Chapter Eight

“Zoo, zorilla, Zumba, zoetrope...” Wheeler counted off the words. “Whatever’s next?” She scanned the gathered faces around the briefing room.

“We could warn people to keep off the zebra crossings,” suggested Pattimore.

“Twat,” said Stevens.

“Actually, that’s not a complete load of shit,” said Wheeler. “Impossible to police, of course, but...”

Stevens sank back in his chair, folded his arms and chuntered into his moustache.

“I don’t know,” said Brough. “There’s CCTV at most crossings and we could deploy the PCSOs.”

Pattimore sent Brough a smile brimming with gratitude for the support for his idea. Brough looked away sharply, maintaining an expression that could have won him any poker tournament going.

“OK,” said Wheeler, “We’ll give that a go. Any more ideas? And has that little shithead turned up yet?”

“The zorilla, Chief?”

“Yes, Harry; the zorilla.” She rounded on Stevens. “Tell me you’ve had a whiff of it at least.”

“Sorry, Chief. Harry’s the only one who’s had a close encounter.”

“That was a different bloody animal. And you took it back to the zoo, didn’t you, Harry?”

“Um, yes, Chief. And then I went to the dry cleaner’s. About that,” he pushed his glasses up his nose. “If I bring in the receipt, will you reimburse - ?”

“You can stick that up your arse!” Wheeler snapped with surprising vehemence. “We haven’t the budget to support your habit of going around in clean clothes.”

“Yeah,” said Stevens.

“Meanwhile,” Wheeler ignored the moustachioed prat, “Try to think of more things around the town that begin with zed. Anybody?”

The detectives’ brows creased in thought. Several long minutes passed before Harry Henry jumped up, knocking over a table in the process.

“Zucchini!” he cried with an air of triumph.

“And what the fuck is that?” said Wheeler.

“He means courgettes,” said Brough. “That’s what they call them across the pond.”

“Oh, of course you’d know that,” Stevens scowled. “Any excuse to bring that up!”

Wheeler flapped at him to be quiet.

“What about them?” She looked from Brough to Harry Henry and back again.

“Um...” Harry deflated. “I only said it because sometimes me and the wife play the Alphabet Game and-”

“Oh, God!” Brough cut him off. “No need to go into all that again. Perhaps the killer’s next target will have something to do with courgettes - zucchini. Someone who sells them...”

“Or...” Miller chimed in, “Someone who buys them...”

Wheeler’s face scrunched up like a discarded paper bag. “I’m not buying it. You’m assuming our killer’s a Yank. Fucking courgettes. It’s a stretch.”

“It could just as easily be a Yank,” said Stevens with a spiteful glare in Brough’s direction. “Easy as it could be a performing fucking monkey.”

“Zodiac!” blurted Harry Henry. The others looked at him as though he had some form of Tourette’s.

“Sit down, Harry, before you burst,” Wheeler advised.

“No, I mean the horoscopes. Find out when the victims all have their birthdays. Perhaps he’s doing one for each astrological sign...”

Silence reigned while the Serious team took this idea on board.

“But what’s that got to do with the zorilla and the fucking zoe-whatsit and the Zumba woman,” complained Stevens.

“I don’t know,” said Harry Henry meekly. He lowered himself into his chair.

“I thought he was on to something then,” said Stevens. “Bloody half-baked-”

“All right, all right!” Wheeler waved him down. “Let’s face it. So far we’ve got fuck all. So, for now, we’ll go with Jason’s idea of watching the zebra crossings.”

Pattimore beamed with the pride of a newly-appointed head prefect.

“Meanwhile, be on the lookout for any other zeds that might be about. Keep ’em peeled - and I don’t mean your fucking courgettes. Now,” she didn’t bother with the thumb on this occasion, “Fuck off.”

***

With the team despatched to do fuck-knows-what, Wheeler yet again shut herself in her office. She circled her desk, keeping a wary eye on the heap of personnel folders as if it was an animal that might pounce at any second. Do zorillas pounce, she wondered? Perhaps they don’t need to, if they’m herbivores - Or am they - what’s the word? - Omni... buses? Wait. That cor be right...

Get a grip, Karen, she admonished herself. Forget the bastard zorilla at large and apply yourself to the task at hand.

She climbed onto her chair and reached for the file on the top of the pile.

It was Miller’s.

“Ah, Melanie, Melanie, Melanie...” Wheeler said out loud. Miller’s pleasant, round face smiled innocuously from her mugshot.

Wheeler had always considered Miller a silly bint but - and here was the crotch of the matter - Miller was the only bint in the team. Discounting herself, of course.

