John Davis - Fear No Evil

John Gordon Davis

Fear No Evil

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 1982

Copyright © John Gordon Davis 1982

Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

John Gordon Davis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780007574445

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780008119270

Version: 2014-12-18

To my lovely wife Rosemary

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Part Two

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Part Three

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Part Four

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Part Five

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Part Six

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Part Seven

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Part Eight

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Part Nine

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Part Ten

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Part Eleven

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Five

Fifty-Six

Fifty-Seven

Part Twelve

Fifty-Eight

Fifty-Nine

Sixty

Sixty-One

Sixty-Two

Part Thirteen

Sixty-Three

Sixty-Four

Sixty-Five

Sixty-Six

Part Fourteen

Sixty-Seven

Sixty-Eight

Sixty-Nine

Seventy

Part Fifteen

Seventy-One

Seventy-Two

Seventy-Three

Seventy-Four

Seventy-Five

Seventy-Six

Part Sixteen

Seventy-Seven

Seventy-Eight

Seventy-Nine

Eighty

Eighty-One

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Just over there, through the trees, was Fifth Avenue: cars and buses roaring, people hurrying, apartments, shops; the trees were budding, everything turning green, and there was a feeling of life in the sharp air around Central Park Zoo. It is a pretty little zoo, red brick covered with ivy, and at the entrance is a charming rotating clock tower: our childhood animals, cast in bronze, each are playing a different musical instrument, and as the clock turns it chimes a tune: the hippo is playing the violin, the kangaroo the trumpet, the goat the pipes, the penguin the drum, the jolly elephant the concertina.

This Saturday afternoon a young man was standing in Central Park, just outside the zoo gates, listening to the musical clock. He was twenty-eight years old, average height, lean, his thatch of hair jet-black, his skin clear and unlined; he was wearing a tracksuit and sneakers and his face was flushed from running. It was a strong, nice-looking face, but what struck you most were his eyes: they were beautiful—bright, deep blue, almost mauve, in certain light nearly black, and penetrating, and very warm, with thick lashes and dark eyebrows. Now his eyes were on the musical clock as it chimed five, and they were sad.

For down below in the zoo is very different from the musical clock. Over in the corner the great, solitary polar bear paced up and down in his cage, pad pad pad to the corner, blink, turn, pad pad pad back, blink, turn, pad back to the corner again; over and over, and over and over. His feet covered exactly the same spots, and his body went through exactly the same turning movement every time. All day, every day, for the rest of his life. In the Elephant House the great mammals shuffled back and forth, back and forth, their great trunks curling and slopping, curling and slopping, nothing to do, enormous feet shuffling over the same few yards of concrete, big eyes blinking. Sometimes they trumpet, an old primitive scream out of the great forests that crashes back off the Victorian walls. In the Big Cat House, the lions and the tiger and the jaguar and the snow leopard and the panther are prowling back and forth, back and forth, powerful hunting animals pacing four paces to the corner, blink, turn, four paces back, blink, turn; over and over. The lions are fortunate, for there are two in one cage, but in their pacing they get in each other’s way and have to make an identical movement to avoid each other, a terrible ritual, over and over. The other big cats are alone in their cages, and they cannot see each other. The puma is always trying to paw down the steel partition to get in with the jaguar. For the rest of their lives, four paces up, four paces down. It would make a difference to the big cats if they could just see each other, for solitary confinement is one of the worst punishments. But opposite their row are the cages of the gorillas, big hairy animals each twice the weight and size of two very big men, with faces and eyes that are almost human, and the male gorilla can see the female gorilla in the next cage just fine, but they just sit there and stare and eat their own excrement.

As the clock chimed an old black man came down the path.

‘Hello man.’

The young man turned with relief. ‘Hello, Ambrose.’

Old Ambrose looked up at him worriedly, then nodded his silvery head at the gates. ‘You not goin’ to knock this place over too, are you?’

‘No.’

Ambrose took a deep, apprehensive breath, and glanced side-ways. He reached up to the young man’s top pocket and dropped a bunch of keys in it.

‘Thanks, Ambrose.’

Ambrose looked up at the young man anxiously.

‘You only got an hour. Midnight to one. While we’re all havin’ dinner.’

The young man nodded.

‘And,’ Ambrose said, ‘the east gate will be open.’

The young man nodded again. ‘Thanks, Ambrose.’ Then he pulled two letters out of his tracksuit pocket. They were both stamped, and had express delivery stickers. ‘Will you mail these? Tonight, as soon as it’s over?’