by steve higgs
The door from the hotel opened behind me and I turned to see Big Ben approaching.
‘I thought I might find you here,’ he said. ‘You were trying to go at this thing alone, weren’t you?’
I shrugged. ‘I was just going to try to find it. I wouldn’t have tried to deal with it by myself.’
Hubert’s brow furrowed. ‘You boys aren’t planning to go up the mountain, are you?’
How much should I tell Hubert? He was my client, but he wouldn’t be the first client to have lied to me and be leading me into a trap. Was he responsible for the deaths? For the creature’s presence here? Then, before I could consider those questions, a thought occurred to me. ‘You said you were going skiing this morning. Just you and your wife. Where are you going?’
‘The Augille du Rigardi run on the north face. It was Marie’s favourite spot.’
I had been adding together dots in my head until he said those words, then my head snapped up as a big piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Marie’s favourite spot. Gils and the woman from last night were planning something at a favourite spot. I had to check something. I turned to go, then remembered myself. ‘Hubert, I need to borrow a couple of Ski-Doos.’
He wafted a hand in the general direction of the keys, ‘Help yourself, boys.’
Hubert was distracted by thoughts of the day ahead; I wasn’t even sure he heard me say thank you. ‘Ben, can you set up the Ski-Doos? I have to check on something.’
I was already heading back to my room when he replied.
I bumped into Jagjit and Alice as I ran up the stairs two at a time. ‘What are you two doing up this early? Shouldn’t you be enjoying your honeymoon?’
It was Alice that answered, ‘I want to help out. What you were saying last night, Gils knows who you are and will definitely recognise Big Ben but Jagjit and I can probably follow him this morning and see what he is up to.’ I didn’t respond immediately, so Alice pressed on, ‘We are just going to grab some breakfast and then head over to his hotel to see if we can spot him.’
I needed to check my laptop and I needed to call Jane and pick her brains some more. Would Jagjit and Alice get into trouble if they tried to follow Gils? Probably. Would they abandon this course of action if I advocated against it? Probably not.
I said, ‘Sure. Good luck. Don’t follow him up the mountain though, okay? And stay in contact. Check your phones and watch for messages.’
They both agreed but I was already bounding up the stairs. The dogs jumped off the bed and ran barking at the intruder in their room until I spoke. I had flown through the door and startled them, but they calmed quickly, switching tactics to ask for a treat as if I had been gone for hours. I didn’t feel I had time to argue, so I tossed them a gravy bone each and jabbed the power button to boot my computer into life. Then I thumbed the phone button to dial Jane and set it to speaker as I scrolled my finger across the mouse pad.
It was a groggy, sleep deprived voice that answered the phone, ‘Hello?’
‘Jane?’ I asked tentatively.
‘Um, yeah, I suppose. I haven’t decided yet, but yeah, let’s go with Jane.’ It was the strangest thing about my assistant; he/she woke each morning gender neutral, maybe that should be; it woke each morning gender neutral? The pronouns were complex enough, I decided, without adding in another level of confusion. Anyway, my assistant got up each morning and only then decided whether to put on boy underwear or girl underwear.
‘I need something fast. Can you help?’ I had no right to drag Jane from bed this early, but we worked in a business where normal hours were not really a thing and I believed that she bought into the concept as much as Amanda and I did. We had only worked together for a few weeks really, but I was going to have to do something in her wage packet to reflect the additional work she was doing and the value she was adding. Maybe a Christmas bonus would balance the scales? I could think about it later.
‘I’m awake,’ she said, still sounding like it was only barely true. ‘The computer is running, what do you need?’ In the background I heard another voice, her boyfriend probably. His deep rumble preceded Jane asking for coffee.
I pressed on. ‘This is going to be obscure; I think. Even for me. Can you search for circus acts or freak show acts that involve a polar bear? Not just any polar bear though, one that has been surgically altered to have tusks in its mouth and horns on its head?’
