Chapter Four: Tuesday
“In July 1963 a massive hunt was undertaken for the Shooters Hill cheetah, following two sightings, the first by a lorry driver, the second - which carried more credence - by a police officer, who claimed the big cat leapt over the bonnet of his patrol car.”
“Okay, so tell me again. What exactly is this crypto...?”
“...zoology. How many more times do I have to explain it? Don’t you ever listen, mate?”
“Never when you’re speaking.”
The two men touched glasses with a companionable chink and smiled. The weather had changed dramatically and, although still cold, the sky was a brilliant winter blue without a cloud in sight. A near-perfect day for an alfresco drink, give or take a few degrees. The Lord John Russell was just within the boundaries they had set for lunchtime drinking, being on the perimeter of an imaginary circle which stretched from the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street to the south-west, Holborn Underground Station to the south-east, Euston Road to the north, and the Brunswick Centre and Marchmont Street to the east: requiring a ten minute walk there, a ten minute walk back, but still leaving a good forty minutes to enjoy a pint and perhaps a hastily consumed pub meal.
Art took a deep quaff from his glass and then shivered. “Blimey, it is cold, isn’t it? Perhaps we should go inside.”
His companion shrugged. He was a tall man with a short pony-tail which hung down over the collar of his thick, black overcoat. Beneath, he was wearing a smart, charcoal suit and matching tie, which was in stark contrast to Art’s casual attire of jumper and black jeans. “Up to you.”
There was a slight pause in the conversation as both men turned to watch a young woman in tight pink trousers, pushing a small pram, walk briskly past.
“Nice bum. Shame about the pram.”
“Hey!” Art protested, “Nothing wrong with babies, John. Don’t forget I’m in the same position.”
John stood up, making a pretense of leaning over the table to be able to see where Art was sitting on the wooden bench, “Not from where I’m looking.”
Art smiled, “Perhaps you’re right. So you want to know about cryptozoology?”
“Not really, but it sounded as though I was going to get very little choice in the matter.”
Art ignored him, “It is the study of hidden creatures.” He continued quickly, anticipating a joke, seeing the smile playing around his friend’s mouth, “Not hidden as in hide-and-seek. Hidden as in undiscovered. Don’t you know your Greek?”
“Don't confuse me.”
“Kruptos meaning hidden, zoon meaning animal, and logos meaning discourse.”
“Kruptoszoonlogos. Snappy.”
“Shut up you pedant, or I won't tell you about my A.B.C.”
“I’m all ears.” Art was about to continue speaking but John jumped in again as he had a second thought, “Or would that make me the mysterious All Ears Man, reputed to lurk outside popular Bloomsbury hostelries but never satisfactorily catalogued by science. Individuals are shy and retiring and are rarely seen and only very occasionally heard. The last reported specimen...”
“...was beaten to a pulp for taking the piss.”
John smiled and sipped his beer. “Go on then. Tell me about your A.B.C. Whatever that might be. I can see that you are itching to.”
“Alien Big Cat.”
“Like out of space?”
“No, like in the wrong place.”
“Oh yes, I've heard about them. Black panthers on Dartmoor and such stuff.”
“You can sound sceptical,” Art continued, “but there have been some proven, documented cases. There was a European lynx captured in Barnet only last year. There had been reported sightings for years of a big cat in the area that no one had taken very seriously, until it suddenly appeared in someone’s back garden and then couldn’t very well be ignored. The local police force, the R.S.P.C.A., the lot were called in to try to capture it. I’m pretty sure it is now in London Zoo. I ought to take Luke along there one day to see it.”
“You’ve got to admit, there’ve been some very dubious photographs too. The Beast of Bodmin,” replied John.
“Yes, granted.”
“Anyhow, this isn’t really cryptozoology, is it?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well these big cats, if they actually exist, they are not exactly undiscovered are they. They've just escaped from a zoo or somewhere. I mean, it’s hardly science is it.”
