My eyes snapped open and I sat up sharply, smacking my head on the underside of a counter and sending several sample bottles rolling off to break on the floor. I hopped to my feet to avoid the stink getting on me and instantly regretted it. Panic hit me as if it had been fired, point-blank from a custom built panic gun.
My head whipped from side to side, scanning the perfumery, the lingerie, the ladieswear but there was no obvious tiger. There had been a tiger. Had there been a tiger?
Yes, there had. Otherwise the others would still be here. I bit the inside of my cheek hard. It hurt. A lot. So I was awake at least. The memory of the tiger felt real enough. I took the claw out of my pocket. The tiger’s claw. It looked like how I would imagine a tiger’s claw to look.
Although that didn’t prove much because when I first saw it I was convinced it looked like how a dinosaur’s claw would look, but still…
This was it. The task at hand. The cat.
The bloody ‘cat’.
And how to catch it, I suppose.
“Hello?” I shouted to no-one in particular.
I looked around again, half expecting the tiger to answer or at least jump out but instead there was a slightly more familiar although no less unexpected sound.
Bing bong.
The doorbell noise over the store’s tannoy system that signified someone was about to start telling you the special offers for the day. Except it didn’t. Not this time.
“Clint,” Jacob’s voice crackling out of a multitude of speakers. “We can see you on the security cameras.”
“Excellent,” I said, spotting one and turning to wave. “Can you hear me? Where the hell did the tiger go?”
Bing bong went the chime again.
“We can’t hear you but we can see you. We tried to get outside but we can’t something’s happened with the doors. They’re all locked. Even the fire doors.”
So Agatha had locked the place down. I took my phone out of my pocket. Still no signal.
Bing bong.
“And the land lines are down too,” this time it was Erin’s voice emanating from the aging address system. “This better not be your doing, Detective, because if it is -”
The system cut off.
I stepped as far towards the camera as I could and began to slowly mouth the words:
WHERE IS THE TIGER?
Adding a little mime of a tiger at the end.
Bing bong.
“Ground floor,” it was Jacob again. “We think.”
They think. Bloody brilliant leaving me there while they save their skins.
Bing bong.
“We’re in the security office,” his voice crackled out. “Ray’s coming to get you.”
The double doors burst open and I flinched for a moment then pretended that I hadn’t and ran one of my raised hands through my hair. Ray hobbled in, his hand dipping quickly into his pocket.
“Come on,” he snapped, waving to me. “Now.”
I sprinted to his side then skittered behind him, following along the corridors and up the stairs to the security office. Meant for two people, maybe three, it was probably around the size of a shed but in the corner was an unvarnished desk with four monitors and some sort of controller mounted on it. All of them were black and white and currently none of them showed a tiger.
Not that it was particularly easy to see them. With Jacob and Erin sitting on the only two seats and Lori perched on the edge of the desk as I squeezed into the room it was practically full.
“We need to catch it,” I got straight to the point, I didn’t see I had any choice in the matter really. It wasn’t just about the job. Well, okay, it was mostly about the job. But there was also the life and death aspect. That certainly had some impact on the proceedings.
“You’re bloody mad!” Ray’s voice from the corridor was high pitched and cracked as he spoke. “There’s no way – it’s… a bloody tiger.”
“We need to catch it. If not, then what? It gets out? We’ve got it contained.”
Ray let out an even higher pitched laugh. “There’s no way. I’m… No. I’m not having any part of this. You’re insane, Barnum. You can’t go chasing after bloody tigers.”
“Fine,” I said. “Bugger off then.”
The click-drag noise of Ray’s exit wasn’t wasted on the others and Jacob pushed past, leaning out of the office to shout after him but he didn’t stop for a second.
Erin and Lori looked scared and just sat and stared at Jacob shouting. As Ray turned the corner out of sight he appeared on one of the monitors in front of us.
It was time to take control. I hadn’t just been given a lost kitten case at the agency I’d been given a big time fucking dangerous job which meant they must have some sort of confidence in me.
“Erin. I need your help,” I said, definitely not thinking about going to sleep. “I need you to watch those screens. Watch Ray, see where he goes, make sure he’s alright and let me know whatever happens.”
Erin was about to speak but was interrupted by the sound of a mobile phone ringing. The half-formed words turned to a look of surprise as she reached into one of her pockets and plucked out a phone. She pressed something on it and then her face snapped into disappointment. She stared at it for a second then put it back in her pocket and turned back to the screens.
“What are we going to do Mr Barnum?” Jacob asked as he sat down.
“I need to go to the toilet,” said Lori. I turned, about to snap at her but thought better of it. “So go, Lori. Just go. Jacob,” I continued, grabbing his shoulder as much to steady myself from the onslaught of the narcolepsy as to empower him. “We are going to catch ourselves a bloody big tiger.”
Lori shook her head and looked away from me to the monitors.
“What’s the worst thing that can happen?” I laughed.
“The tiger!” Lori screamed for the second time this evening. I was quite proud of the fact that this time I didn’t pass out. “I don’t think he’s realised.”
She pointed at the screens. On one of the monitors we could see Ray talking on his mobile phone and walking to a corner. That in itself wasn’t particularly worrying but when you took into account monitor number two which featured a tiger approaching the same corner, the matter shifted seriousness somewhat.
“Which way?” I said.
Erin pointed. I ran. I sprinted. Down the corridor, around the first corner, picking up speed I hurled myself down the next corridor screaming Ray’s name at the top of my lungs, shouting for him to stop.
And it worked. As he loomed into view he was stationary. Safe and stationary.
Bing bong.
“Err, Clint,” Jacob’s voice on the Tannoy. “Lori had it wrong. Tiger’s in a different part of the building…”
I panted for a second.
Bing bong.
“Is it on?” Lori’s voice echoed all around us. “Sorry Clint.”
I waved my hand in the air like it was nothing.
“Ray,” I said, an idea popping into my head. “Can I borrow your mobile for a second?”
“Haven’t got one. Now piss off and leave me alone.”
He stomped safely around the tigerless corner. I took my own phone out and pushed the redial button. Somehow there was a signal here and somehow Ray knew that.
Agatha picked up instantly.
“Everything okay?” she said.
“Course. Listen I need you to do something for me. There’s a caretaker here called Ray. Can you find out who the last person was he phoned. On his mobile. Is that the sort of thing you do?”
“Exactly the sort of thing. Is that it?”
“Well, yeah. For now. Signal’s crap here so just see what you can do.”
And she hung up.
~*~
