Joe kept himself occupied during the long flight. He watched two films, slept a bit, ate the rather overcooked meal that was put in front of him, jumped from one game on his console to another, played cards with his father and listened to music. He looked on with amusement as a large man across the aisle made himself comfortable, closed his eyes and began to snore. The man’s head dropped forward occasionally, swayed from side to side with the movement of the aircraft, then jolted backward again as if an electric shock had been administered.
‘He sounds like a walrus, doesn’t he, Dad?’ Joe whispered, nudging his father.
‘I have no personal experience of walruses, but if you say so then I’ll take your word for it,’ Peter whispered back.
At that moment the man snorted loudly and the magazine that had been resting on his belly fell to the floor. Joe bent down to pick it up and was upset to see that it had a photograph of a dead tiger on the cover. A man with a gun held high stood triumphantly by its head. Joe couldn’t read the caption because it was written in what he took to be Russian.
‘Give the gentleman his magazine back, Joe,’ Peter prompted.
Joe turned to see that the man had woken and was looking questioningly at him. He thrust the magazine towards him as if it were burning his fingers. The man said something gruffly, pushed the magazine into the seat pocket and closed his eyes again.
‘Did you see that, Dad?’ Joe whispered after a while. ‘There was a dead tiger on the cover of his magazine. I knew he looked a bit fishy.’
‘Walruses are,’ said Peter.
‘That’s not funny,’ Joe growled.
‘Having a dead tiger on your magazine doesn’t make you fishy,’ Peter whispered. ‘Your mum’s always surrounded by pictures of animals, dead and alive, and she’s not fishy – thank goodness. I never did see myself marrying a mermaid.’
‘But Mum’s an international wildlife vet,’ Joe said hotly.
‘So might the Walrus be,’ replied Peter.
Joe didn’t think for one minute that the large grumpy man across the aisle was an international vet. He wanted to ask his mother what she thought, but Binti and Aesha were both snuggled up in their blankets, fast asleep. Joe tried to go to sleep as well, but he couldn’t help casting sideways glances at his neighbour, and the more he studied him, the more he convinced himself that the man was some sort of villain. He might be a hunter, or a poacher, or a smuggler of tiger parts!
Binti had told him about how valuable tiger parts were in some societies, and he knew the skins were worth a fortune. He also knew that trading in tiger parts was strictly illegal.
I bet that’s what he does, Joe thought, only to see that the man had woken up again and was delving into a packet of sweets. Joe watched out of the corner of his eye as he put a sweet in his mouth and began to suck on it. The man suddenly held the packet across the aisle and encouraged Joe to take one. Joe shook his head and moved nearer his father. He did his best to ignore the man for the rest of the flight.
When they landed in Moscow, he kept close to Binti as they trekked along the airport’s endless corridors until they reached the lounge reserved for passengers waiting for connecting flights. They had a long wait, and Joe was annoyed to discover that the man had followed them.
‘Are you tired, Joe?’ Binti asked, putting her arm around his shoulders. ‘You look done in.’
Joe shrugged. He was tired, but he didn’t want to admit it. ‘What happens to people who get caught smuggling tiger parts?’ he asked.
‘Not enough, frankly,’ Binti replied. ‘It’s not considered that serious an offence by some courts, though it seems to me that anyone profiting from the potential extinction of any form of wildlife should have the book thrown at them.’
‘I bet they’re not very nice, the people who do that,’ said Joe.
‘In some cases that’s probably true,’ said Binti. ‘In other cases it’s more complicated. We can’t necessarily blame people for seizing the few opportunities that come their way to climb out of poverty. In those cases we need to help them find other ways to earn a living.’
‘But tigers are dying out,’ Joe protested.
‘And that’s why so many caring people all over the world are doing everything they can to save them.’
Joe looked across at the man who was now sitting at a table in the transit lounge café. ‘What would you do if you thought someone might be a smuggler?’
‘I’d try to find some evidence and then report them to the authorities,’ said Binti. ‘But it’s not easy – it’s not as if they have “smuggler” written across their foreheads.’
Joe thought about the one piece of ‘evidence’ he had had – the magazine. It didn’t amount to very much – nothing at all, if he was honest with himself. He would just have to forget the man.
He was relieved when at last they boarded the onward flight to Vladivostok, but dismayed to see that the man was boarding it too.