I think it spoke volumes about the general level of weirdness my business handled, that Jane didn’t even question my request. While she was doing that, I navigated to a file she had already sent me this week. The one with Marie’s school picture in.
‘Found it,’ said Jane around a yawn. I glanced at the clock in the bottom corner of the laptop screen. About nine seconds had elapsed.
‘You’re kidding. How on earth did you find that so quickly?’
‘I’m brilliant,’ she replied deadpan. ‘Anything else?’
‘I need to see what you are seeing, but otherwise, no I don’t think so. Oh, hold on, I sent you an email with a picture last night. Can you see what you can do?’
‘A receipt?’ she confirmed. ‘You just want to know who the card is registered to?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘That should be easy enough. Give me a little while, okay?’
‘Sure, but look, I feel like a slave driver calling you this early in the day. Get this done and have the rest of the day off.’ Worry that I was a tough boss was a genuine concern.
‘I wish I could. I have work to do, boss.’
My laptop beeped with an incoming email, attached to which was a file containing pictures and a couple of articles clipped from websites. Before I opened them, I opened the picture of Marie’s class and asked Jane a question, ‘What is it you have to do, that you cannot take a buckshee day off? Amanda and I are here, Amanda doesn’t have a live case and I doubt I will need you again today. Take it easy and have a long weekend. I expect Amanda and I will be back on Monday.’
‘Yeah,’ she drawled slowly, then said, ‘Tempest, I have been taking cases as well.’
‘Huh?’
‘I said…’
‘Yeah, I heard what you said, I just had no idea.’
‘Is it a problem?’ I could tell that Jane was concerned she had crossed a line somewhere.
‘Not at all. I’m just surprised you didn’t say anything sooner.’
‘Well, it’s a new thing. It just kind of happened, but there are lots of little cases that crop up when the two of you are engaged elsewhere, so after I dealt with the first one, I figured I would see if I could help out with some others.’
‘And you have been charging customers and bringing money into the business and I had no idea because I let you do the books.’ Jane said nothing in response, but my attention was elsewhere now; I was looking at the photograph of Marie’s class. She was seated in the front of three rows, Priscille was in the next row and second from right looking at them properly for the first time and comparing them, I realised what it was that everyone had missed. I didn’t have all the answers, but I was getting close.
‘Jane, I have to go. I just want to say that I appreciate all that you do and that we need to talk about your position when I return.’
‘Oh, God. Don’t fire me, Tempest. I was doing what I thought was right.’
I chuckled, which probably wasn’t the right thing to do, but I tried to reassure her. ‘Jane, I intend to promote you, not fire you. The conversation next week will be about how our developing business will operate with three detectives instead of two. There will be much to discuss, I am sure. Right now, though, I have to go. I think there is about to be another Yeti attack.’
How to Tranquilise a One Ton Carnivore AKA I Like Bruises. Friday, December 2nd 0742hrs
Back in the underground carpark beneath the Constantine hotel, it wasn’t just Big Ben waiting for me, Hilary and Anthea were there too. I had never been inundated with so much help and I wasn’t sure I really wanted i
t. Not least because Anthea tended to be a bit prickly, but I had reservations about having either of them along on a trip when I was planning to find, trap and transport a meat eating, highly-dangerous animal that could kill with a single swipe of a paw.
‘Is that the gun?’ asked Anthea as I approached them. It was slung across my back and I had a bag in my right hand that contained the drugs.
‘It is.’
‘I thought you said last night that you hadn’t come up with a way to get through the Yeti’s skin.’
‘That’s what I said,’ I answered without actually answering. Before they could quiz me any further, I had questions for them. ‘Are you sure you want to come on this one? This might be the most dangerous thing I have ever done. If anyone gets injured, we will have to get back here before they can be treated.’
In response, Anthea’s face was impassive. ‘We’ll be fine.’ Beside her, Hilary looked like he wanted to agree with my thoughts on the matter, but wasn’t brave enough to argue with his wife, or perhaps knew when not to push his luck.
I rolled my eyes and swung my leg over the nearest Ski-Doo as I said, ‘I think I know where to find it.’
