by Ruby Loren
Contents
Penguins and Mortal Peril
Copyright © 2017 Ruby Loren
British Writer
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PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EPILOGUE
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The Silence of the Snakes
PROLOGUE
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Penguins
and
Mortal Peril
Ruby Loren
Copyright © 2017 Ruby Loren
All rights reserved.
Please note, this book is written in British English and contains British spellings.
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More Books in the series:
The Silence of the Snakes
Murder is a Monkey's Game
Lions and the Living Dead
The Peacock's Poison
PROLOGUE
The penguin enclosure was silent with the exception of a few of the younger ones getting chatty. The man in the enclosure raised a hammer and tapped away at a nail, fixing down a loose piece of board on the roof of the penguins’ lodge. His mid-length, brown hair brushed his shoulders and curled up when he wiped a hand across his sweating forehead. The hole in the roof was hardly a priority. It was mid-July, but he was their keeper and he hated to think of them getting cold and wet in one of the summer storms that seemed to strike every few days in the South East of England. His dark green uniform was already faded from the amount of time he spent in the sun and his skin was tanned dark, accenting the carefree, surfer look that advancing age was only just beginning to tire.
The other keepers at the relatively small zoo had already gone home for the day. The zoo had officially closed almost three hours ago. Aquatic animals keeper and enthusiast, Ray Myers, was filling his time with little odd jobs, waiting for his helper to come. Then he could get started on the real reason he was working late that evening.
Penguins were brilliant creatures, but they were also pains in the butt, he reflected, thinking about the giant hole he’d found in the side of the pool. It didn’t help that the pool hadn’t been maintained as well as it should have been over the years. The penguins must have discovered a small weakness and made it bigger, the ancient fibreglass not proving much of an obstacle. Now he had some serious repair work on his hands that he hoped he’d manage to complete before the daylight faded.
He’d just finished testing his roof repairs when he heard the gate to the enclosure swing open. Ray winced, mentally adding the hideous shriek of the un-oiled hinges to his list of things to fix. He shook his head. Sometimes he thought he spent more time working as an odd job man than a zookeeper.
“Glad you made it. It’ll be great having someone to pass me things. Slightly lessens the chance I’ll do myself some serious mischief. I know I already told you what we’re in for, but come and take a look for yourself. I can’t believe what the little blighters managed before I noticed.” Ray knelt down and leant over the ledge at the highest wall of the pool and pointed down. His helper got to his knees too, his dark blue jeans taking on streaks of the dried dirt that scarcely held on to the ragged remnants of the plants Ray had once had put in, only for the penguins to destroy them. They really did have a penchant for destruction.
“That’s a hell of a hole,” his companion said, looking at the black chasm the size of a saucer. The waterline mark had been halfway up the hole, but it now sat below it.
Ray nodded. “Already had to drain the pool some to stop the leak. Now, I’m thinking that before I can patch it up, I’m gonna need to knock it through a bit more until I hit something that ain’t rotten.” He grimaced, his white teeth shining. “I’m a bit worried I’ll knock in the whole damn pool until I find a good bit, so keep your fingers crossed. The board gave me permission to fix this up but they sure don’t want to fork out for a new pool. Same old story about there not being enough money.” Ray shook his head again as he climbed down over the ledge, precariously balancing on an ornamental rock. He stretched his other leg out and swung further so that it reached another rock, cemented in over the underwater viewing window. His face was pressed flat to the side of the pool, but if he moved both feet to the same rock and leant back as far as the fingers on his left hand would allow, he figured he’d be able to swing a hammer right for the hole.
“They should have let me do this when the zoo was still open. It would have been a great spectacle for all those kids to watch when I mess this up and take a dive into the pool.” He eyed the top of the water with distaste. Oil from the penguins’ most recent meal and their feathers floated along the surface giving it an iridescent quality. A penguin with yellow tufts sticking out from its head floated by below him and he tried to wave it away with a hand. He turned to throw his helper an exasperated look. “The last thing we need is for me to slip and fall on one of the little guys. You can bet those animal rights nuts would be all over it in a second.” He shook his head once more as he felt around the jagged edges of the penguin made hole, feeling it crumble easily beneath the fingers of his right hand. “I don’t know what the world is coming to. When will they get it into their empty heads that we’re here to help the animals? The breeding programmes that we have here at Avery Zoo, and other zoos just like us, are what keeps many species from dying out for good. Why don’t they understand that?”
His companion shrugged a little, knowing better than to try and contribute anything when Ray was on one of his trains of thought. There was a skeleton dressed as an ill-fated explorer who resided in the tunnel the zoo’s little safari train chugged its way through. The staff liked to joke that Ray had talked him to death.
