Bolton, J. - Now You See Me

‘And which animals …’ began Tulloch. We’d stopped at the police tape. ‘The Gorilla Kingdom,’ she said, with something like dismay in her voice.

‘Gorillas are extremely sensitive,’ said the keeper in a shaky voice. She was wearing a name badge that told us she was called Anna. ‘They don’t react well to the smell of blood,’ she went on.

‘Neither do I,’ said Tulloch in a low voice.

‘This is one of the newest enclosures,’ I said. ‘And probably the most popular. If anyone were going for maximum shock value, this is the one they’d choose.’

‘Are you telling me the gorillas found the head?’ Tulloch asked Anna.

‘We knew something was up,’ she replied. ‘They started screaming the minute we let them out. They wouldn’t go near it, of course.’

‘They didn’t touch it then?’ asked Tulloch. ‘It’s still where it was found?’

‘I couldn’t say for certain about the Colobus monkeys. We had quite a job getting them rounded up. And they are very inquisitive. The gorillas are a different story. Very distressed. Our alpha female is pregnant.’

There wasn’t much we could say to that – it certainly didn’t seem like the moment to offer congratulations. We stepped through a long fringe of plastic sheeting and found ourselves in a semi-tropical environment. Lush foliage, running water, decorative bamboo structures and jewel-coloured tropical birds. We carried on through more plastic fringing and came into the enclosure itself.

It was a large space. A dead tree looked sculptural against the pale October sky. I looked up. No roof of any description.

The gorillas were still upset. Even some distance from their indoor accommodation, their calling and chattering was uncomfortably loud.

‘There it is,’ said Hallister. ‘Over by that rock.’

With Tulloch in the lead we approached a viewing point. Between us and the gorillas’ enclosure was a metre-high fence and a water-filled moat. The head was face-down about five metres away on the other side of the moat. The chin-length brown hair was damp from dew. What looked like congealed blood surrounded the stump.

‘She could have thrown it from here,’ said Joesbury. ‘One big swing would do it.’

‘Has anyone been near it?’ asked Tulloch.

The CID detective shook his head. ‘Nope. Once we got the animals back inside and knew what we were dealing with, we waited for you.’

Tulloch nodded and turned to Anderson. ‘Any idea when SOCs will get here?’ she asked.

Anderson stepped to one side and made a call to find out.

‘Are the animals kept inside overnight?’ asked Joesbury.

‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘It’s safer. And at this time of year, much warmer.’

‘So it could have been left some time in the night and no one would have spotted it till this morning?’ he asked.

‘Well, the zoo’s locked at night,’ said the keeper. ‘No one’s supposed to come in. There are nightwatchmen.’

Joesbury was looking round. ‘Mind if I take a walk, Tully?’ he asked.

She shook her head and he left the enclosure. He had to step to one side to let some new arrivals through. SOCs hadn’t taken long to show up.

Ten minutes later, covered head to toe in Tyvek, Tulloch, Anderson, the senior crime-scene investigator, Anna the keeper and I stepped out from the gorillas’ house and into the enclosure. We were halfway across the outdoor area and the head was in view when we spotted Mike Kaytes, the duty pathologist that morning, making his way towards us. He was already suited up. We stopped to wait for him.

‘No flies,’ I said.

‘Sorry?’ said Tulloch.

‘Look,’ I pointed out. ‘Over there, it looks like dung, am I right?’

‘Well, we haven’t had chance to clean yet,’ said the keeper.

‘There are flies on it,’ I said. ‘I can see them from here.’

‘OK,’ said Tulloch.

‘But none on the head,’ I went on.

Tulloch stared at it for a second. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Maybe she used something to preserve it that’s keeping them away.’

Kaytes had arrived. He nodded at us all and then we let him approach the head by himself. He took his time, walked close and stopped. Then he made a circle around it, looking down all the time. When he’d completed the 360 degrees he crouched low, blocking our view. We could see him reach out but not what he touched. He got down on to his knees and peered forward. Then he pushed himself back and stood up.

As he walked towards us there was an expression on his face I couldn’t read. He almost seemed on the verge of a smile.

‘You haven’t heard from Madame Tussauds this morning, have you?’ he asked the CID detective.

‘Not our patch,’ Hallister replied. ‘Why?’

‘I think you might be about to,’ said Kaytes. ‘Go and take a look.’

He followed close behind as we moved over to the head. We formed a circle and looked down. I breathed in hard through my nose. The smell stayed the same. Earth, coffee from the nearby cafés, the detritus of warm-blooded animals. Nothing else.

Tulloch dropped to her knees. After a second so did the rest of us. We must have looked like some sort of bizarre prayer meeting.

‘It’s not human,’ said Kaytes, unnecessarily. This close, it was unmistakable. ‘What you’ve got there is a waxwork.’

72

‘A HOAX THEN,’ SAID HALLISTER.

‘Not necessarily,’ said Kaytes. ‘That red stuff around the stump wasn’t paint. That was blood.’

Tulloch, the pathologist, Hallister and I were sitting at one of the zoo’s smaller outdoor cafés, a fish and chip bar near the bug house. The day was getting colder but no one seemed to want to go indoors. Anderson had been left in charge of the crime scene. Mizon was interviewing visitors and Stenning was still looking at CCTV footage. I had no idea what had happened to Joesbury.

‘Human blood?’ asked Tulloch.

‘Impossible to tell till I have a good look at it, run a couple of tests,’ he replied. ‘I’ll probably know later today.’

‘It wasn’t a hoax.’ We looked up to see Stenning and Joesbury had arrived. ‘I’ve seen the CCTV footage,’ Stenning went on. ‘She got into the zoo last night wearing her trademark clothes. You know – baggy black jacket with coloured symbols, black beanie. One of the cameras picked her up by the Komodo dragons at three twenty-four a.m. She was carrying a small holdall.’

‘How did she get in?’ said Tulloch, looking round.

‘Over the fence,’ said Joesbury. ‘Budge up, Flint.’ He pulled a chair up and squeezed in between me and Tulloch. Leaning forward, he put a map of the zoo on the table. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘Other side of the camels. There’s an iron fence between the zoo and the park. It’s barely five feet high. I think I even found the exact spot.’

‘How?’ said Tulloch.

‘There are four indentations in the grass,’ said Joesbury, ‘forming the four corners of a rectangle about two feet by fifteen inches. Someone’s gone over to photograph them. They were just there.’ He pointed to a spot on the map and we all leaned in closer.

The perimeter of the zoo formed a right-angled triangle, with two roughly equal sides that ran along the Prince Albert Road and the main avenue through Regent’s Park. The hypotenuse ran diagonally south to north-west through the park. About halfway along it, between the enclosures for camels, pygmy hippos and bearded pigs and the new Komodo dragon exhibit, was the tip of Joesbury’s index finger.

‘I could see similar marks on the other side of the fence,’ he said. ‘This spot isn’t directly overlooked by any cameras. I think she had a light aluminium stepladder that she used to give herself a bit of height on the park side of the fence. She jumped over and reached through the railings to lift the ladder up and across. Then she left it on the zoo side ready for a quick getaway.’