Zorilla At Large!

by William Stafford

  Title Page

  ZORILLA AT LARGE!

  A Brough & Miller Investigation

  William Stafford

  Publisher Information

  Zorilla At Large!

  Published in 2012 by Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  Copyright © 2015 William Stafford

  The right of William Stafford to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

  Chapter One

  “Don’t mind if I do.” Chief Inspector Karen Wheeler helped herself to a fifth glass of fizzy plonk from the tray of a passing waiter. She necked the drink in one thirsty gulp and cursed herself for not taking two glasses. She was about to give chase when Superintendent Kevin Ball took her by the arm.

  “Steady on, Karen,” he urged quietly. “Can’t have you off your tits and causing a scene.”

  “Get off!” Wheeler shook herself free of his grasp. “I’m not on duty. Not technically.”

  Superintendent Ball had to concede this was true. “But we are very much on show, my darling.” His face contorted into a rictus as a couple of local dignitaries jostled past.

  Wheeler considered a judicious knee to his squidgy bits for calling her ‘darling’. She looked at her watch, which, to her chagrin, revealed that it was only 7:15. The night was still so young it had yet to be slapped by the midwife.

  With the spectre of funding cuts looming large, like Banquo’s ghost at a banquet, Wheeler had agreed to attend the Mayor of Dedley’s event. “We must be visible,” Ball had told her. “The human face of law enforcement.” Wheeler had greeted these words with a snort of derision. “You mean suck up to the bastards and they might not put you out of work.”

  But here she was, in the Safari Ballroom in the centre of the town’s zoo. On a Friday night. In a posh frock.

  Some things went above and beyond the call of duty.

  “Old timers like us,” Ball had continued, “They can’t put us out to grass. Not without a considerable pay off. But think of your team, Karen. I know that - deep down - you’re proud of what they have achieved. So, for their sake, for the sake of Serious, come to the Mayor’s do and smile your face off.”

  Sometimes being small in stature had its advantages: Wheeler was able to elbow buttocks out of her path to the wet bar. The bartender held out a champagne flute. Wheeler glared at him until he shrank back. She helped herself to a bottle of bubbly from its ice bath and took a hearty swig. She levelled a finger at the quivering bar man.

  “Not one fucking peep.”

  Someone was tapping a glass with a knife in a bid to get everyone’s attention. The assembled dignitaries and their spouses rearranged themselves into an audience, a semi-circle of spectators around a table on which something angular was covered by a cloth. Wheeler remained where she was. It was one thing to turn up and smile like a fucking simpleton; it was another to crawl up the Mayor’s arse and lick his teeth clean from the inside.

  “Ladies and gentlemen and those who have yet to make up their minds,” said the glass tapper, unconsciously offending at least a couple of people in attendance and pausing for laughter that was far too generous. “Thank you all for coming. Here at the zoo, we take our conservation work very seriously. And now, in partnership with our new - um - partners in Africa, and a considerable grant from the Black Country Lottery, we hope to extend that work and have a greater impact on the world stage.”

  The speaker - Wheeler guessed he must be some big knob at the zoo - nodded to a black man in a leopard skin hat. They shook hands for a photo opportunity. A deputation from the local press obliged with flashes from their cameras.

  “It is with great pleasure that I welcome Doctor Luntu Kabungo to the zoo - and I must say how honoured we are by his presence and how grateful we are to accept this gift, a symbol of our partnership.”

  The spectators applauded as the big knob whisked away the cloth from the table to reveal-

  -an empty cage.

  The applause fizzled away. Uncertainty clouded every face.

  “Oi, mate!” called Wheeler from the back of the room. “This place is full of fucking cages already.”

  Doctor Kabungo’s smile faltered. Superintendent Ball’s heart sank to his shoes. Bringing Wheeler had been a mistake; he’d known it all along.

  “I don’t understand,” said the big knob.