She’d had her ups and downs. Especially in recent times, had Miller. Losing her mother - twice: the first time to dementia and the second to the Grim (some might say ‘Merciful’) Reaper. Then there were Miller’s man troubles. Her relationship with former Serious man D S Woodcock had almost resulted in matrimony but, for some reason, it had all gone tits-up and Woodcock had transferred. But, all through it and the subsequent upheavals with her next fella - some odd bod who dug graves in the local boneyard; he’d turned out to be a strange one - but all through it, Miller had never let it affect her police work.

Not that she had ever been much cop, har har.

No, that wasn’t fair. Since Brough had come to town, Miller had upped her game. Like she was trying to impress somebody - like she was trying to impress Brough?

“You silly bint,” Wheeler addressed the photograph. “You can’t still be holding a torch for that shirt lifter. The time has come to grow up and smell the poppers. Brough the bum boy is never going to be the man for you.”

She stared at the photograph. Could Miller be that deluded? Or was she over all that shit now?

Perhaps Brough had rubbed off on her - by which Wheeler meant his influence not his cock. Perhaps Miller had become a better detective because she wanted to show him what he was missing. Perhaps she was chucking herself into her work to help her get through the tough times.

Whatever.

Saving a detective sergeant’s salary wouldn’t be enough to get Serious out of financial trouble.

And Wheeler couldn’t do the dirty on a fellow female - by which she meant give Miller the push, not some kind of lesbionic activity.

She put the photo back in the file and closed the cover.

Not Miller then.

Then who?

***

“Hoi, mate. What am you pair doing in them bushes?”

Stevens bolted upright. Crouched beside him, Pattimore giggled.

“Piss off, kid,” Stevens scowled at the child in a tracksuit. The boy had sports logos shaved into his hair although he was built like he’d only ever win a trophy as Chip Shop’s Best Customer.

“Am you pervs or coppers?”

“What’s it to you, lard arse?”

“Only cause if you’m pervs, I’m calling the coppers, and if you’m coppers, I want to talk to you.”

“All right?” Pattimore emerged from the foliage. He flashed his i.d. “Is there a problem?”

“Get a lot of perverts in this park, do you, chubster?” Stevens stepped out onto the path. “Wouldn’t think they’d give you much trouble.”

The boy looked affronted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well... look at you...”

The boy stuck his nose in the air with haughty indignation. “There’s more of me to love.”

Stevens laughed. “I suppose a bunch of pervs could go shares, like. Bargain bucket kind of deal.”

“Lanky twat,” the boy diagnosed.

“How can we help?” Pattimore intervened. “Why do you need to talk to the police?”

“Look; I found it.”

Chipolata fingers unzipped the tracksuit top. The boy pulled out a mass of fur and claws but he seemed oblivious of the animal’s struggles.

“The fuck is that?” said Stevens, backing away.

“It’s that whatsit,” said the boy, “What run off from the zoo.”

Pattimore laughed. “Mate, that’s just a black cat somebody’s been at with a bottle of Tipp-Ex.”

“It bloody isn’t!” the boy asserted.

“It bloody is,” said Stevens. “Go on; fuck off.”

The boy stood his ground. “I want my reward!”

Both detectives laughed.

“You’ll have to source your fucking pie vouchers elsewhere,” said Stevens. “Go on; piss off and take your painted pussy with you.”

“Fascists.”

“Wait,” said Pattimore. “Give it here.”

The boy was reluctant to surrender the creature without financial recompense. Perhaps other coppers would be less discerning.

“All right,” Pattimore continued, “I’m arresting you for cruelty to an animal.”

The boy let out a yelp. “You cor do that! I’ve took good care of it. Even give it half of my saveloy.” He pressed the squirming feline close against his chest.

Pattimore softened his approach. “Think about it. Cats lick themselves clean. How’s he going to feel if he licks that shit off? It’d be like you fed him poison.”

The boy’s brow wrinkled in thought, giving him the appearance of a constipated cherub. He stroked the cat’s back and grimaced at the stickiness that transferred to his palm. With a sigh of resignation, he handed over the animal.

“Now piss off,” said Stevens.

The boy scarpered.

“Fucking chavs,” Stevens watched him go. “Always up to something.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Pattimore. The cat seemed calmer, cradled in the detective constable’s arms. It let out a purr. “The kid has given me an idea.”

“Me and all. What time’s the chippy open?”

“Not that. Do you remember those cartoons? They don’t show them anymore but there was this cat and every time she’d get paint on her somehow, in a big stripe all along her back. Next thing she knows she’s being sexually harassed by a skunk with a French accent, who thinks she’s a lady skunk. She can’t get rid of him.”

Stevens blinked. “So, your idea is we watch cartoons?”

“No! I think we need a decoy or something. We need something to lure the zorilla out where we can nab him.”

“I’m not dressing up as a lady skunk!”

“Let’s hope it won’t come to that. But think about it: at the zoo they’ve got a female, haven’t they? What about if we borrow it - or get some of its scent? Its phero-whatsits.”

