Caracal
Author: Guy N. Smith
Date: 1980-12-01 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror
Description: When Bilal, a young Pakistani, signs various official documents in order to get to Britain ('the promised land'), he doesn't realise that he's being manipulated for cheap labour and will soon become an illegal immigrant on the run from the authorities. He also fails to realise that his pet caracal - a wild cat that is often domesticated back home - will return to its natural wild state if and when it doesn't receive the necessary training. And in the Welsh border hills there's plenty of space for it to hide. After it mauls a few sheep and pheasants, the hunt is on before it graduates to human
Publisher: Black Hill Books

Caracal - Kindle Version 1.0

(c) Guy N Smith 1980 - 2010

Published by Black Hill Books, January 2011

ISBN : 978-1-907846-137

First Published by New English Library (NEL) February 1980.

Converted to Ebook from original paperback by Scan2Ebook.com

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Contents

Title

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

The End

Chapter 1

All day the youth had lain on the old chipped and broken door placed across the rafters. Sometimes he slept, sometimes he just lay staring up into the semi-darkness of the dusty attic.

The heat of the day had built up in this small space, and his lean brown body was bathed in perspiration. Any slight movement sent up clouds of dust which hung in the shafts of light filtering through a gap in the roof. He choked, and nearly retched as he tried to stifle his coughing. No noise, the man Hoyle had said, and don't walk about or else you'll probably fall through the ceiling. Bilal hated the big red-haired man, apparently the self-appointed leader of this isolated commune. The others didn't seem to like him much, especially Lansdale; the two of them were always arguing, and obviously detested each other.

He sat up, running his fingers through his long black greasy hair. He felt helpless, lonely, disillusioned. Right now he'd give anything just to be back in Pakistan, but he'd parted with everything he had just to come here. Conned by promises of wealth and employment, he'd thought it was all above board and even signed a sheaf of official-looking documents. Only when he was on the boat, crammed in the hold with all the others like galley slaves, had he realised. Then it was too late, and ever since landing he had been a fugitive.

The address which he had carried on a torn slip of paper had brought Bilal to Knighton. He had lain low until dark, but it had taken him two nights to find ‘Pentre’. It was some distance from the nearest human habitation, a rambling old stone building, set in an acre of dense weeds, half of the windows missing or broken, doors warped so that they would not close. Once a prosperous country home, it had fallen into such a state of neglect that no attempt had been made to evict the squatters who had moved in. Some had left, others had arrived, a constant flow of comings and goings, spurned by the community but generally left to their own devices. That was all they asked. Wes Lansdale had given Bilal a brief summary of the set-up, and Lester Hoyle had made it clear that there were no free lodgings at Pentre. ‘You'll have to work,’ he'd said, ‘but most important of all, you'll have to keep out of sight.’

A faint scratching attracted Bilal's attention. He leaned over, dragged a cardboard carton towards him, and opened one of the flaps. Something inside moved, purred softly as he spoke to it in his own tongue, stroking the soft fur gently before picking it up and cradling it into his lap. It nestled against him nervously, kitten-like but larger than a fully grown domestic cat, deep brown in colour, the hairs tipped with grey, ears long and upright tapering to a fine tip.

‘And as for that animal,’ Lester Hoyle had kicked the closed carton, ‘it can't stay here. What if it's carrying rabies?’

‘It is not,’ Bilal had snapped. ‘It was my pet in …’

‘Yeah, in Pakistan,’ Hoyle sneered, hastily pushing back the chestnut-coloured hair which flopped on to his forehead. His small eyes narrowed, his lips tightened. He was in his forties although he persisted in telling everybody that he was thirty-five. ‘It isn't an ordinary cat. A Paki-cat, dark brown all over.’

There was laughter from the adjoining room, mirth with an undercurrent of cruelty. Then a chair scraped back and a slim dark-haired man in his early twenties appeared in the doorway. The rimless glasses resting on the bridge of his nose had been repaired with sticking plaster, the red T-shirt and Wrangler jeans needed a wash. Yet to Bilal he had an air of gentleness, a compassion not apparent in any of the others. The newcomer stepped forward, opened the lid of the box and peered inside, closing it again quickly just in time to avoid the slash of a paw.

‘It's a caracal,’ Wes Lansdale said.

‘A cat, in other words,’ Hoyle kicked the box again, ‘a dirty stinking wog cat that will rake the flesh off your leg or try to scratch your eyes out. It can't stay here,’ he, turned away abruptly. ‘You'll have to get rid of it.’

