, another a beard as puffy and long as Karl Marx’s. But they knew how to coax a lion, how to calm a zebra, or call to an escaped eagle, and now how to kill one of these animals if necessary.

  Dubbed the AnimalSafe Squad, it was headed by a very tall, passionate man named David Beauchamp. Astrid didn’t particularly like him. Beauchamp didn’t fit in with the others, who could have passed for hemp farmers or festival-following crusties. He talked a great, great deal. And he seemed to have zero respect for the constabulary. Chief Inspector Omotoso described him to Astrid as “self-serving, pompous, manipulative, and hostile.” Omotoso claimed that Beauchamp secretly wanted to see the parks police taken over by the Watch.

  “My team are pros,” he once said to Astrid, his voice entirely gravied-over with a rich, thick condescension. “We take our roles seriously. We’re not some PC Plods force arresting litterers. Not that the RPC is that—of course not.” The not-so-subtle dig at the constabulary was stinging, but Astrid could only wince and get on with work.

  The AnimalSafe Squad had had their firearms training, and they now trained their own. Few in the constabulary seriously contemplated any one of the AnimalSafers ever gunning anything down.

  “Inspector?”

  Astrid stared through the phone box window onto the walk.

  “Inspector, you were saying . . . about the night keeper?”

  “Right, yes, Atwell, let the standard zoo staff—not their security detail, mind you—handle this one. They’ve got their own way of doing things. They’re animal-friendly. And see that the Watch knows we know. They’ll blow up the whole zoo if we don’t stop them.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I think—you with me?—the problem is actually an emergency—of some sort, yeah?” She was sounding exasperated, and Astrid felt her guidance wasn’t proving genius. She said, “The thing is, the second time that I freq’d you, it wasn’t simply the light. It was the bizarre sounds, ma’am.”

  Astrid was genuinely perplexed by Atwell’s alarm.

  “It is a zoo, Atwell, right? I don’t mean to be funny, but . . . and who said it wasn’t an emergency?”

  “I appreciate that, ma’am, but it sounded beyond that—Inspector—I mean, past what a zoo should sound like.” Atwell spoke now in a snappish, annoyed tone.

  “Maybe it’s because it’s the night before the General Election,” Astrid said. “Animals are constitutionally liberal—and the polls don’t look good.”

  Atwell groaned. “Right. Ma’am. Damn it. With respect, and I know it’s not my place, but I feel you’re not taking it seriously. You should. It sounded like murder. Then a man half-dressed came sprinting past the car. He looked crazy, with hair all sticking up, and a head that looked—it looked compressed. He was pounding my window, ma’am, then he ran off, toward Albany Street. He was saying the jackals were loose. He said he was the night watchman but . . . I don’t know . . . for some reason, I didn’t believe him, to be frank, guv. He said there was someone in the zoo. He wanted into the pandaglider, but I wouldn’t do it, ma’am. I wasn’t scared, ma’am. It just didn’t seem advisable, yeah? But, well, I believe we have an incident here that goes beyond my regular training, ma’am.”

  Astrid felt a chill on her neck. She said, “Jackals loose—that’s new.” No wonder the autonews was on the prowl. “Stone the crows. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you off, Jasmine, but you can surely understand . . . this is all . . . it’s just . . . never before, not in my time.” She scratched her nose. “What did the man look like? I’ve met the night watchman—he’s the night keeper, too—Dawkins. Odd fellow. He’s quite a fat biffa.”

  There was a pause. “This man wasn’t fat at all, ma’am. He was a string bean.” Atwell didn’t say anything for a moment. “I don’t know now. I’m actually hearing something new now. I’m staying where I am, ma’am. Something’s making a terrible row over the fence, ma’am. You know—GBH of the earhole,* yeah? It sounds like a thousand jackals. I’ve not seen one, however. But ma’am, I don’t know what a bleeding jackal looks like anyway.”

  “I’m sure they’re all bark,” said Astrid. It still seemed likely that some drunk or Flōter sleeping rough in Regent’s had spotted Atwell patrolling by herself and decided to lark about. Atwell was an attractive young woman, second-generation English (her mother and father were from New British Guyana’s modest middle class, a schoolteacher and a chemist, respectively), with lovely very dark green eyes and dark, clear skin the color of burnt honey. No doubt such a man would enjoy any sort of attention she would deign to offer him.

  “There’s one other thing, ma’am,” said Atwell. “The man said his mother was still in the zoo. His mother! That took the prize, Inspector. Honestly, I felt nearly desperate. I wanted to open the glider—I felt desperate to—but I would have been defenseless, yeah?”

  Astrid turned with a jerk of annoyance in the old phone booth, and noticed that old Tom was standing next to her, looking sad and concerned. He must have followed her from the meeting. Astrid felt embarrassed.

