Shadow Creatures (19 page)

She nodded. ‘I’m not used to thinking this way. I don’t
do
“serious”. I used to think that having a fur coat was the height of fashion, and if my boyfriends
didn’t have at least one pair of crocodile-skin boots in their wardrobe then they weren’t my kind of person, but
now
? Now I can’t stop thinking about the suffering that
these animals endure, just so we can have something exotic to own – and if it’s alive then all the better.’ She paused. ‘Something needs to be done,’ she said as if
the thought had only just occurred to her – which Gecko thought it probably had.

Behind Gecko, Rhino cursed. ‘No answer,’ he said. ‘Gone straight to voicemail.’ He thought for a moment, brow furrowed in concentration. ‘I think we should go to
the hotel and rethink our approach,’ he said eventually.

They got back into the car – putting the centipede skin carefully into the boot – and drove out of Sham Shui Po and towards the hotel. None of them said anything.

Gecko felt the skin of his hands prickling as they sped through the Hong Kong streets. He glanced down at his palms. They were red and slightly blistered, as if he had a bad case of sunburn, but
just in that area. It was probably the centipede skin. There could be some kind of toxin on it to deter predators – although he did wonder with some foreboding what kind of predators a giant
centipede might have.

He took a tissue out of his pocket and wiped his hands carefully. The burning sensation eased slightly. He made a mental note to wash his hands and spread an antiseptic cream on them when he got
to the hotel.

It started to rain just as they got back. Rhino let Gecko and Natalie out while he drove off to the underground garage. Natalie ran for the hotel lobby, but Gecko just stood there, entranced.
The raindrops were
hot
, and it looked as if they actually began to evaporate before they hit the pavement. At least, there was a layer of steam rising up from the pavement to about waist
height, and Gecko couldn’t see any water on the pavement itself.

While Rhino parked, Gecko and Natalie headed to their rooms to freshen up. There was something about the climate in Hong Kong that made Gecko feel sticky and grimy all the time. They met back
together in the air-conditioned hotel lobby, away from any other groups. Rhino ordered cold drinks for everyone. While they were waiting for their drinks to arrive, he tried to call Calum again,
but there was still no answer. Gecko tried to call Tara, just in case she was with Calum, but she wasn’t answering either.

‘OK,’ Rhino said, ‘let’s take stock. The giant rat turns out to be an ordinary-sized coypu, and so we don’t need a sample of its DNA. We think, however, that there
may be a previously undiscovered species of giant centipede in the warehouse which Calum
would
want a DNA sample from. The question is: how do we get it?’

‘Can’t we get DNA from the skin that Gecko took?’ Natalie asked.

Gecko shook his head. ‘It is not likely: From what I know, insect and arthropod exoskeletons are made of chitin, and there is no DNA in chitin.’

‘As I said earlier,’ Rhino continued, ‘I don’t think that we can attempt to buy a giant centipede in the same way we would buy an ordinary animal. It’s just not
credible that Natalie would want one.’

‘For a start,’ Gecko pointed out, ‘centipedes are carnivorous – they eat other creatures. I hate to think what animals a centipede that size would eat. Puppies, maybe?
And most of them are venomous too – they have poisonous bites, and often they can excrete poison from their skin.’ He held his hands up, showing the blistering and the burn. It was
better than it had been – the pain and the redness were receding – but Natalie winced anyway. ‘They do not make good house pets. Nobody in their right mind would want a giant
centipede as a pet except for a villain in a James Bond film, perhaps.’

‘Why would this Xi Lang be selling giant centipedes in the first place?’ Natalie asked. ‘What is in it for him? Who would buy them?’

‘Maybe the people who supply him just happened to pick them up, and he’s trying to work out what to do with them,’ Rhino suggested.

Natalie frowned. ‘Maybe they can be used in Chinese herbal remedies. I remember reading somewhere that a lot of animal parts go into those remedies – rhino horns, bear gall bladders,
all kinds of icky stuff.’

‘It’s possible.’ Rhino nodded. ‘The trouble is that we’ve shot our bolt. We can’t go back and ask to see any giant centipedes he happens to have lying
around.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I think there’s only one answer – I’m going to have to break into the warehouse and find those centipedes myself.’