“No, it is a bit of a grey area in cryptozoology. Displaced animals. They have been adopted by cryptozoologists, if you like, because they are often mistaken for genuine undiscovered species. Anyhow, I can’t exactly claim any great scientific credentials myself, so I’m not going to be all elitist and exclusive. This would probably be considered absolutely blasphemous by a hardcore crypto-nut, but for me a lot of the attraction of the discipline is the element of belief.”
“Cryptozoology as organized religion. Interesting concept.”
“I’m serious. There is too much about the modern world that is known and described. Sometimes it is just nice to have something that you have to have a little faith in.”
“Why can’t you stick to God, or airplanes, or something ordinary like normal people.”
Art shrugged. “God Schmod, I want my monkey-man.”
“I want my monkey-man.” John had joined Art so that they said the last part of the sentence in unison. “I know my Simpsons, too.”
Art was serious again, “I tell you what I believe in. Thylacines.”
“Sounds like a toothpaste. I’m going to regret it, but tell me more,” said John, wearily.
“Tasmanian tigers, Supposedly extinct. The last known specimen died in captivity in 1936, but there have been plenty of uncorroborated sightings ever since. I believe that they still exist.”
“What are they like?”
A powerful motorbike roared along the street with a noisy blast of exhaust and Art waited for it to pass before continuing. He took another swig from his glass. “Good beer here.”
“Yes, good beer.” It was a snatch of conversation that they always had here, as ritualistic as touching glasses after saying “Cheers”.
“I sometimes dream about thylacines.”
“Sad.”
“True. What are they like? I suppose they look rather dog-like. The name tiger is a bit of a misnomer. They have long hind legs, striped, rather like a hyena, and short, rigid front legs, slightly awkward actually. Add to this the largest gape of any known mammal and the fact that they are marsupials, and you’ve got a fairly weird looking beast.”
“And you want to see one of these creatures?” John sounded slightly disbelieving.
“Of course. It would be...” Words almost failed Art as he tried to visualize the moment, something he had often daydreamed about, coming face-to-face with a real life thylacine, “...amazing.”
“You’re odd.”
“I’m not arguing.”
“But surely, all these...” It took considerable effort for John not to use the word ‘monsters’, “...all these creatures, if they exist, they would have been discovered by now. How many places are there that are really unknown to mankind in this day and age?”
“You’d be surprised. The middle of the Sahara Desert, the centre of the Congo rainforest, the highest peaks and the deepest valleys in the Himalayas. There are plenty of places too inhospitable for man to explore adequately. The bottom of the oceans.” Art added as an after-thought.
“I’m still not convinced.”
“Okay, let me tell you a quick story. The okapi. You've heard of one of them?”
“Yes, a sort of big deer-type thing.”
“An even-toed ungulate related to the giraffe actually, but yes, close enough. It wasn’t officially known to science until 1901, and was credited as being discovered by the British exp
lorer Harry Johnston in the dense jungles of northeast Zaire, although, of course, it was an animal already well known to the indigenous people of that region. Before then, it had been thought by Western scientists, to have been extinct since the Miocene period, some twenty million years ago. It is one of the most recently discovered big land animals. There have actually been plenty of others since, but the okapi is always upheld as being a bit of a flagship for cryptozoologists.”
“Yes, but the world has changed a lot since 1901.”
“I’m not so sure how much the Ituri Forest has changed, though. Except for man cutting down great swathes of it, I doubt whether most of the inhabitants of the Congo jungle would know whether it is the Lower Cretaceous Period or if they have been catapulted into Buck Rogers in the twenty-fifth century.”
“Which doesn’t tell me anything about your Alien Big Cat.”
“Oh, no. Well, it happened on Sunday. I was walking Luke in the woods... I saw that woman again, you know, the one I mentioned about last time. Remind me to tell you about her. Anyway, I bumped into an old friend of mine who does a bit of freelance work for the local paper. Hadn’t seen him for some time. It seemed a strange place to see him too and I told him so, he had always been much more a city-type than a fresh air fan, if you know what I mean. Anyhow, it transpired that he was working on a story, and knowing that I had always been interested in cryptozoology, he asked me if I could help him out with a bit of background information.”
