‘Police, open up.’
The cop thumped on the door three times with his gloved fist. He was in riot gear, layers of padding, helmet with a visor. Three other officers stood behind him in the same gear, one holding an enforcer battering ram.
‘We have a warrant to search these premises,’ the cop said. ‘If you don’t open the door we’ll break it down.’
More thumps, the door rattling in its frame.
Dorothy looked around the front garden. The Range Rover and MG were still in the driveway.
The cop was still at the door. ‘Dr Unwin, this is your last chance.’
He paused to listen and Dorothy thought she heard something from the back of the house, but couldn’t be sure. The sky was clear, early stars glimmering against the darkness, a wind rustling through the cedars.
Dorothy couldn’t deny the trill of excitement running through her body. One of the perks of dating a cop. That phrase was ridiculous, the idea of dating at her age was crazy. But it wasn’t any crazier than the rest of her life right now. So here she was standing next to Thomas on an endangered big cat bust. Well, she wasn’t technically involved, Thomas had made it plain she was to stay here until he gave the all-clear.
‘Are you OK?’ he said now.
‘Is your work always this exciting?’
Thomas laughed and she remembered all over again why she liked him. Kindness, even in that little chuckle.
The cop nodded at the guy behind him. He and a third officer lifted the enforcer, swung it into the door at the lock. They did this over and over, four, five, six times, and the door surround cracked. Two more swings and the door sprang open. All four cops dropped the battering ram and ran in.
‘Wait here,’ Thomas said, and gave her a look.
Dorothy nodded.
He walked inside and Dorothy heard shouting from the cops, calling Neil’s name. She stepped up to the doorway, saw two officers go upstairs, the other two spreading to the back of the ground floor. Thomas was in their wake, aware, ready. He disappeared through to the back of the house.
Quiet.
After a few minutes the two upstairs officers came down, one glancing at Dorothy, who’d stepped inside the door. They went to find the rest of the cops through the back.
More quiet. Dorothy heard her heartbeat in her ears, the sound of her own breath.
Then shouting voices all at once, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She stepped into the hallway to hear better. The voices kept shouting, like they were in disarray.
Dorothy was wearing an anti-stab vest, felt the straps dig into her side. Her bandage was itchy, her body healing. She tried to make out individual voices, tried to listen for Thomas.
Fuck it.
She walked down the hall and through the door to the kitchen at the back of the house, patio doors leading to the back garden. The doors were open and Thomas stood there looking out.
Dorothy approached and laid a hand on his shoulder. He jumped and turned, pushed her back.
‘I told you,’ he said.
She looked past him at the garden. The whole area was covered in large green canopies tied to the walls at the side and support posts in the middle. Down either side were four large metal cages, all with their doors open, and scattered around the garden were half a dozen big cats. Dorothy spotted something that looked like a leopard standing on top of an open cage. Further down the garden was a huge tiger, prowling back and forth in the aisle between cages, its eyes on the cops who were stood over a body. Dorothy spotted a black cat and thought for a moment it was Whiskers, but this was bigger. It was standing on the far wall of the garden, the wall that separated this house from Kevin’s. She saw a pair of smaller animals, tufted ears, spotted coats, wispy beards. She watched as one disappeared over a side wall. And the last cat was smaller still with fawn fur, pacing nervously up and down on top of the cages to the right. It was the closest to the cops and the body.
Two cops were dragging the body towards the house, the other two had their rifles raised.
‘This is DI Olsson requesting a paramedic immediately to fifty-nine, Dick Place,’ Thomas said into his radio. ‘And get me animal control asap. And someone from the zoo.’
‘Dr Pepe,’ Dorothy said.
He turned. ‘What?’
‘She’s the big-cat expert.’
He repeated the name into the radio as the cops arrived with the body. It was Neil, midriff torn and gouged, a chunk of his left leg gone. He was grunting and sweating as the police pulled him inside the house. Thomas slid the patio doors closed and locked them. Dorothy stared through the window. The three smaller cats had gone over the walls, and she watched as the leopard effortlessly jumped over into next door’s garden. That just left the black panther standing on the bottom wall and the tiger, which had stopped pacing and had something pinned to the ground with its giant paws, pulling at it with its teeth. Dorothy thought she saw a flap of cloth, then skin. The tiger looked round, red around the mouth. Part of Neil’s leg.
She turned to him on the floor. His teeth were gritted, eyes closed.
‘What were you thinking?’ she said.
He didn’t answer, just breathed through his teeth.
‘Well?’
He moaned then opened his eyes. Gradually focused on her. Shook his head as his hand went to the wound at his stomach.
‘Zoos now, pathetic. Like petting farms. They don’t treat these magnificent creatures…’ He grimaced and rolled his eyes at the pain. ‘They don’t appreciate these wonderful animals. They don’t know how to handle them. Not like I do.’
Dorothy laughed. The cognitive dissonance involved in that was shocking, given he was lying on the ground holding his guts in, part of his leg missing.
Neil closed his eyes and slumped back, and Dorothy looked up.
The cops were crowding around the window.
Thomas shook his head. ‘What a shit show.’
Dorothy looked outside again. The panther was gone, just the tiger left. It picked up the chunk of leg in its mouth and leapt onto the back wall with a gymnast’s grace and the power of a weightlifter, then it was gone.
Dorothy’s phone rang in her pocket and she pulled it out. Hannah.
‘I’m worried about Mum,’ Hannah said. ‘I tried to track her phone but there’s no signal. She never switches it off, not after last time.’
Dorothy swallowed. ‘I’ll be home in a minute.’