He went on to make various suggestions which Bilal did not understand, but his meaning was plain and Bilal hated Lester Hoyle from that moment. Although he began to wish he hadn't brought the caracal kitten with him, it was the last link with his native country, and no way was he going to part with it to please Hoyle.

Now he licked his dry lips and wished he could go downstairs to find some water. He briefly considered leaving altogether, but where would he go? This was Britain, a strange country, where there were no wild places to hide anyway. The police would catch him - he would have to stay.

Somewhat reluctantly he returned the caracal to its box. It scratched at the cardboard angrily, yet lacking the strength to try escape. Bilal wondered about making some sort of cage for it; it was growing fast, but surely there was plenty of time yet.

He heard raised voices somewhere down below. Hoyle and Lansdale were quarrelling again; his English was not good enough to pick out the words at a distance, but it could be over the girl, Wendy. It was none of his business, though.

Wes Lansdale had been struggling with his typewriter for half an hour, a battered old ‘Royal’ that was solid enough to give a few more years of service yet. A spring had come off one of the keys; twice he'd had to search the floor on hands and knees to find it.

He broke off, scribbled a few words on a jotter pad on the table. Two or three sentences had come to him. If he waited until he had the typewriter working again they would have gone.

‘Having trouble?’

He glanced up, then slammed his pencil down. Wendy stood in the doorway, long dark hair below her shoulders, a red and white striped blouse open so that her bra was just visible. Faded jeans which clung to her thighs and legs revealed the perfection of her slim figure. She didn't even have to try to be sexy, those buttons had come undone on their own; the style suited her, casual but not scruffy.

‘Yes,’ he began to roll a cigarette. ‘I'm always having trouble, one way or another.’

‘Most of it's your own making,’ she stepped forward and picked up the loose spring. ‘You don't have to be so aggressive with Lester even if he is constantly looking for an argument’

‘I'm not aggressive. He won't let me alone. Follows me around as though I'm the prodigal son who might decide to take off again.’

‘He's probably worried about you, like I am.’

‘Look,’ he struck a match and drew heavily on his cigarette, ‘I don't need anybody breathing down my neck the whole time. I can look after myself. All I want is to be left alone.’

‘There!’ She pushed the spring into place, replaced the top of the typewriter and tapped the key, ‘All it needed was nimble fingers and a bit of patience.’

He sighed and blew out smoke.

‘Tobacco,’ she sniffed the cloud as it enveloped her, ‘just tobacco!’

‘Like hay,’ he grinned wryly, ‘Don't know why I bother to smoke it at all.’

‘You haven't touched the hard stuff for nearly a week now … as far as I know.’

‘I'll have to go back on it if this book doesn't pick up. Five thousand words have to be rewritten - if I'd been on grass, that wouldn't have been necessary.’

She stared at the mass of tiny punctures on his right arm, ‘You didn't need drugs when you wrote Whispers’

‘Which was why it was a load of crap.’

‘It sold fifty thousand in paperback.’

‘But it would still have been a load of crap, even if it had topped the ton.’

‘Fifty thousand people can't be wrong. Anyway, does it matter so long as it sells?’

‘It matters to me’ His temper was rising, two red spots on his cheeks and fists clenching. ‘I don't care if it sells a million. It's what it is to me that counts.’

‘You're pig-headed and stupid. Your next two books would have made it to the top if you'd kept off the dope. Instead, they ended up as remainders.’

‘Rubbish,’ he blew smoke in her direction as though to reject her unwanted advice. ‘They were doomed before I'd completed them. Now I'm back to square one, and this book has got to make it otherwise I'm finished.’

‘This one?’ she laughed harshly. ‘You've started three books in as many months. A few thousand words and they've finished up on the fire. It isn't only the drugs - you take too much notice of Lester, and he's never written a book in his life.’

‘He's got a degree in English. Lectured at Cambridge.’

‘You know as well as I do that degrees don't produce best-sellers. Anyway, look what drugs did to him - Cambridge to Knighton in one easy lesson.’

‘Lester went downhill because his wife walked out on him.’

‘Yes, but that was because of the effect drugs were having on him. That's why we're all here - you, me, Lester, Rodney, Jon, Trix and the others. We're kidding ourselves that we want to opt out of society and be unconventional. That's just an excuse, an apology for the way we are. You and I might just buck the heroin, at least we're fighting.’

