‘Are you on drugs?’ hissed Berkley.
Gareth waved his mobile phone at Berkley. It looked like an ugly, clunky, old-fashioned model.
Berkley stared. ‘You’ll get yourself killed. Maybe both of us! That tiger hasn’t been fed today…’
‘What tiger?’ Gareth put his hand to his forehead and peered around him, for all the world like an old- fashioned sailor looking out to sea.
Berkley checked to see where Amur was. Not in sight. Not behind the narrow bole of the single tree. He whipped his head from side to side, disbelieving. No sign of the big striped cat. Could she have slipped down into the moat? That would only allow her access via a ramped tunnel on the far side and back into the main exhibit area. Amur wouldn’t try to leap the moat because on the far side of it there was only the ninety-degree vertical of smooth concrete and glass that Berkley checked daily for defects.
No, that couldn’t be right. He could see straight across into the visitor area of the zoo. The smooth wall had simply vanished. The tiger
The trespasser walked across to the zookeeper. That thing in his hand wasn’t a mobile phone. The shape was too irregular, the flashing lights too bizarre.
‘What’s going on, Gareth?’
The young man made a flicking gesture at him. A flat piece of card spun from Gareth’s fingers, and the zookeeper flinched involuntarily. It looked like a photograph of some kind, maybe one of the big postcards they sold in the zoo shop. Berkley grew angry. He stooped to pick the card up from the sandy ground, and saw it wasn’t a photo but a line drawing of a monstrous creature, accompanied by some sort of numerical assessment.
Berkley considered the intruder with contempt. ‘Stop playing games, Gareth. You were bugger all use when you were on work experience, but surely you remember the rules about the large cats?’
‘Solitary animals,’ Gareth smiled. ‘They don’t run with the pack. I like that about them.’
‘This isn’t funny, Gareth.’
‘But you like a joke, don’t you, Mr Berkley?’ sneered Gareth. ‘Do you remember how I learned about the big cats? How you thought it was such fun to let me through the outer gate and then lock me in. Before I knew there was an inner safety gate, of course. You let me crap myself with fear. I literally crapped myself. Did you know that, Mr Berkley? Did you?’
The man had lost his mind, thought Berkley. No matter what gags the zoo staff played on the students, that couldn’t explain, wouldn’t excuse, this. He eyed the insane gap in the far enclosure wall. His mind reeled as he considered the priorities. Alert the other zoo staff. Work his way to one of the tranquilliser guns stashed in one of five secure locations around the park. But first, get this crazy guy to safety.
‘All right, lad.’ Berkley stood, and held out an encouraging hand. ‘Let’s get you of here.’
Gareth wasn’t listening. He pointed to the card that Berkley now held. ‘Reckon you can handle big animals, do you, Mr Berkley?’
Berkley brushed sand off the card illustration. It had a colourful motif on the reverse: MonstaQuest. The face revealed a stylised cartoon. A two-headed dragon leered at him, both sets of slavering jaws filled with an improbable number of needle-sharp teeth.
Gareth stood close to him now, and handed over another of the MonstaQuest cards. The new one represented a storm, angled blue lines marking out the falling rain. Barely had Berkley registered this than he felt the patter of water on his head and shoulders. Within seconds, it was like someone had turned a hose on him. The sky above remained a cloudless icy blue, but all around his feet the ground was darkening and the sand was thickening into slurry.
The slam of the compound gate told him that Gareth had left. Berkley heard the bolt draw across. With a yell, he staggered over to the exit. The gate was secure and locked. Gareth was nowhere to be seen.
Berkley moved back into the enclosure. Beyond where the missing wall should have been, he could make out that the rest of the park was still dry. But there was no way to get across the moat.
And how could it be raining solely in the tiger compound?
Now there was another sound. A shrieking cacophony of bestial noise like he’d never heard in his twenty years at the zoo. A scaly pointed tail flicked into his side, winding him and throwing him to the hard ground. Berkley rolled onto his back, smearing sand and grit on his cheeks as he swiped at the rain that streamed down his face.
A creature leered down at him. It was the impossible double-headed dragon from the MonstaQuest card. Both its heads bellowed and slavered in uncontained rage, as though fighting between themselves for priority.
The monster stood between him and the locked exit gate. The moat was impossible to clear. Berkley scrambled over to the tree in the centre of the compound, but the wires around the base jolted him with a painful electric shock.
Malcolm Berkley lay panting in the mud and the rain. He managed to close his eyes and scream just before the nightmare creature decided which of its jaws would strike first.
SEVEN
Toshiko wasn’t impressed with Lloyd Maddock. The prematurely balding general manager of the Pendefig Mall had been sneeringly dismissive when she first approached him. He had flip-flopped completely once she’d flashed her winning smile and reminded him of the appointment she’d sneaked into his online calendar. An unscheduled review of security by the Pendefig parent company. So it was a bit rich now for him to be telling her, in his plummy, pause-filled Swansea accent, that his
Toshiko told him she wanted to see the CCTV tapes. Maddock wasn’t able to raise the security coordinator on his radio. The landlines seemed to have packed in, too. ‘Must have been knocked out by that blast of wind that blew through the whole place,’ suggested Maddock. ‘Just wait till I see those contractors. Recommended by Head Office, they were. But they must have completely screwed up the air conditioning.’ There was an embarrassed pause while he evidently remembered that Toshiko was from the Head Office whose judgement he had just questioned. In the awkward silence, Maddock surveyed the pit of the mall as the escalator took them higher. ‘Ambulances, police… God knows if the insurance will cover this.’ This thought made him brighten visibly. ‘Maybe an Act of God means the mall won’t be liable?’
Toshiko did not share his callous enthusiasm. She scowled back at the general manager. ‘Why don’t we go and find Mr Belden in the security suite?’ Toshiko bit her lip. It wouldn’t do to let Maddock know just how much she already knew about the layout or staffing of Pendefig. She slipped the tell-tale PDA into her jacket pocket, and showed her smile again.
Maddock rubbed his hands together with invisible soap, and unctuously agreed to chaperone her to his ‘state-of-the-art security facility’ on the upper level. Toshiko had to endure a lecture on the mall’s dedication to quality, choice of retailers, and exciting mall promotions. She doubted whether anything as exciting as a Weevil attack had happened in Pendefig before.
A thin sheen of sweat formed a patina on Maddock’s high pale forehead. He wiped at it with the back of his hand, then wiped his hand on the tails of his jacket.
‘Nice suit,’ observed Toshiko.
‘Jasper Littman,’ grinned Maddock. ‘Bespoke.’
That suit wasn’t bought in Pendefig Mall, thought Toshiko. No matter how much he banged on about the ten-million-pound refurbishment, Maddock thought he was way too good for this place. His enthusiasm was as synthetic as these plants that filled the gap between the up and down escalators. She asked him: ‘Why are these flowers all fake?’
‘They don’t need watering,’ replied Maddock. ‘Dusting occasionally. There’s no natural light in the mall.’
‘Why not?’ Even the Hub had some outside light artfully reflected into its underground location, thought Toshiko. ‘Is it like casinos? So that people forget how long they’ve been in here? Keep spending.’ She looked around them. ‘No clocks either.’
