Chris Simms - Savage Moon

'Christ!' He kicked the duvet off and looked at the clock. Seven. He should have been up an hour ago. Flipping open his mobile, he scrolled through to Carmel's number and pressed connect. 'Who fed you that information?'

'Sorry, is that DI Spicer?'

'Who was it? Do you realise the shit this story will stir up?'

'You know I can't tell you that.'

'No?' He stood up, walked over to the window. Grey drizzle was falling outside. 'You don't need to. I saw you yesterday at

Buxton Zoo. It was Hobson.'

'You're wrong actually.' Her voice had softened. Was it sympathy he heard? 'You need to look closer to home.'

Jon glanced at Alice who was staring back at him. He turned away. 'Piss off, Carmel.'

He threw the phone on the bed and set off for the shower. Alice's voice stopped him in the doorway. 'So much for keeping work and home lives separate.'

'Yeah, sorry,' he mumbled. 'What time did you come to bed last night?'

'Around midnight. You were fast asleep with Holly on your chest.'

'Was I?' Jon looked at his side of the bed. 'I remember changing out of my work clothes and then lying down with her. She was asleep?'

'You both were. They don't recommend it. If you'd rolled over-'

'I didn't mean to — Christ. I must have just nodded off. Did you sleep OK?'

'So-so. She needed feeding at around two, then again at four.'

'God, I didn't even hear that. You should have woken me, I could have given her a bottle.'

'I tried to. You were dead to the world.'

He felt a pang of guilt at having left his wife to get through the night feeds on her own. 'How are you feeling?'

'Fine.'

Jon tiptoed through his next comment. 'You seem so wrapped up in this research thing. I don't want you getting upset about it.' He lightened his tone and smiled. 'Don't forget we've got a little girl to look after too.'

She looked down. 'I'm feeding her now, aren't I?'

Yes, but that's about all you're doing with her. 'True. But go easy. The last thing you need to do is exhaust yourself stressing out over what's happening in Iraq.'

'Do I look tired?' He nodded.

She smiled. 'Well take a look at yourself. You're a complete wreck.'

Yeah, Jon thought. Nine hour's sleep and I still feel like shit. He grinned back, 'I'd better grab a shower then and make myself look beautiful.'

Summerby, McCloughlin and most of the incident room team were surrounding the centre table when Jon walked in. He spotted several copies of the Manchester Evening Chronicle dotted about.

'Morning, Jon, nice that you made it in,' Summerby said, before looking back at the front page. 'Just what we didn't want to happen.'

The photo was an aerial view of the Greater Manchester area, the route of the Medlock highlighted in a lurid red. Big crosses marked where all three victims had been discovered, next to each was a panel giving estimated time and date of death. Hovering over the city centre itself was a large red question mark.

The headline read, River of Death .

Jon sat down. 'I know where this has come from. Hobson, the big cat expert at Buxton Zoo. I saw the crime reporter from the Chronicle arrive there yesterday for a briefing. The bastard is using this whole thing as a business promotion.'

DC Adlon spoke up. 'I didn't have time to find much on the bloke, but a company search threw up something interesting. Buxton Zoo is a public limited company and Hobson is the majority shareholder.'

Summerby sat back and looked at Jon. 'I gather the reason you missed my briefing yesterday was because you were back at Crime Lake.'

Jon nodded. 'The word Kuririkana is written on the notice board at the top of the car park and on the rocks by where Rose Sutton was found.'

'You've been up on the moors too?' Summerby demanded. Catching Rick's look of surprise, Jon coughed awkwardly. 'I went straight up there after I found the word on the notice board in the car park. It had been daubed on the rocks in blood.

Rose Sutton's at a guess. Someone had then done their best to remove the word. Only a sweep with a Portascope showed it up.'

Summerby stared back at him. 'What's your conclusion then?'

'I'm not sure. I know Jeremy Hobson has spent time in Kenya though, he told me himself.'

Summerby mulled on the conversation as officers began to speculate in whispers. 'Right, we'll come back to that. In the meantime, Gavin Edwards has some other developments you should all know about.'

The press officer ruffled his copy of the newspaper. 'I have a contact on the features desk at the Chronicle . They're doing an interview with a man who's booked into the Royal Hotel in Buxton for the next twenty-one days. He says that's how long he'll need to trap and kill the panther.'

'Who is he?' Jon asked.

'He runs an agency that organises bear shoots in Eastern

Europe, among other things. Quite a character apparently.' Jon rolled his eyes. 'Where's he from?'

'He's British.'

'And I presume he's armed with some sort of a weapon?'

'Yup. It's got a scope on it that would put a paparazzi photographer to shame. I understand they've already done a photo-shoot in the grounds of the hotel. He even wears a hunting hat with game feathers in it.'

Jon looked at Summerby. 'This is getting like the wild west.'

'Agreed. I've been on to the Chief Constable of Derbyshire. This hunter fellow's firearm certificate is up to date, so all they can do is warn him not to discharge it in unauthorised areas. If the farmers allow him on to their land, we can't stop him.'

'There's more from the local papers,' Edwards said reluctantly.

'I just heard a black Labrador was shot and killed early this morning in Tandle Hill Countryside Park near Oldham.'

'Shot with what?' DC Gardiner asked.

'A bolt from a crossbow. The owner said the animal was retrieving a ball from undergrowth. He heard a yelp and when he went to investigate he saw a person in full camouflage gear standing over the dog. He turned the dead animal over with his foot, then casually walked away.'

'Once he realised it wasn't a panther,' DC Gardiner concluded.

'How many panther sightings have we had from Saddleworth since news of Kerrigan's death broke?' Summerby asked.

'Twenty-seven at the last count,' Edwards replied. 'And not just Saddleworth. There's been calls from Stalybridge, Ashton-under-Lyne, Glossop, Whaley Bridge. Even Bury.'

'Bury?' Jon said. 'That's nowhere near Saddleworth.'

'People are terrified. It's certainly not a good time to be a black cat. The RSPCA have reported another one being killed in Levenshulme. Uniforms also recovered a carcass of one from a lock-up garage in Cheetham Hill. It had been clubbed to death. There are even reports of someone in a tower block in Gorton shooting crows with an airgun.'

'Crows? Why?' DC Gardiner asked.

Edwards shrugged. 'They're animals and they're black?' Jon saw he was serious. 'God, he's probably right.'

The phone on Jon's desk rang. Rick reached over and picked it up. 'DI Spicer's phone. Yes he is.' He held the phone out.

'Nikki Kingston. She says it's urgent.'

Jon walked over. 'Nikki, it's Jon here.' He turned slightly from the mass of listening officers. 'Everything all right?'

'I've got something important for you.'

Keeping it strictly business then, he thought. 'Go ahead.'

'I did the DNA test on those hairs you gave me. The ones from Buxton Zoo.'

'What did you find?'

'I'm still bloody furious with you. Do you realise that?'

'I was hoping we might talk… '

'Save it. I don't want to hear your bullshit apologies. The hairs from Rose Sutton and Derek Peterson match some of the hairs from the sample you gave me. There was a Y chromosome present, so it came from a male animal.'