25

Joseph was in pain. In pain and shocked, but it was nothing compared to what must have been going on in the mind of Bert Conaghan.

Seconds ago, Bert had been on the cusp of delivering the most delicious revenge, but now it looked to Joseph like his world had collapsed. The bully found himself clamped from behind against the cold steel bars, where no amount of panicked movement could wrestle him free.

What made it worse was that Bert had no idea what was holding him prisoner. Joseph could see Adonis’s fist – the size of the boy’s head – between Bert’s shoulder blades, pulling his coat so tight that it looked like a straitjacket across Bert’s chest.

Words fell out of Bert’s mouth, so panicked they were a mere stream of babble that mirrored what was going on in the mind of his fellow bully.

‘Wh-what is... THAT?’ Jimmy pointed, before making the sign of the cross, a gesture that only served to send Bert into a full blown panic.

‘What is it?!’ he screamed. ‘Get it off me. Get it off ME!’

But Adonis was having none of it: instead he squeezed harder and pulled the boy again and again against the bars, trying to find a way of dragging him through. But when the boy’s bones refused to give, he roared his disapproval, mouth pushed tight against his prisoner’s ear, foul breath making the boy’s hair ripple and dance.

It proved too much for Bert, who lost control of his bladder, its contents flowing down his legs and over his shoes. Jimmy had seen enough too, tearing for the gate instead of towards his friend.

‘Come back!’ Bert yelled, leaving Joseph to realise it was up to him now. He was all Bert had.

But what could he do? Adonis continued to pull the boy against the bars like a toy. Joseph shouted for Mrs F, but his calls were no match for Bert’s terrified yells and were easily drowned out.

What could he do? It wasn’t like he was armed. The rifle was in the office, locked in the cupboard, and he didn’t have anything like the power to make the ape think twice. But he couldn’t just stand there and watch, regardless of what Bert had done to him.

So he ran to the bars, not realising until he reached them how he was going to help.

Bert was wearing a thick winter coat, made of the coarsest wool and buttoned from waist to neck. It was a wonder Adonis hadn’t ripped it clean from the boy’s back, but there was no sign of the seams popping or ripping. Joseph knew he had to free Bert from the coat. Do that, and he would be able to wriggle clear.

So, making himself as small as he could, and using Bert as a shield (he had no desire to be a plaything for Adonis’s other hand), he set about the buttons.

‘Please help,’ cried Bert. Or that’s what Joseph thought he heard.

‘Shut up and keep still,’ he whispered.

The first button gave easily, pinging open at a push, but the further Joseph moved up, the tighter the coat and more obstinate the buttons became. By the time he reached the fourth (adapting to Bert’s jerky movements as Adonis waved the boy around), he was having to use both hands to prise it through the hole.

‘He’s going to kill me...’ cried Bert, and while Joseph didn’t have time to stop and think about it, he wasn’t convinced it was true. The kid was scared, of course, who wouldn’t be, and Adonis was a beast, a mountain of an ape who could’ve ripped the boy’s head off twenty times already if he’d chosen to. But the truth was, Bert was still alive.

All Joseph could do was hope that Adonis didn’t suffer a change of heart.

‘Almost... there,’ said Joseph, and with one, final push of his now-sore fingers, the coat fell open.

The result was instantaneous. Bert fell forward to his knees and crawled mercifully away, while Adonis yanked the coat clean through the bars and set about ripping it into shreds, roaring wildly as he did so.

Joseph turned his attention to Bert, face wet with tears, his legs wetter still. He saw the embarrassment on Bert’s face, but the second he touched his shoulder, the bully returned, anger flashing in Bert’s eyes as he sprang to his feet.

‘Don’t touch me!’ he wailed, face red and snotty. ‘You’re as bad as that bloody monster in there, so don’t be thinking you’ve done me no favours.’ He grabbed Joseph and pulled him close. ‘And don’t be telling anyone about this. Nobody would believe you anyway.’

With a final push, he sent Joseph back to the ground. Joseph thought about retaliation, but resisted. Nothing he could do would be a patch on what Adonis had just dished out, so he wanted to leave Bert with the thought of that, fresh in his mind.

Instead, Joseph lay on the ground, catching his breath, feeling his injuries for the first time as the adrenaline dropped, and watching as Adonis tossed the remnants of Bert’s coat skywards. It was the most joyful he had ever seen the ape, a far cry from the aggression that had almost cost Bert so much.

Joseph felt confused. He’d witnessed something close to a tragedy, yet at the same time, Adonis had saved him.

But had the ape meant to help?

And what did it mean? Were Adonis’s actions just a coincidence, driven by fear? It didn’t feel like that to Joseph, but at the same time, the idea of a silverback gorilla coming to his aid felt far-fetched. Did animals even have a sense of right and wrong? They were hardly questions he felt qualified to answer, and they felt too ridiculous to ask Mrs F.

Instead, he pulled himself to his feet and bit on the inside of his lip, trying to distract from the pain in his ribs.

For so long now he’d been adept at hiding his pain. But here, in this new city, it was getting harder and harder to keep it from view.

Two words formed in his head. They were not words that he gave thought to often, and rarer still did he say them out loud. But tonight, in front of the cage, they needed to be said.

‘Thank you. I owe you one.’