  “It’s fucked off!” Wheeler obliged him with an explanation. “Whatever it was in that box has got out.”

  Her pronouncement gave rise to shrieks of panic. People rushed for the exits but the big knob - or Jeff as he is known to everyone else except Wheeler - called for calm.

  “No sudden movements!” he cried. “Everyone keep perfectly still!”

  The dignitaries froze, like the citizens of Pompeii in a game of musical statues.

  “I say, Jeffrey,” Superintendent Ball ignored the edict and pushed his way to the front. “What is it we’re dealing with here? What manner of beastie?”

  “Zorilla,” said Doctor Kabungo in a rich, deep voice.

  “I beg your pardon.” Ball turned to Jeff for clarification.

  “A fucking gorilla!” Wheeler sprang onto a chair. “There’s a fucking gorilla on the loose!”

  A cry of alarm rang out but nobody moved. Wide eyes searched the room in all directions.

  “No, no!” Doctor Kabungo addressed the room. “You misunderstand. Zorilla. Zo - rill - a!”

  “And what the fuck is that?” Wheeler harangued him from her perch.

  “It’s a type of polecat,” supplied Jeff, adopting the tone he used for addressing school parties in the Education Hut. “A striped polecat, about this big. Now listen, everyone: it won’t hurt you but if it gets alarmed, it may well spray you with a malodorous scent from its anal glands.”

  Wheeler squawked like a startled macaw. “It’s a skunk! A fucking skunk! Some present that is! Who gives somebody a fucking skunk?”

  Jeff sent embarrassed glances towards Doctor Kabungo. “It’s not a skunk. It’s a polecat. It’s a very rare, very valuable creature. And we’re all very grateful for it.”

  “Um, actually,” it was Doctor Kabungo’s turn to look embarrassed. “They’re ten a penny where I come from. We’re nipple-deep in them all year round.”

  Wheeler laughed so hard she fell off her chair. A pair of black eyes, like beads, glinted at her from under a table.

  “Hello,” said Wheeler. “I’ve found the fucker! Nice skunky-wunky, come to Auntie Karen... NO! Don’t turn around!”

  She tried to scramble away but it was too late. A cloud of mist hit her in the face.

  And all hell broke loose.

  ***

  The following morning, the detectives of the Serious Crimes Division arrived at the briefing room to find all the windows open and the ceiling fan, accompanied by several of its smaller desktop cousins, whirring away like some kind of art installation.

  “Shit me; it’s like a bastard fridge in here.” Detective Inspector Benny Stevens observed, rubbing his hands together.
/>
  Standing at a table at the front, Chief Inspector Wheeler, looking considerably pinker than usual, remained tight-lipped. She snatched up an aerosol can and sent a spray of lavender-and-coconut in Stevens’s general direction. Then she became aware that Detective Sergeant Melanie Miller was looking her up and down.

  “Melanie...” Wheeler narrowed her eyes, daring Miller to comment. Miller leaned in and whispered.

  “Looks good.” She circled a finger in the air as though circumscribing the Chief Inspector’s face. “I expect it’ll calm down in a day or two. I’ve always wanted to try one but I’ve always been too chicken.”

  Wheeler’s lips parted just enough to reveal a row of lower teeth, giving her the appearance of a pissed-off piranha. “What,” she grunted, “the bloody blue fuck are you wittering on about, woman?”

  Miller recoiled, startled. “Oh. So, you haven’t had a face peel, then?”

  “No, I fucking well haven’t had a fucking face fucking peel!”

  Miller scurried away to a seat near the back.

  Detective Inspector David Brough ambled in, looking as tanned as Wheeler was pink. His jacket was slung over one shoulder and the grin on his face revealed teeth that appeared preternaturally white.

  “Good morning, all!” he addressed the room. With a flamboyant flick, he draped his jacket over the back of a chair and sat. Miller rolled her eyes.