Big Ben frowned as he fired his machine to life. ‘Really? I thought you had no idea and we were going to scour the mountain checking all the places it might be and hoping we got lucky.’
‘We were. Now, I think we might not have to. I’ll try to explain on the way.’ I cranked the throttle on my Ski-Doo, letting it pull me across the concrete to the large exit door which detected a vehicle coming toward it and opened automatically.
I wasn’t able to explain on the way of course, the engines made far too much noise for that, but I did fill them in when I stopped my Ski-Doo two hundred yards short of the target. We were at the edge of a forest, the tall and ancient pine trees towering above us as I began walking.
‘There’s nothing here, Tempest,’ pointed out Anthea.
‘The building we want is just beyond that rocky formation,’ I replied as I pointed in the direction I was going.
Anthea, clearly mystified by my actions had more questions though, ‘Why aren’t we using the Ski-Doos to get there then?’
It was Big ben that answered though, ‘Because we don’t want anyone that might be there to hear us coming, including the Yeti.’ My old army buddy was used to the concept of a stealthy approach.
Anthea’s question might have been answered, but she still wasn’t done. ‘How is it that you know the Yeti is going to be here then and what innovation did you come up with to get the drugs through the Yeti’s skin?’ They were fair questions that deserved answers. I was fine with Anthea demanding information, I just wasn’t enamoured with the way she liked to ask them.
I turned to walk backwards so I could face her while I explained… and promptly fell over as my foot sank in a hole. I picked myself up and tried again. ‘The Yeti is a polar bear that was captured as a cub and subjected to terrible operations to alter its appearance. The tusks and horns were added, and it was raised to be a circus act.’
‘That’s awful,’ she cried. ‘Who would do that?’
I knew the answer to that question as well, but I was keeping it quiet for now as we were rounding the rocky outcropping and the building was suddenly before us. It was a squat, brick-built thing but it had power cables running into it and the snow around it had been disturbed recently. It was churned up, the caterpillar tracks of a large Snow Cat machine obvious in the compacted snow.
‘Is this the place?’ breathed Hilary, his voice showing the trepidation I felt.
‘We’re about to find out.’
‘Who owns the building?’ asked Big Ben to which I pointed out the sign set just below the eaves of the roof: Caron Enterprises.
‘Surely that means your client is the one behind the attacks.’ Anthea had hit the nail on the head, but drawing the obvious conclusion didn’t mean it was right.
What I said in reply was, ‘I think that is what we are supposed to believe.’
‘Who else would have access to the building though? His rivals, the Chevaliers can’t use this place, surely?’
I didn’t answer her last question though. I had reached the back of the building and now knew that I had guessed right. This building was the closest one to the Augille du Rigardi slope that Hubert said he was going to this morning and the only building in the area that I felt was big enough to house the creature. The presence of a large cage mounted on a trailer, hidden from view between the building and the rocks was sufficient to convince me I had found the Yeti’s hiding place. All I had to do now was look inside, but as I turned to look back at the building, I saw Big Ben peering in through a window.
‘It’s pretty dark in there,’ he said looking at me, but when he turned back to look inside again, the window was very suddenly filled with the face of the Yeti as it smashed into the glass and shattered it. The window was two feet square, big enough for the Yeti to shove its angry snout through but smaller than its head so the enraged creature was snapping its teeth at Big Ben but thankfully couldn’t get to him. Big Ben had thrown himself out of the way in shock nevertheless, surprise and fear etched on his face.
From the floor, he said, ‘I forgot just how big that thing is.’
Hilary offered him a hand to get up, just as the Yeti gave up growling through the broken window and slammed his body weight into the roller door by the cage-sleigh thing. The roller door bowed but held as another deafening roar echoed from within the small building. I wanted to rescue the poor creature but I had to admit a genuine concern that I might not be able to do so safely. The Yeti then reinforced my concern when it slammed into the roller door again. This time it left a dent. A thousand pounds of polar bear was going to come through that door sooner or later and we would need to be somewhere else when it did.