It took Gecko a few seconds to process the words that Rhino had spoken.

‘You are going to do
what
?’ he asked, astounded.

‘I’m going to break into the warehouse, find the giant centipedes and take a sample of their DNA.’

‘You are going to break into a warehouse that is quite probably run by the Chinese Triads, and secretly take a DNA sample from a giant poisonous creature?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not without me,’ Gecko said.

Rhino shook his head. ‘Not going to happen,’ he said firmly.

Gecko pushed on. ‘Think about this logically,’ he said. ‘I am smaller and lighter than you, and probably faster. I am also used to high places. I can get up on to the roof of
the warehouse and find a skylight that I can get through. There is bound to be one. No building that big is completely sealed, and it is old enough that there will be gaps between sheets of
cladding, or broken windows, that I can use. Once I get in I can find a way for
you
to get in, and then I can keep watch for guards while you look for the centipedes. Alone you have a much
smaller chance of success.’

Rhino looked grim. ‘I still don’t think it’s a good idea,’ he muttered. ‘I’m meant to be responsible for the two of you. What if something happens to you
while we’re out there?’

‘What happens to us back here if something happens to you alone out there?’ Gecko countered with remorseless logic. ‘By maximizing your chances, I am maximising all our
chances.’ As Rhino continued to look grim, he added, ‘You know it makes sense.’

Eventually Rhino nodded: once, briefly. ‘OK, then – you can come. But not you, Natalie.’

The American girl held her hands up defensively. ‘Hey, I wasn’t even
thinking
of coming with you. Testosterone-fuelled gymnastics are your thing, not mine. But I really
don’t think this is a good idea. These people are
dangerous
.’ She paused, looking from one to the other. ‘Look, what if,’ she said quietly, ‘we call in the
police now? They could raid the warehouse, and in the confusion you could sneak in and get the DNA sample. Doesn’t that make sense?’

Rhino shook his head. ‘Firstly, it’s likely that Xi Lang is paying protection money to the police, and they would either ignore anything we said or they would give him advance
warning of a raid, and secondly, there’s a good chance that the animals we’re interested in would be impounded and might die while we were trying to get to them.’

Natalie obviously wasn’t willing to give up. Gecko could tell that from the firm set of her jaw. ‘Let’s say the police are out of the picture,’ she said.
‘Isn’t there some
other
organization that we could contact to tell them about Xi Lang and what he’s doing? Anything that prevents you two having to go back in and that gets
those animals out of there! I know you’ve got this boys’ machismo thing going, but these people are
dangerous
. I don’t want to be the one to explain to Calum that
you’ve both been killed by Chinese criminals while searching for an
insect
.’

‘Arthropod,’ Gecko corrected.

‘I guess there’s the United Nations,’ Rhino said, shrugging, ‘but the chances of us just sneaking in on the back of any raid they make are slim, to say the least.’
He sighed heavily. ‘Look, Natalie, we’re not a law-enforcement agency. We’re an independent group of travellers who just happen to want some DNA. This isn’t our fight. I
don’t particularly relish the thought of Gecko and me going in, but I can’t see any realistic alternative. We need to do what we need to do and get out. Someone else can deal with Xi
Lang. It’s not our job.’

Natalie was about to say something else, but changed her mind. Gecko saw her clench her jaw and stay quiet. It was obvious, however, that she was deeply unhappy. She glanced from Rhino to Gecko
and back. ‘Actually, I’m not feeling too good. I think it might have been the smell of that warehouse. I’m going to go and lie down for a while.’

Rhino nodded his agreement. ‘You go and get some rest.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s late afternoon now Gecko – we’ll get some rest as well, and meet back
here at about eight o’clock. We’ll grab a quick bite to eat and then head out when the sun goes down. Best that we do this kind of thing in darkness, I think.’ As Natalie got up
to leave, Rhino continued: ‘I’ll have a look on Google Maps to see what the warehouse looks like from above – maybe there’s a lower-level cabin at the back that would give
you easier access to the roof. And I need to look for somewhere we can park where the car won’t be discovered, but where we can get to it quickly.’

‘Reassure me about one thing,’ Gecko said.

‘What’s that?’