‘We'll never get out of here. I don't think we really want to; we're just conning ourselves and everyone else.’

‘I'm on the way back,’ she reached for his makings and began folding a paper. ‘And I'm getting out of here … eventually. Hopefully with you, but without you if it has to be.’

‘Then take Lester with you,’ he snapped angrily. ‘God, I've seen he can hardly keep his hands off you.’

‘He fancies me,’ she grinned, almost blushed. ‘So do the other guys. I'm flattered but I wouldn't go with them. It's when nobody eyes your girl that you want to worry, Wes.’

‘He's a dirty old man. I shall warn him off soon if he doesn't pack it in.’

‘I heard the two of you having a good go at each other earlier. What was that about?’

‘About that Paki and his damned pet cat.’

‘Bilal,’ she expelled twin streams of smoke from her nostrils. ‘He seems OK. I thought one of the conditions of this commune was no racialism?’

‘It's nothing to do with colour. They can fill the place up with every nationality in the world for all I care, so long as it's all straight and above board.’

She lowered herself into the vacant chair. ‘Why so sanctimonious all of a sudden?’

‘I couldn't give a toss personally,’ he stubbed out his cigarette. The anger seemed to have left him, his brow now furrowed thoughtfully. ‘Illegal immigrants spell trouble, especially in a place like this. One dark face in the main street and half the population are barring their doors and peeping out from behind the curtains. If the cops start checking they'll tear this place apart, and we'll all go inside for being in possession of drugs whether you or I are trying to throw them or not.’

‘Why did he come here?’

‘Some contact of Hoyle's in Birmingham. I don't know the full story, but no doubt there was some buckshee dope in it for Lester if he took the man. And now that he's got him he's wondering how to get rid of him. Probably didn't realise in the first place that the kid was an illegal immigrant.’

‘Well, he's not doing any harm if he keeps out of sight.’

‘But for how long? And he's not contributing anything.’

‘We can use him in the garden. There's plenty of work there, especially as some of the others are not pulling their weight. Nobody will see him there. We're right off the beaten track and yet Lester wants to keep him in an attic like the Black Hole of Calcutta.’

‘And where better to shut up an idle wog?’ A harsh voice cut into their conversation.

They whirled round to see Lester Hoyle standing in the doorway, a sneer on his face, a glazed look in his eyes. They could see he was in urgent need of a shot, a dangerous state to be.

‘We have just been discussing racialism,’ Wendy snapped. ‘It's a pity you weren't here.’

‘It's not a question of racialism,’ Hoyle's eyes ran over her, his expression softening a little as they rested on her open blouse. ‘He's an illegal immigrant and obviously he can't stay here indefinitely. And there's that damned cat of his …’

‘Caracal,’ Lansdale interrupted him.

‘What d'you know about them?’ Hoyle asked.

‘I'm not an expert, but I do know that they're mainly found in Persia and Africa, and full-grown they're larger than a fox. In the wild they hunt in packs, running down their prey, and they're so fast that sometimes they'll even catch a low-flying bird on the wing. In India they're tamed like dogs and kept to hunt deer, gazelles and so on.’

‘So they're dangerous?’

‘Could be. Though I wouldn't think so if kept in captivity - much the same as any other cat.’

‘Huh!’ Hoyle moved towards the table, trying to read the typewritten sheet by the typewriter, ‘Well, that guy and his pet have got to go.’

‘But where to, Lester?’ Wendy asked. ‘We can't just turn him out.’

‘Can't we?’

‘Of course not. The pigs will soon pick him up, he'll tell them he came from here and the next thing we know the pigs will be down here ripping the place apart.’

Hoyle fell silent, picking at an ear with a forefinger, a habit when he was uncertain of himself. ‘We'll have to think of something,’ he said at length. ‘In the meantime, he can start work in the garden tomorrow. There's a stack of broad beans to be picked and shelled. Peas too. By the time he's done that maybe I'll have figured out how to get rid of him. By the way, Wes, I think you're over-writing a bit, too much lengthy description.’

Wes Lansdale reached for his makings again as Wendy turned on her heel and brushed past the leader of the commune. For one brief second a retort hovered on her lips but she checked it. This wasn't the time to start another argument with Lester Hoyle, not when he needed a shot so badly.

The heavy shower during the night had cooled the atmosphere, and the sun shone without the blistering heat of the past few days.