“Any money in it?”
“No, we’re talking local paper here. It’s not exactly Fleet Street. I might get a credit though, if he gets his piece accepted.”
“You’re too generous for your own good.”
“Yes, and you’re too much of a capitalist.”
“Hey, it’s not even worth getting out of bed in the morning unless it’s worth a few hundred quid.”
“I’ll remember that when you say it is my round next time.”
“Anyway...” John prompted.
“Anyway... The story he is working on concerns a mysterious incident that happened on the far side of the woods last Friday night. There are several small farms out that way, plus a cattery, and a few private dwellings, most of which keep some small amount of livestock. There are often travellers... yes, that’s gypsies to you,” Art clarified, noticing his companion’s amused smile and knowing of his aversion to political correctness, “and some of them have horses, actually there is a big open field where they often graze. Anyhow, it was in this field, I guess that it must have been Saturday morning that it was discovered, there were found the remains of a large Alsatian dog.”
“Doesn’t sound that mysterious. Belong to one of the gypsies?”
“No, it was one of them that reported finding it. What was odd was that the head had been almost severed, and that there were marks on the neck and shoulder of the animal consistent with the dog having been attacked by a large member of the genus Felis.”
“A big cat.”
“Quite”
“I can see why that might be interesting. So what did you find out? I presume that you and your journo friend went along to the site."
“Yes, and that was something weird again.”
“Oh?”
“The whole area was cordoned off. You know, police tape, vans, dozens of officers, even dogs. It seemed like a massive over-reaction. Normally, if there is a report of an A.B.C. incident, it is treated with scepticism, if not downright ignored, by the authorities. You might find a few big cat enthusiasts lurking around if they have been tipped off to a sighting, and a few cryptos, like me, but nothing else. This was very mysterious.”
“You’re not getting all conspiracy theory on me, are you?”
“No, no. But, really, this was strange.”
“So what did you find out?”
“Nothing. A big zero. The police weren’t allowing anyone on to the field, or anywhere near the actual site of where the dog’s body was found. It looked as though a lot of the travellers had even had to move on, there was a big, muddy, cut up patch of ground where it looked as though they had been parked up, but not a sign of them by the time we arrived.”
“I guess they probably didn’t relish having the police as neighbours and moved on of their own accord.”
“Perhaps. Yes, you’ve probably got something there,” agreed Art, as though he hadn’t previously considered that alternative.
“So, no story for your friend,” said John.
“Not quite. He received an anonymous call. Trevor said it was what alerted him to the incident in the first place. Friday night. It must have been very soon after the incident happened.”
“Has he reported this?”
“Yes, he told one of the officers at the scene, but they didn’t seem that interested. Took down his details and that was that.”
“So what do you think?”
“I don’t know. I thought at first, that perhaps it wasn’t an Alsatian that had been killed; perhaps the caller was wrong? You know, if a child had been attacked, or anyone come to that, there might have been more explanation for such a massive police presence, but the one thing that the officer we spoke to confirmed was about the dog: ‘Move along, nothing to see, just a dog been killed’, you know the sort of patronizing thing.”
“So how do you know it was killed by a cat?”
“I don’t for sure. I would need to examine the wounds to be sure, and even then, as I say, I’m no expert. Again, I only have the evidence of Trevor’s anonymous caller. Apparently he - it was definitely a he - said that the dog looked like it had been torn apart by a great beast. When Trevor asked for details, the description reminded him of some of the cases he had read about livestock being attacked around the country and of big cats being offered as a possible explanation.”
“It sounds as though he just wanted a good story.”