‘Please tell me that we are just going to get a sample of the centipede’s DNA – not to retrieve an actual centipede.’

Rhino laughed. ‘If I was going to pick up a pet,’ he said, ‘then it wouldn’t be a giant centipede, and I wouldn’t do it in Hong Kong. It’s just DNA –
don’t worry.’

Gecko smiled. ‘Later, then,’ he said.

As he headed towards the lifts, he saw Natalie waiting.

‘You ready for your little expedition?’ she asked

Gecko nodded. ‘There is only one thing that worries me,’ he said.

‘Only one? What’s that?’

‘I’m not sure that Rhino has thought through the difficulty of getting a DNA sample from a creature with a hard, thick exoskeleton . . .’

Back in her room, Natalie stood by the window.

Hong Kong was shrouded in mist. The office blocks and high-rise buildings materialized from it like geometric islands emerging from the cloudy waters of a lake. The hotel room was cooled by
air-conditioning to a point where Natalie was shivering, but she only had to put a hand on the window to feel the heat pressing through from outside.

She couldn’t pull her mind away from the warehouse, from the animals that she’d seen there pent up in cages too small or too dirty, and from that voice she thought she had heard
calling out for help.

A parrot. It had to have been a parrot.

This was all
wrong
. Things like Xi Lang’s business, and the warehouse, shouldn’t be allowed in a civilized world. If people wanted to buy pets, then they ought to go to a
well-lit, well-ventilated place where happy animals were cared for by trained assistants and there was a qualified vet on call, not something that looked and smelt as if it was one step up from a
slaughterhouse. What was the mortality rate like among Xi Lang’s animals? she wondered. And if those animals had been ripped away from their natural habitats and their family – if they
had families – only to end up as a trophy roaming around someone’s carefully manicured lawns, then maybe death was a preferable option for them.

Her thoughts kept circling around in her head like lazy black flies, and somewhere in the background she could hear, like the tolling of some huge, cracked bell, the unspoken words ‘This
is wrong! This is wrong!’ as a backdrop to her confusion.

She held her iPhone in her hand, and her hand was by her side. As soon as she had got away from Gecko and back to her room, she had done an internet search on the words ‘United
Nations’, ‘exotic animals’, ‘Hong Kong’ and ‘smuggling’. Within a few seconds she had the phone number for the local UN office dealing with animal
smuggling. All she had to do was tap the screen and the phone would dial the number for her. It was that simple. She glanced at the slip of paper. This was a big step, but she had to do it. She
had
to. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself otherwise.

Rhino would be furious, she knew, but she was doing it for him as well. He was dead set on going back to the warehouse and breaking in, despite the risks. He was so focused on completing the
mission
that he was blind to the dangers.

Natalie had to stop him. She had to get the UN, or the police, or someone to raid that warehouse before Rhino and Gecko went back into danger.

She walked across to the table where the hotel phone was located. She didn’t want to do this from her own mobile, just so she didn’t leave an obvious trail back to herself. The way
hotel phones operated, the call could only be traced back to the hotel switchboard.

She dialled the number.

‘
Wei?
’ a woman’s voice said.

‘Hello,’ Natalie said, ‘do you speak English?’

‘Yes, I do. Can I help you?’

‘Could you put me through to whoever deals with the illegal import and export of exotic animals, please?’

The request didn’t seem to faze the operator at all. ‘Please wait for a moment, and I will transfer you,’ she said.

Natalie waited, still shivering but feeling a bit better about herself.

Calum sat in bed, restlessly waiting, until the sun set behind the desert horizon outside his window and the sounds outside his room faded.

His mind raced all the time, trying to work out his options. He was a prisoner, that much was certain, but the prison was comfortable and the bars were almost invisible beneath their padding.
Nobody was threatening him – not directly, anyway – and he was being fed. The food was good as well – mainly TexMex specialities, where everything came with red or green chilli
peppers. The problem was . . . well,
one
of the problems was . . . that he didn’t know what was wanted from him. He didn’t know why he was there, or what he had to do to get home
again – if he ever could. At some stage, he presumed, someone would offer him a Faustian bargain, but he hated having to wait until
they
came to
him
. He wanted to be able to
anticipate their offer so that he could think about his answer in advance.