A light came on behind Stevens’s eyes. “Genius!” he clapped a hand on Pattimore’s shoulder. The cat hissed at him. “But first, let’s get fish and chips. I’m starving.”

“First,” Pattimore amended, “We’m taking this little fella to the vet. Get this muck off him.”

Stevens rolled his eyes. Sometimes Pattimore was too bloody soft for police work.

***

Chad Roe climbed down the ladder. He put the rag and can of polish in the broad pockets of his dungarees and looked up at what he had done.

In direct sunlight, the structure was gleaming so much from his last-minute attentions he had to shield his eyes. Using one hand as a visor, he walked around the base of the structure. The other sides merely reflected the sky, its blues and its wisps of white.

It’s beautiful, Chad did some reflecting of his own. And, as the sun moves across the sky, the reflections would change. It was a magical effect. No two moments would be the same. He had created an ever-changing work of art and was feeling pretty damn smug about it.

There had been controversy. Of course. With great art there always is. The bigger the stink, the greater the art, in Chad’s opinion. In fact, he knew for some artists it was the creation of the outcry that was the work of art. The more the critics threw up their hands, and the more the tabloids decried what they saw as the misuse of public funds, the more successful the artists could consider themselves.

But not Chad. Yes, he courted controversy - on an international scale whenever possible - but he had also created something beautiful. He had added to the beauty of the world as a whole and to the dull and dreary town of Dedley in particular.

There were always short-sighted idiots wherever he went. What’s wrong with my design, he bleated, whenever the project had met with a delay? Everyone loves a pyramid. A pyramid speaks of both permanence - those ones in Egypt are still very much with us, aren’t they? - and of the ultimately transient nature of civilisations and each and every human life. The idea persists although the pyramid builders do not.

And why glass? Well... what with all the reflections and all, it’s pretty. And what’s wrong with pretty?

Having won around the borough council to the nature of his design, Chad had met with opposition regarding the location of his work of public art. To most it seemed like pure folly to erect a glass pyramid in the middle of a traffic roundabout at one of Dedley’s busiest intersections. Wouldn’t the bloody thing be better off in a park?

In a park, Chad countered, the risk of vandalism was too high. But on the roundabout, the piece would be visible to many and accessible to none. No one visits traffic islands, do they?

The project was green-lighted; Chad got his way and the thing was built. The local firm of glassblowers - nowadays little more than a working museum - was glad of the work and now, here was Chad conducting his final inspection and giving the piece a last spit-and-polish before the unveiling or dedication or whatever the council and the lottery committee had in mind.

Chad’s phone rang.

“Roberta!” he smarmed. “I was just thinking of you... I’m there now. It’s looking so - so very beautiful. When the light catches it just right - ahh! I could not thank you adequately had I a thousand lifetimes.”

“Mmm,” said Roberta Woolton, “I had intended this to be a quick call.”

They laughed. Roberta finished first.

“Now listen, darling, I’m afraid there’s a bit of a howdye-do... Yes, of course about the blasted pyramid! What else? Those philistines on the council are stamping their feet on this one, and my influence over my husband only goes so far.”

Chad listened with mounting horror as Roberta related the latest preposterous proviso those iconoclastic shitwits wanted to impose.

“Warning tape? Black and yellow warning tape! All over my lovely pyramid?”

“There are health and safety concerns, my darling. In certain conditions, the thing is invisible. How many pigeons have broken their necks on it now?”

“Umm...” Chad thought about the rag in his pocket. He’d just finished wiping off the smear of the latest casualty.

“And there are times of day when the sun bounces off it. It’s utterly blinding, darling. It’s a hazard to motorists... Chad? Are you listening?”

“Umm... Hold on a second.”

Chad edged around the base of the pyramid. A thud had distracted him from Roberta’s ranting. Probably another bloody pigeon come headlong into its doom. Perhaps he should collect all the corpses and make a companion piece: a pyramid of dead pigeons showing how beauty dies for art... Or something...

Chad was inspired and was already filling out the lottery grant application in his head when he noticed a shadow at the farthest side. Too large to be a pigeon - too large to be a man, come to think of it.

“I say!” he called out, striding around the corner.

“Chad?” Roberta’s voice issued from the device in his hand.

“You there! You can’t be on here.”

“Chad?”

“Oh, no! Oh, fuck, no!”

“Chad?!”

But all Roberta Woolton could hear was the scream of the artist, suddenly curtailed. There followed a spine-chilling gurgle and the sound of something heavy hitting the ground.

“Chad? CHAD?!”

Chad’s phone landed several feet from his body. Now all there was in Roberta’s ear was the dull rumble of traffic and the occasional car horn as yet another blinded motorist veered across the lanes.