71

Friday 5 October

‘I’M SENDING A TEAM TO CARDIFF,’ TULLOCH WAS SAYING TO the assembled throng as I pushed open the door of the incident room the next morning. ‘I’m not sure who yet. But we need to find any other photographs of Victoria, talk to people who knew her, try and find out where she might be staying.’

The door opened again and I turned to see Joesbury holding it for Gayle Mizon. She walked through holding two paper mugs from Starbucks. She held one out to him and he grinned at her as he took it. The smell of coffee came drifting over towards me. Joesbury’s hair was still wet from the shower. A phone started ringing. From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Barrett answer it.

‘We need to go over Cooper’s place again,’ Tulloch said. ‘We may have missed something. A partial print, anything.’

‘Boss.’ Barrett’s voice.

‘That outfit she wears, the black-hooded coat with squiggles on it, it may—’

‘Boss.’ Louder that time. We all turned to Barrett, whose normally glossy black skin had taken on a duller shade. ‘You need to take this,’ he went on. ‘The head’s turned up.’

Tulloch seemed to freeze. ‘Where?’ she asked.

‘The zoo,’ he answered. ‘It’s at London Zoo.’

*

‘This is one sick bitch,’ muttered Anderson, as we bypassed the zoo’s queuing system and went in through the main gates. A couple of uniformed constables were already in place. We’d passed another one on the street outside, patiently explaining to the growing queue why they couldn’t go into the zoo just yet. I hoped he wasn’t telling them the whole truth.

Ahead of us we saw two men in suits and a woman in black trousers and a green sweatshirt approach Tulloch.

‘The tall bloke’s local CID,’ muttered Anderson. ‘I knew him when I worked in Islington.’ He pointed over to a group of primary-school children gathered by the gift shop. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘The place is crawling with school parties midweek. Is it even Victorian?’

‘Strictly, it pre-dates Her late Majesty by a few years,’ I said. I’d done a quick Google search before we’d left the station. ‘Although she was on the throne by the time it opened to the public.’

‘My bloody daughter comes here,’ said Anderson.

‘Take it easy, mate,’ said Joesbury.

The tall detective introduced himself and the zoo’s general manager, a man called Sheep, comically enough. The woman was one of the head keepers. She was shaking.

‘How long ago was it found?’ asked Tulloch.

Sheep looked at his watch. ‘About quarter to ten,’ he said. ‘We’d only just opened. Luckily the place was quiet. Just a few dozen early birds and that school party you can see over there.’

‘Is there anywhere they can be taken until we can talk to them?’ asked Tulloch.

‘The Oasis might work,’ said Sheep. ‘The main site restaurant. It’s not far from here and there’s plenty of space.’

‘Thank you,’ said Tulloch. ‘Gayle, can you organize that? Coordinate with the keepers to get everyone over there, including all non-essential staff.’

‘It’s our busiest time,’ said the woman in green. ‘All the enclosures need to be made ready for the day, the animals all need feeding.’

‘I understand,’ said Tulloch. ‘We’ll keep the disruption to a minimum. Now, where can we see CCTV footage?’

‘My office is probably the best place,’ said Sheep. ‘I can take you there now.’

‘Can you take DC Stenning, please?’ said Tulloch. ‘Pete, get hold of everything for the last twenty-four hours for starters. We’ll take it from there.’

Stenning and Sheep set off towards the zoo’s main admin buildings.

‘OK, let’s walk and talk,’ said Tulloch. ‘How far do we have to go?’

With the CID detective, a man called John Hallister, in the lead, we set off down the hill and along the zoo’s main avenue. To our right were the original brick buildings of the aquarium and the reptile house. Tiny cafeterias on either side of the path had just started business for the day. The serving staff watched us with undisguised curiosity as we made our way past.

‘Our local office got the call at ten minutes to ten,’ said Hallister. ‘We followed down about fifteen minutes later. When we got here, uniform had already closed the zoo to new punters and roped off the enclosure. The zoo staff had to get the animals back into their sleeping accommodation. Wasn’t easy. They were very upset.’

‘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.’