“Hey, shouldn’t you get started?” The companion finally said in a gap between trains of thought.
Ray looked up and saw the sky starting to streak with pink as the sun sank lower. “You’re right, you’d better hand me that sledgehammer. Time’s a ticking!” He said, stretching a hand out to take it.
His helper returned carrying the heavy hammer but hovered on the edge for a moment. “Did you have a word with Mr Avery?”
Ray frowned for a second but then nodded. “Yeah, I did. He said that it was all okay but I shouldn’t go chatting about it.” His eyes creased up at the corners. “As if I’d do a thing like that.”
“Well, that’s a relief anyway,” the helper said, stepping forwards with the hammer. Ray’s fingers stretched out in anticipation as his companion got to his knees to avoid any danger of slipping over the edge and lifted the
hammer up… away from the penguin keeper’s grasping hand.
“Hey, what are you…?” Ray watched disbelievingly as the hammer was lifted high above his companion’s shoulder, only for it to come crashing down on Ray’s skull with a sickening thunk. Every muscle holding Ray in place on his precarious perch relaxed and he pitched backwards into the pool. His body twitched and turned as he returned to the surface. It floated face down with a red halo already spreading through the water.
His helper wiped the shaft of the heavy hammer on his dark polo shirt and after a moment’s thought, flung the sledgehammer in after the body of the keeper. It landed with a loud splash, before sinking to the bottom of the pool. The penguins were already diving to investigate the new additions when he turned away and walked back towards the gate.
The penguin pool still glowed with light in the twilight of the evening and the helper automatically flipped the light switches off on his way out through the squeaky gate.
His heart hammered in his chest, as he made his way back through the quiet zoo. He avoided all of the areas that had cameras watching day and night - just as the boss had told him to. He felt sick with nerves and wondered if it was because of the terrible thing he’d done, or the fear of someone catching him now. His hanging hands clenched into fists. The job had been done and everything was going to be okay now, he reassured himself, as he exited the zoo through a side gate near the main entrance.
Glancing from side to side, he finally broke cover and stepped out into the grey, gravelled car park. A few cars remained over night, but he knew they all belonged to members of the board, who were presumably working away in their various offices, deciding the future of the zoo. His mouth twitched when he saw the familiar car park sign. It proclaimed that there was no CCTV, which meant the zoo wasn’t responsible for anything that happened. He also hoped it would mean that no one would have noticed he’d stayed late that night. Just to be extra sure, he’d parked miles away from the main entrance, his pickup truck partially concealed behind the picnic barn.
On the drive back home he idly wondered what new joke the zoo staff would make about the skeleton in the tunnel.
CHAPTER ONE
The Face of Death
It was Saturday morning and I would only be five minutes into the working day before I figured out the weekend was not going to be a fun one.
The zoo hadn’t even opened when I pulled up outside in my battered, dark blue Ford Fiesta, but that didn't stop me from being pounced upon as soon as I walked through the door to the staff room. Dark haired, despite being in his forties, and with a face made up of hard angles topped off with surprising blue eyes, Morgan Eversfield was quite the heart throb among the more mature members of staff at the zoo. Probably some of the younger ones too, although I definitely wouldn’t count myself among the fan club. To me, Morgan was mostly a thorn in my side. This was due to him having the dubious privilege of being the zoo’s animal welfare manager, which meant he was my boss.
“Madigan, you’re just the person I was hoping to bump into,” Morgan said. I immediately knew it was bad, as I was only the person he hoped to bump into when he wanted something. At any other time, I could have sworn that the man had some kind of supernatural powers of avoidance, especially when any of the zookeepers said the word ‘budget’.
It was uncanny.
“What can I do for you, Morgan?” I pasted on my best Saturday morning smile, which mostly consisted of me baring my teeth at him. To his credit, he didn’t recoil, which probably meant he really needed a favour.
“Ray’s usually here at seven to do the early morning penguin feed, but it’s half past, so I guess he’s caught up in traffic.” His fingers made quote marks in the air when he said the word ‘traffic’, temporarily changing the definition to ‘hungover’. “You’ll be able to fit feeding the penguins in on your morning round, won’t you?”
It wasn’t actually a question.
I wearily nodded, already feeling the day stretching out before me. If Ray didn’t get here soon, I’d no doubt be saddled with the rest of his duties too. That’s what happened when the animals you specialised in looking after were the leftovers of the other keepers. Everyone assumed that you would be fine covering for anyone else, as you didn’t apparently have a specific affiliation.