Bilal had worked steadily in the overgrown garden all morning. His shorts were saturated from the wet foliage and his bare feet were muddy. Two sacks filled with broad beans now rested up against a tumbledown moss-covered stone wall, and a third was half full. He had eaten a few handfuls, and some raspberries, too. No food had been offered him, and he was still hungry.

A scratching sound made him glance round to see the dilapidated carton tremble as claws scraped the cardboard from inside. He knelt down and opened one of the flaps a fraction. Green eyes stared up at him, lips drawn back to show the strong sharp teeth.

‘I must find you a home soon,’ he muttered, pity welling up inside him, recalling his own feelings in that attic the previous day. Claustrophobia. Fear. ‘Be patient, little one.’

He closed the flap and set out on a tour of inspection. The garden was large, and untended except for a square plot housing a variety of vegetables, crops that struggled to grow amidst the weeds, seedlings that wilted and straggled because they had not been thinned out. A row of elms overhung the area, two already dead from disease. A wood pigeon cooed contentedly in the firs beyond, its crop full from an early morning feed on ripening barley.

In the far corner he found an old chicken run. Some of the woodwork had rotted and fallen off, and the door hung on a single rusted hinge, but basically it was stable. He went back to the outhouse that adjoined the end of the house, and by forcing the door was just able to squeeze inside. The interior was dark and gloomy, piles of junk shutting out the light from the single broken window.

Rummaging amongst the contents, he found some bent nails and some old netting. Ten minutes' further research produced a hammer.

He set off back to the poultry house. Carpentry was something new to him, and driving in a bent nail presented problems particularly when the wood was rotten. Several times he banged a finger by mistake and cursed, but at last the boards were fixed in place; then he patched up the holes in the mesh by bending the broken strands over and hooking them on. This took him a couple of hours, then he set about cleaning out the interior, sweeping out piles of solidified poultry droppings with a piece of wood.

Bilal pulled up some dead grass for bedding. The caracal would be all right in there, at least for the time being, but food would be a problem. Doubtless the animal was already hungry - the bats which he had killed in the attic would hardly be enough to satisfy it for long.

He fetched the box. The creature was restless and as he went to lift it out one of the claws raked his hands so that he cried out, the deep scratches filling with blood. Holding it by the neck, he flung it inside the run and shut the door. There was no catch, just a length of plastic string tied to a staple.’

The caracal crouched on the grass watching him, the hairs on its back raised.

‘You'll be all right,’ Bilal sucked his wound. ‘I'll try to find you some food. Maybe …’

‘What the hell d'you think you're bloody well doing?’

Bilal stiffened. He didn't need to turn round to know that it was Lester Hoyle. There was hate and anger in the big man's voice; contempt for a race and colour other than European.

‘I … I have made a home for my caracal,’ Bilal spoke softly, his eyes on the ground. ‘Something more safe.’

‘You're supposed to be shelling beans, not buggering about with things you've no right to touch.’

A snarl from the caracal answered him, starting deep down in its throat and rising to a high-pitched scream; it spat fury as it flung itself at the wire mesh, clinging there with its feet, jaws wide. Hoyle backed off, startled.

‘You can get rid of that bloody thing,’ he rasped. ‘Otherwise I'll put paid to it for you.’

‘I wish to keep it,’ Bilal replied. ‘It will not harm anybody. It is safe in there. But if I have to leave here, where can I go?’

Hoyle had several ideas, but the Pakistani probably wouldn't understand them. He said, ‘We'll have to work something out. Make sure that animal stays in there. And get those beans shelled, we'll need some tonight.’

Bilal watched him walk away, and the caracal mewed softly, the hairs on its back flat again. The eyes had lost their ferocity and were staring sadly up at the dark-skinned youth, a plea for freedom.

‘If you go, I go,’ Bilal said, wondering how much the animal understood. ‘I'll try to find you some food later.’

He went back to his sacks of beans and began to shell them into a plastic bucket.

That night Bilal slept on the board in the attic again. There was no question of him being allowed to share any of the bedrooms. He was even banned from the dining room, the fat girl who was called Trix allowing him to eat his food on an upturned orange crate in a corner of the filthy kitchen. It was some kind of vegetable goulash, heaped with the beans which he had harvested and highly spiced.

He had counted the other members of the commune through the open door - sixteen in all. Most of them seemed to have found casual labour during the harvest on some of the surrounding farms. Apparently only Wes Lansdale, Lester Hoyle and Wendy remained behind during the day.