How on earth were they able to control it? Somehow, the trainer/owner was getting it to go in and out of a cage so it could be transported. Thinking about it wasn’t going to stop the Yeti from smashing its way out and eating me though. I needed to act.
‘Tempest, where’s that gun?’ yelled Big Ben. His back was flat to the wall by the broken window as he peeked in. ‘That thing is going to bust down that door if we don’t tranquilise it.’
Anthea ran over to help me get it off my back where the makeshift strap had tangled with the hood of my coat. ‘Here,’ she said as she freed it. ‘Where are the darts?’
‘Yeah. About the darts.’
‘What about the darts?’ she demanded. Both Hilary and Big Ben turned their heads to hear my answer.
‘Well, it’s about the number of them that we have,’ I replied as I knelt in the snow to rummage in the bag.
‘Why? How many are there?’ asked Hilary.
‘There’s only one, isn’t there? said Big Ben. ‘You could only make one so we have one shot at this and have to get it right the first time.’
Anthea put her hands to her face. ‘Oh, my God. I knew you would get us all killed. You only have one dart?’
‘No, no. Not one.’
‘Thank goodness,’ she exhaled.
‘I don’t have any.’
There was a stunned silence as Big Ben, Hilary and Anthea all stared at me. I grinned since I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Then the Yeti slammed into the roller door again and Big Ben shouted, ‘It’s just broken the door. I can see daylight through it now.’
I reached into the bag, pulling out what I did have. The problem with making a dart was that it required a complex mechanism that would force the fluid in the syringe out only once the needle had penetrated the target. I just didn’t have the components or the tools to make such a device. After hours of scratching my head I had accepted that I couldn’t solve the problem and had approached it from a different angle.
In my hand, I held a clear plastic bag filled with condoms. Inside the condoms, which were tied at the top with a knot, was the drugs which I carefully measured out using my eyeball and luck. The
condoms were strong enough that they flew without exploding but would break on impact. All I had to do now was convince it to swallow the medicine like a good little Yeti.
Big Ben’s eye flared. ‘You are going to feed it those aren’t you?’ he asked, his voice incredulous.
‘Yup.’
‘Cool. For a moment there I thought you were going to have something difficult to do.’ He turned his head to shout through the window, ‘Hey, snow beast. Here beasty, beasty, beasty.’
‘Insane,’ murmured Anthea. ‘You’re both mad.’
The Yeti had stopped smashing against the roller door, but two seconds later, it was back at the window. This time though, when it smashed into the wall, the brickwork shifted. Fine dust settled on the snow below as cracks appeared all over the area of wall around the window.
Big Ben uttered a rude word. I had to agree with his thoughts on the matter though. We were going to run out of time really soon if I didn’t get the drugs into the beast now.
‘Ben, get behind me and help me line the weapon up.’ He rushed to comply. ‘Hilary, I need you to take Ben’s place and call for it to attack the window.’
‘WHAT!’ shouted Anthea, but her husband was already moving.
I lined up the gun on the window. ‘We need it to open its mouth,’ I shouted. I was going to fire the drugs straight down its throat.
It slammed into the wall again, the brickwork shaking again as more of it moved. It wasn’t going to take much more effort from the Yeti to break its way out now. It roared but I couldn’t get a clear shot because it was moving too much.
Hilary saw the problem, and stupidly brave as I knew him to be, he offered the Yeti his arm to bite. He just stepped toward the window and thrust his arm toward the hole. I opened my mouth to scream for him to get clear but then the Yeti charged and I saw my chance. From the shadows of the building, into which it kept disappearing, it darted forward to fill the window with its giant mouth as it tried to bite the arm it could see. Hilary threw himself out of the way.
I pulled the trigger.
The condom hit the creature square on its tonsils and burst open, the liquid hitting the soft flesh of its mouth and disappearing down its throat. The Yeti’s snarl choked off but it was not able to change its trajectory, smashing into the wall once more and this time breaking through it.