“Maybe, I wouldn’t put it past him to make up something like that. But, nevertheless, something did attack that dog. I’m prepared to go along with the A.B.C. theory until proven otherwise. It’s not often I encounter a bit of intrigue on my own doorstep. I’ve done plenty enough of the theory of cryptozoology, pouring over the old bestiaries, early explorers’ accounts, and the like, perhaps this is my chance for a bit of real field research.”
“I’m more interested in your woman,” said John, changing the subject.
“My woman? Oh yes, I saw her again.” Art began to smile at the memory, but then his brow furrowed up, “I’m being stupid, it’ll probably turn out to be just like this big cat: a vain pursuit after a fantasy creature.”
“I know which one I’d rather put my money on being real,” said John, “What’s she like then?” he asked, eager for details.
“What is it with you?” said Art, jokingly.
“Hey, I’m a happily attached man. I have to live out my sexual dalliances vicariously through you.”
“And you call me sad. Bloody hell, you’ve had precious few excitements then, if you have had to rely on me for providing you with tit-bits.”
“I have a large web of associates,” John spread his arms out wide to illustrate his point, “who feed me little choice nuggets. I’m kept well satisfied. Don’t you worry about me.” He smiled widely, leaning backwards on his bench, placing his arms behind his head with a look of satisfied repletion.
“Ugh, too much information.”
“Come on, mate. Sate me.”
“Well,” Art continued, “she is about so high.” He held his hand up to a level just below the fringe of his hair.
John was quick to jump in, “What! Is she a midget, or something?”
“Not this high when I am sitting down; this high when I am standing up, you idiot. Do you want to hear about her, or not?”
“Yes, yes, go on. What’s her name?”
“Well how would I know, I haven’t spoken to her.”
“You??
?re no good at this, are you. You’re not giving me anything to work with. I know my imagination is fairly fertile but it needs a few seeds to get it going.” Seeing that Art was looking a little discouraged, John added, “Okay, well carry on then.”
“Long dark hair, just below her shoulders anyway.”
“None on her head?” said John, trying not to smile.
Art ignored him, “Very cute. I don’t know what it is, there is something about her. Her eyes. She has lovely eyes.”
“How old?”
“I don’t know, I’m not very good at guessing people’s ages. Perhaps a couple of years younger than me. I don’t know.”
“And you haven’t spoken to her?”
“No, but she smiled at me the last time we passed.”
“Sure she wasn’t just smiling at Luke. He’s a bit of a lady’s man, by the sounds of it.”
“Could have been. No, I’m sure she recognized me. There was definitely something there, if you know what I mean.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do? I’m a married man.”
“You’re sure about that, are you? With a wife on the other side of the world.”
“Anyway,” reasoned Art, “I may never see her again. It’s just been chance that I have seen her in the park when I’ve been taking Luke out and she’s been walking her dog at the same time.”
“Perhaps she is stalking you?”
“I wish.” Art glanced at his watch, “Drink up, we ought to be getting back.”
John was not quite so swift to move, “Before we go, tell me, okay, honestly now. How many of these crypto things do you actually believe in?” he asked, returning to the subject of their earlier conversation.
“How do you mean?”
“Well take the Loch Ness Monster. By your definition, that would come under the banner of cryptozoology as being something worthy of investigation, right?”
“Right.”
“So do you believe it exists?”
“No, I guess not. I think that there are probably other big sea creatures out there in the ocean depths that we have yet to classify, but Loch Ness Monster? No.”
“Big Foot?”
“Don’t know much about it. But, no.”
“Yeti.”
“Possibly. It’s a great big Himalayas out there, pretty much unexplored.”
“What else? You’ll have to help me out here. I don’t know much about this stuff. Oh no, hang on, what is that film that’s just come out. Mothman?”
“Nonsense.”
“The blood-sucking thing?”
“Do you mean Puerto Rico’s infamous goat-sucker? The Chupacabra.”
“Whatever.”
“No.”
“You don’t seem to believe in very much.”
“No, but that’s the point. What do you take me for? A pagan?”