  “Somebody had a good time in California,” she muttered. Brough turned to her, his teeth gleaming whiter than a stack of fridges in a refrigerator commercial.

  “Time of my life,” he laughed.

  Miller harrumphed. She did not wish to hear about Brough’s wildly exciting new relationship with his movie-star boyfriend. It was like Brough was turning into someone else. He was no longer the priggish, uptight, sarcastic but brilliant detective of whom Miller was dangerously fond.

  Detective Constable Jason Pattimore came in, clocked Brough’s tanned face and executed a double take worthy of a cartoon character when he saw his ex’s enhanced choppers.

  “Fuck me,” he whispered to Stevens as he slipped into a seat beside him. “Brough’s been drinking TippEx.”

  “He’s not the only one been coloured in,” murmured Stevens. He motioned his eyes like a defective Action Man. Pattimore followed them and caught sight of the pink-faced Chief Inspector at the front.

  “Shit me!” he gasped.

  “That’s what I said,” Stevens laughed, feeling like a proud master with his apprentice. Wheeler sent them both a glare.

  “Let’s begin, shall we?” she seethed but if the capillaries in her cheeks were expanded by a sudden rush of angry blood, the detectives were unable to detect any difference. She stabbed a remote control in the direction of a whiteboard.

  “Projector,” said Brough.

  Wheeler’s face flashed murderous.

  “Point it at the projector not the screen,” Brough’s face flashed cheesy. There was, Miller noticed, a hint of Californian drawl to his speech, God help us all.

  Wheeler’s eyes narrowed to buttonholes but she followed his suggestion. Behind her, the screen flickered into life and was filled with a furry face, baring its fangs.

  Stevens yelped. “The fuck is that?”

  The other detectives peered at the image.

  “Ictonyx striatus,” said Wheeler. “AKA the striped polecat or zorilla.”

  “That’s never a gorilla,” said Stevens.

  “She said zorilla not gorilla,” said Miller.

  “You’m the gorilla, Miller.”

  “What is it, Chief?” Pattimore drew everyone’s attention back to the matter at hand. “And why are you showing us?”

  Wheeler took a deep breath and steeled herself.

  She told them the story of the night before. The detectives listened with rapt attention until they could contain their amusement no longer.

  “So that’s why your face is like a baboon’s arse!” said Stevens. “Um - no offence.”

  “I can recommend a good apricot scrub,” offered Miller.

  “And you really turned that thing on the Mayor? And the leader of the council?”

  “Well, I couldn’t fucking see, could I?” Wheeler raised her voice over the laughter. “I just grabbed the little bastard - they’ve got claws like needles and teeth like fucking pins. I tried to take it back to its box but it went off like a fucking machine gun, spraying every bugger in my path.”

  The Serious detectives were gasping for breath. Their ribs squeezed, pinching out further gasps. Stevens wiped his eyes on his knitted tie. “Fucking brilliant,” he squeaked.

  “And you didn’t get it back to the cage after all that?” Brough struggled to keep a straight face.

  “No!” Wheeler abandoned any attempt to resist the tide of laughter and augmented it with her own. “Little bastard nipped me right here,” she indicated the soft skin between thumb and index finger, “and I dropped the fucker. They can’t half shift. Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him since.”

  “Poor little thing,” said Miller. “Must have been terrified.”

  “I can take care of myself,” said Wheeler.

  “I was talking about the whatsit - the polecat,” said Miller and everyone creased in half again.

  The door slammed.

  Superintendent Kevin Ball stood seething, his face as red as Wheeler’s but from purely emotional causes.

  “When you’ve quite finished laughing your collective tits off,” he roared.

  The detectives’ mouths hung open. They shuffled back to their seats.

  “We have some serious - and I use the word advisedly - damage limitation to be getting along with.”

  Wheeler tried - and failed - to turn her smirk into a look of penitence.