I glanced at my reflection in the smeary glass of the reptile enclosures as I walked by. The way my hair had refused to behave that morning should have been all the hint I needed that the day was unlikely to go my way. My normally sensible, shoulder length, natural blonde hair was taking a break from its usual waves and had decided that wild frizz was the latest thing. The bright yellow rimmed glasses I was wearing slid a little on my nose and I noted the rise in humidity wasn’t exclusive to the reptile house.
A few monkeys whooped at me as I walked through the zoo on my way to the food store, but mostly things were quiet. Most animals were still sleeping… lucky them.
Working in the zoo had always been my dream job. I’d been one of those little girls who was completely obsessed with animals. It had been enough to make my parents splash out on an expensive season pass to our local zoo, where I’d spent as much time as they’d let me. It had been at that zoo where I’d graduated from doing fun ‘keeper for a day’ kids experiences, to actually training as a keeper.
After qualifying, I’d worked at Avery Zoo in Gigglesfield for the past four years. I’d developed a habit of taking on any animal that the other keepers had shunned as being ‘not their specialism’. It was in this way I had broadened my knowledge of animal care and had realised that in many cases, I could figure out when one of my charges was less than happy and intuitively know the solution. It wasn’t a skill I’d particularly told anyone about, but I hoped that the results spoke for themselves. I wasn’t surprised that a whole bunch of animals, who traditionally struggled to breed in captivity, were suddenly starting to reproduce at Avery Zoo.
The reminiscent smile slipped from my face, as I entered the store where all animal food was kept and slouched into the refrigerated area to fetch some fish. Two navy blue buckets had ‘penguins’ scrawled across them in permanent marker and I reluctantly picked them up, opening a large, watery bag of fish. The strong waft hit me immediately and I resigned myself to smelling the same, unpleasant smell all day long, as I would no doubt manage to slop some of the vile water on myself during the feeding frenzy.
Deciduous trees shielded the behind-the-scenes walkway that all of the keepers used to access the animal enclosures. It didn't escape my notice that there was neither hide nor hair of anyone else at work. Saturdays were notorious for staff arriving late, although Ray’s half an hour tardiness was definitely pushing it.
The clamour of the penguins reached my ears long before I arrived at the gate outside their enclosure. I placed the buckets by my feet. My hand fumbled for the ring of keys I’d grabbed from the key board. The gate swung open when I attempted to slide the key in the lock. Hairs on the back of my neck stood up and a shiver jumped down my spine.
Something didn’t feel right.
I tried to tell myself that Ray must have forgotten to lock the gate when he’d left at the end of yesterday, but I could see an assortment of tools and bits of wood, left strewn around near the penguins’ lodge. I flicked on the lights that softly illuminated the penguin’s pool for the benefit of the zoo’s visitors.
It wasn’t until I walked round the corner, buckets in hand, that I saw the body.
At first, my mind refused to accept what it was seeing. There was a dark shape at the bottom of the pool. The movement of the water, caused by a few of the smarter penguins swimming in anticipation of the fish being thrown in made it hard to see clearly. What I couldn’t pretend to overlook was the familiar dark green polo shirt that the corpse was wearing and the way a cloud of brown hair floated back and forth with the currents. It looked like Ray wasn’t caught up in traffic after all.
I glanced down at the buckets in my hands and concluded that
I couldn’t feed the penguins the usual way, by tossing the lot into the pool and making them do a little bit of work for their breakfast. A few head shakes later and I was pretty sure I was thinking more clearly. I dumped the buckets of fish on a relatively flat piece of concrete and let the penguins fight it out.
“Reception, hello?” I said into the walkie talkie that all zookeepers carried.
“Oh hey Madi, how are you doing? I was just thinking of calling for a chat.”
I winced as Jenna Leary’s nasal voice came across the frequency. We were friends, but not really. She was the kind of girl who would compliment you to your face and then say the exact opposite the moment your back was turned. I shook those thoughts from my head and tried to focus. “There’s a body at the bottom of the penguin pool. I think it’s probably Ray, the penguin keeper.”
“You’re kidding! He’s dead?”
“Unless he’s just broken the world record for the longest time spent underwater without breathing, I’m going to say yes,” I said, and then immediately regretted it when Jenna asked me to clarify if he was really dead or not. With hindsight, it probably was a little too soon for jokes.
“Just call the police and tell them someone’s…” I hesitated. Murdered? Killed? “…had a fatal accident,” I said, figuring that was the safest option. A zookeeper had ended up at the bottom of the penguin pool and I doubted it was the penguins who had put him there. The tools and wood suggested that Ray had probably been doing repair work before something had happened and he’d wound up at the bottom of the pool.