  “Atwell, I’ll come down, OK? I’m certain you’ve been had is all, and if it’s not that, it’s nothing to worry about. You’re on the Broad Walk?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But ma’am, I think something is actually wrong. I have a feeling this is rather serious, ma’am.”


  At the best of times, certain young probationers occasionally got on Astrid’s Flōt-frazzled nerves, but she found herself now feeling an ugly, confusing irritation toward Atwell, and she hated it.

  “Well, perhaps,” said Astrid. “I’ve got some feelings, too, PC. We’ve had—what?—a dozen ‘spectacular nothing’ alarms at night this week? Right. Of course something’s wrong, of course it’s possibly serious . . . Jasmine. I’m afraid I’m sounding condescending, PC. Sorry. But stay there. I’ll take a cab. Give me twenty-five minutes or so.” She looked at Tom directly and raised her eyebrows. She pointed at her eyes to indicate she was on an Opticall. She shook her head, as if she were talking to an insane person. “Make that thirty.”

  “Good, Inspector. Thank you, Inspector. And Inspector?”

  “Yes?”

  “Should I make sure the chief inspector is aware of all this?”

  “Oh, no. Let Omotoso sleep.”

  There was a pause. She said, “Are you quite sure I shouldn’t at least notify the zoo’s security team? Mr. Beauchamp and all?”

  Astrid shook her head. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, no, Atwell. Not Beauchamp, no. I’d like to assess things, with you, before we proceed.”

  “Right, ma’am. Number thirty-two out.”

  Astrid blinked off, and turned toward her fellow FA member.

  “Oh, Tom, I’m sorry I didn’t clean up the tea,” said Astrid. “I’m having some troubles, Tom. Work. It’s this orange-freq, see?” She pointed to her eyes. “I’ve been a right cunt with my colleague.”

  Tom gazed at her eyes carefully and frowned, then looked into them anew, scrutinizing. “That’s a demeaning expression. It only degrades you.” Gone was the tobacco-scrounging farter; arrived was the Dominican brother who had slept with London’s dead.

  “Who cares about cleaning up tea? Are you all right, Astrid? I’m worried about you.”

  “I’m all right, Tom, really. I won’t drink. I promise.”

  The tightened skin around Tom’s eyes and mouth slackened a bit. He said, “I didn’t mean to be offensive, at the meeting and all. I’m just a grubby street Flōter, Astrid. That’s my bottom line.”

  “No, Tom, you’re all right.”

  “We don’t want to lose you, love.”

  Tom scratched his neck, where he had a sort of soft-whiskered dewlap. “I’ve never seen you walk out of a meeting. We’re just teasing you a bit, you know. This isn’t some King’s Road meeting. We’re on the front lines. It don’t make us better or worse, but we’re what we are, aren’t we?” He looked down. A loud group of young West Ham United supporters, fresh-shaved and dressed in ironed vintage Ben Shermans, reeking of bergamot cologne, came storming around a building at the corner, across the street.

  “Astrid, the pool—in Highbury. Didn’t I say you would feel better if you swam? It’s how I made it past second withdrawal. I’d see liquid ghosts, shining in the water beside me—water angels.” Tom had been the one who’d turned her on to swimming.

  “Oh, I wish I could. You don’t know how badly.” It was true. In the pool at Highbury, she would melt away and still be herself, sort of, and sort of not, a creature not quite of the water and not quite terrestrial—and transcendently powerful. Whatever the sensations of Flōting and withdrawal were, swimming was their opposite.

  The group of louts headed toward the stairway that led up to the railway platforms with angular panels of frosted glass and steel supports; they were slapping each other and jumping and laughing, like a pack of plump, pink terriers yanking against their leash to get out the door. They were off to what was left of the West End club scene. Tom began watching them quizzically.

  “I’m not like those lot,” said Tom, pointing at the jack-the-lads. “And you’re not, either. We’re weaker than that. And that’s what makes us able to survive.” He seemed abstracted for a moment. “I don’t want to ‘take your inventory,’” he said, referring to an FA phrase meaning, roughly, unbidden moral examination, “but, Astrid, I think you’re close, you’re too close, to the Flōt again.”

  Astrid winced at Tom’s words. They seemed bottomless in their paternalism—and she couldn’t get beyond that.

  “Oh, piss off!” she said. “You old fucking sot.”

  There were DLR passengers coming down the steps now, and a few slowed down and glanced at Astrid. Rather than looking embarrassed or hurt, Tom appeared interested. He smiled gently. “I’m sorry, Astrid. I’ve put a spanner in the works all right.” He backed away even more, giving Astrid a full two or three meters of breathing space. “Let it out, Astrid, let it out. This is good.”

  Astrid said, almost spitting, “I’ve got work to do.”

  Tom rubbed his hands together. He gave a tight, overwrought smile of sympathy, showing his dark teeth. He said, “Yes, but let’s talk later, right?”

