The Scent of Blood Read Online Free Page B

to make her erupt?
    We had an hour free before we were due in the Frozone, so Graham and I bought ourselves a burger and Coke each and settled down on a bench overlooking the waterhole in the African Savannah. It had been cleverly designed so that the meat-eaters were separated from the vegetarians by moats, electric fences and the occasional see-through barrier. From where we were sitting it looked as if they were all together on the grassy plain: lions, hyenas, zebras, hippos, rhinos, elephants and giraffes. But it was the same here as in the rest of the zoo: the signs were peeling and faded, the glass unwashed, the bench cracked and wobbly.
    “So…” I began. “That graffiti means that someone’s trying to upset Mr Monkton. They blame him for Sandy’s death. Especially Kylie.”
    “That seems to be an accurate summary of what we’ve heard so far,” agreed Graham.
    “I tell you what, though. The timing’s a bit odd.”
    “What do you mean?” he asked.
    “Well, if the accident happened a year ago, why wait until this morning to spray graffiti on the wall?”
    Graham sipped his drink. “Kylie mentioned a judge. As you know, in cases of accidental death there has to be an inquest. There must have been some sort of inquiry, but these things can take months. It might only just have been completed.”
    “What difference would that make?”
    “It’s conceivable that the graffiti artist was hoping to obtain what they considered to be justice through the official channels. If Mr Monkton was cleared of all blame, that person might have been provoked into taking matters into his or her own hands.”
    I was impressed by Graham’s reasoning. “OK,” I said. “That sounds about right. Kylie seems convinced it was Mr Monkton’s fault, doesn’t she? And as far as we know, lots of people agree with her. Who was that other man she mentioned this morning – Archie Henshaw?”
    “Yes.” Graham nodded. “If we could get access to a computer we could probably find out who he is. But I don’t see how we can manage that just now.”
    I drained my Coke and then said, “I tell you another weird thing about this morning. That girl Zara turning up and freaking out Mr Monkton. Didn’t someone say that the tiger suit had been got rid of?”
    “Yes.”
    “They also said she was new, so she can’t have known about it. Someone deliberately put it in her office.” I crushed my Coke can between my palms and threw it into the recycling bin. “I wonder if we can talk to her.”
    After we’d eaten, we walked back towards the manor house in search of Zara. She wasn’t hard to find: she’d ditched the furry outfit, but her dyed orange hair was as bright as a Belisha beacon. We could see her from way across the front lawn, sitting in an open-sided yurt surrounded by a sea of Brownies. When we got closer, we realized she was doing a hands-on creepy-crawly session. Or at least she was trying to. Her audience was a little on the excitable side, wriggling around on the benches like an infestation of yellow maggots. There was a load of giggling and shrieking and girls-being-girlie-girlie over the insects, and even though she was using a microphone, Zara’s voice was too weak to cut through it.
    “What I’m going to show you next is a special kind of insect all the way from the rainforests of Madagascar,” she said, her eyes widening in an attempt to convey the Marvellous Miracles of Mother Nature.
    “Where’s that?” demanded one Brownie.
    “Er… It’s near Africa. They’re quite big – when they’re adults they can grow to about eight centimetres. They’re excellent climbers and can even walk up a sheet of glass.”
    “Big deal,” said another Brownie witheringly, and the girls either side of her giggled.
    Zara took out a box labelled M ADAGASCAN H ISSING C OCKRAOCHES and the squealing reached a new intensity. One of the Brownies chose that moment to jump up, hands clapped over her mouth as if she was about to be