  “Now,” Ball gave her a stern glare, “I’ve called in a few favours from the editors of the local rags. They’ve agreed to put a lid on this for the time being. There’s to be another photo opportunity for His Worship the Mayor - the good Doctor Kabungo brought two of those skunk things with him apparently, a breeding pair. But while that is going on, can we please get out there and find the first one? We can’t have this thing running free. It’ll be like the wallaby debacle of 1973.” He suppressed a shudder.

  Detective Inspector Harry Henry blundered in, managing to collide with both door and jamb.

  “You’re very late,” Ball observed. He turned to Wheeler. “And you allow such shoddy time-keeping in your department?”

  Wheeler’s fists and face clenched in roughly the same way but before she could squeeze out a syllable, Detective Inspector Harry Henry spoke up for himself.

  “Oh, I’m not late, Chief, Sir,” he stood up straight. “I’ve been on the job for an hour and a half already.”

  “Go on, Harry...” said Wheeler.

  “It’s Doctor Kabungo,” said Harry Henry, gesturing at the door behind him. “I’ve just come from his hotel. He’s been murdered.”

  In the stupefied and sober silence that followed, Harry Henry blinked at the whiteboard and peered over the top of his loose-fitting spectacles.

  “Coo,” he said. “Is that a zorilla?”

  Chapter Two

  The Serious Crimes Division adjourned to the scene of the murder: Doctor Kabungo’s room at the Railway Hotel, an establishment that had seen more murderers through its doors than Winson Green Prison. While appropriately-suited forensics officers went about the process of labelling and photographing everything visible (and some things invisible), the SOCO briefed Wheeler and her team in the sealed-off corridor.

  “Initial inspection suggests the victim’s throat was slashed - no, not slashed; ‘torn’ might be a better word. From here to here.” He made a diagonal gesture from beneath his right ear to just below his Adam’s apple, using three fin
gers. “Now, if you were to put a gun to my head and ask me to stipulate right here and now before we run any lab tests and all the rest of it, I’d have to say the poor bugger fell prey to some kind of vicious animal attack.”

  Wheeler’s eyebrows leapt towards the hairline of her salt-and-pepper crew cut. Detective Inspector Brough stepped forward.

  “Are there any other signs of animal intrusion?”

  “Did it fuck him, do you mean?” said Wheeler.

  “No, Chief,” Brough dismissed her with a patronising smile and looked the SOCO in the eye. “I mean other marks, fur, droppings, urine, scratches on the furniture. How might an animal have got in? And out?”

  “Could still be in there,” Miller nodded to the room behind the strips of yellow tape.

  The SOCO negated Miller’s notion and assured them if there was an animal in that room, his team would have stumbled across it by now. He said he would send his full report, nodded farewell to Brough and went back to finish his job.

  Wheeler sneered in disdain. “Hoi, Casa-buggering-nova, isn’t a film star fuck buddy enough for you?”

  Brough blushed beneath his tan.

  “Right,” Wheeler addressed the team as a whole. “Brough, Miller, you stay here. Talk to people: hotel manager, night porter, chambermaids, even the fucking paper boy. I want a full picture of what happened since Doctor Whojimmyflop checked in, right up until he... checked out. You two,” she stabbed a finger at Pattimore and Stevens, “You two am going on a skunk hunt.”

  “What did you call me?” Stevens bristled.

  “I said ‘skunk hunt’,” said Wheeler deliberately.

  Stevens groaned. “Make it a beaver hunt and you’ve got a deal.”

  “I’m not in the fucking mood,” Wheeler snapped. “Perhaps you can twiddle your porn-star moustache and entice that thing out of hiding then, while it’s fucking your fucking fuck face, Pattimore can chuck a bag over it.”

  “Yes, Chief,” said Pattimore brightly, earning himself a sharp jab in the ribs from Stevens’s elbow.

  “And me, Chief?” Harry Henry stood blinking. He wore the hopeful expression of a boy scout during bob-a-job week.