  Astrid said nothing, and Tom turned away. Tom’s smile had collapsed, and he hunched over as he walked in a way Astrid had never seen before.

  Tom stopped across the street, and with a nervous grin shouted an FA slogan: “Don’t leave five minutes before the miracle!”

  Astrid frowned and stood there. She had heard the expression for eleven years. But it wasn’t enough any longer. “Where’s my miracle?” she asked herself. She felt as if she wanted to smash herself in the face.

  The sky was slightly darker on this older side of London, despite the old skyscrapers and glimmering wine bars above the Thames’s water-condos, and you could see a few stars. The comet was supposed to be quite visible in the wee hours of the night, Astrid had heard. She wouldn’t mind seeing it, not at all. It wouldn’t be coming back, after all, until the forty-fourth century A.D., it was said, and by then England might be gone.

  After a few seconds, she saw, to the east, a white splotch with a kind of smear beside it, but it didn’t impress her much, such was the city’s light pollution. Very strange, thought Astrid, if that’s it—like a celestial mistake. It was as if an old pencil rubber had been taken to a dark, glossy magazine page in a careless way, leaving a straggling blemish. Nothing special there, she thought. Maybe you had to be somewhere else in the world to see the comet truly, somewhere like California.

  Astrid stayed where she was for a while, feeling righteous and cold and drowning in anger. She watched Tom walk across the street to a Tesco mini-grocery that had a few petrol pumps out front. Through the windows she could see Tom grab a blue handbasket and go to the little produce section. Tom lifted up a bunch of bananas and put them into his basket. A dark-haired store clerk who was arranging cantaloupes started pointing at Tom and telling him something and Tom looked befuddled. The clerk looked irate. Is this what happens? Astrid wondered. You stay sober for years and end up not being able to manage bananas? She did not want this life any longer.

  She said aloud, “Tom, I am sorry, Tom.”

  six

  uniformity and its comforts

  ASTRID SCAMPERED UP THE WHITE, REINFORCED cement stairs of her building. She owned an older ex-council flat in Haggerston, on a little street between the Regent’s Canal and a pocket park.

  She wanted to put her kit on before venturing to the zoo, and Haggerston was more or less on the way west from the Isle of Dogs. Even if the constabulary’s responsibility code let her wear civvies for off-hours emergencies, she took comfort in the potent ornaments of the uniform. She scrabbled the locks open, pushed the door wide, and flipped on a powerful, standing twin-uplighter. She had nipped a couple three-boson color-charge bulbs into the lamp—Astrid liked things very bright. She felt safe in the bland room, a kind of safety she would rarely allow any guest to invade; even her closest friends in FA were kept away from her flat.

  Astrid ran into her bedroom, the site of so much sexual frustration and insomnia, and didn’t bother closing the flat’s main door. Her bed, with its duvet cover and pillowcases of multicolored harlequin diamonds, was made as tidily and tight as a birthday box.

  A private taxiglider, or cabcab, as they were call
ed, was still idling outside with its “path-manager” onboard. (Path-managers usually controlled several satellite cabcabs at once while driving “control” cabcabs themselves capable of transporting passengers.)

  Astrid’s bedroom, crassly lit, also reeking of paint solvents, possessed none of the contemporary furniture of the sitting room. There was the old pine double bed with large blond posts and a battered oak dresser she’d had since she was fifteen. On the dresser was a small shrine of fotolives of her mum, mostly as a child, and her old five-decade rosary, curled and dead as a crushed snake. She picked it up, rubbed a pearl a few times, and slipped it into her pocket.

  She opened her closet to a neat array of pressed, white regulation shirts, each still in its plastic sleeve from the cleaner’s. She chose one randomly and carefully slipped the shirt out of the plastic protector. I’m going too slow, she said to herself. Too slow! She began to strip as fast as she could then, kicking her shoes and trousers off, hopping around on one leg. She changed into a more comfortable, M&S “living support” bra (its cultured bio-fibers gently tightened with exertion or softened with rest). She jerked her police uniform on in less than a minute and gave herself a quick look. She often felt vulnerable before the mirror, but not now. She raised her heavy, dark brows and smiled sympathetically, as if trying to encourage someone trying something new without a hope of pulling it off.

  Shoes! She sat on her bed and tugged on an old but still polished pair of black service shoes. She brushed a few filaments of lint off her black trousers. She set her women’s police trilby on her head and then took it off—being an inspector gave her the privilege of not needing to wear it. She brushed her long black hair and put it back in its tie. Then she put her silly trilby back on, feeling a fool. During regular hours, outside the office she was supposed to wear a protective vest with Kevlar4 inserts, but like other officers, she kept hers at the “ranch,” which is what her colleagues called the RPC police station in Old Police House at Hyde Park. She put on a slick black jacket and stood at attention.