He couldn't sleep. The atmosphere was almost stifling, the only ventilation being through the small hole in the roof, and the stale smell cloyed his nostrils. A sudden thought had him sitting up, every nerve taut - the caracal had not been fed!

He sweated in his dilemma. Not only had Hoyle ordered him to remain in the attic until morning, but where could he find food for his pet at this hour of the night? Hoping there might be some scraps lying about in the kitchen, he got up and climbed across the rafters until he reached the open hatch. There was no sign of light below, so he crept down the ladder, testing each rung before putting his full weight on it. Somewhere bed springs were creaking noisily, someone was breathing heavily. Whoever it was, they wouldn't be interested in his activities at present!

He crossed the landing and went down the uncarpeted stairs, past the first floor landing until he felt the flagged stones of the hallway beneath his feet. He groped his way across to the kitchen, when a sour smell mingled with the odours of stale cooking.

He thought about switching on the light but decided it was too risky. There was always food left lying on the wooden working surface near the sink. Some bread, a bowl half full of uneaten vegetable goulash; the caracal would not be interested in either. Searching around, he finally found what felt like the carcass of a chicken. It was going off, but would be better than nothing.

As Bilal let himself out of the door, a half-moon flooded the garden with enough silvery light to see by. He moved swiftly down the narrow winding path, anxious to feed the caracal and get back to the attic. He might be discovered out here, disobeying Hoyle's orders, and some form of punishment would surely follow.

The poultry house loomed up, gaunt and silent in silhouette, the netting casting criss-cross shadows on the ground beyond it. He fumbled with the string that held the door, forced it open.

‘Here, I have brought the food I promised.’

There was no response, and he hesitated, puzzled. Something was dreadfully wrong - the creature always came when called, especially when it was hungry.

He did not need to look inside the sleeping quarters. The animal would have emerged by now had it been there. The jagged hole in the rusty wire netting told its own story, one of the places which he had attempted to repair.

He dropped to his knees and pushed a hand through the opening as if trying to convince himself that it might be a trick of the moonlight. But the caracal had escaped. Ravenous, it had gone in search of its own food. And there was always the chance that it might not return.

Chapter 2

Bilal knew that he could not go back to the attic. Not only would he have been unable to sleep, but he would have to return at first light to see whether his pet had come back. So it was better to remain here, and if the caracal showed up then he could return to his sleeping quarters without any of the others knowing what had happened.

He sat with his back against the crumbling stone wall, the poultry house in front of him bathed in soft moonlight. The night was warm, so despite his nakedness he did not feel chilled. His head drooped. Since his arrival in Britain he had not slept more than a few hours at a stretch, but now exhaustion threatened to engulf him. He tried to fight it off, but soon dropped into a troubled sleep.

Something jerked him into wakefulness and he started, afraid that it might already be light. Away to the east the darkness was beginning to pale, and dawn was not far off.

Bilal knew that something other than increasing fear had awoken him: a noise or movement of some kind. A faint feline cry had him on his feet, glancing round and peering into the shadows. He would recognise the cry of a caracal anywhere.

The noise came again, louder, more of a whimper. And then he saw the caracal crouching on the edge of some long grass to his right, two green orbs reflecting the waning moonlight, mouth wide in a snarl.

As Bilal moved towards it he realised that something was wrong with the creature. It drew back as though afraid of him, snarling and spitting.

‘What is the matter, my little one?’

It moved, limped, flopped down on its belly. The mouth opened again and this time a loud mournful cry shattered the stillness of the night air, echoing across the expanse of Kinsley Wood and on to Lurkenhope. Birds in the surrounding trees and bushes fluttered and huddled together nervously.

The caracal rolled on to one side, exhausted, and lay looking up at Bilal. He crouched down, suddenly afraid of the animal which he had nursed throughout his long journey. This was no longer a playful and mischievous kitten but a savage beast of the wild, returned from the first hunt and no longer dependent upon him for its food. And it was injured!

He saw the paw for the first time now - bloody matted fur, claws torn and protruding at unnatural angles, the leg itself hanging uselessly and unable to support the weight of the body. The caracal snarled, tried to get up, but could not.

‘I will help you, little one.’

Bilal snatched his fingers away, feeling the rush of air as the undamaged paw slashed at him. There was a whimpering snarl from the trembling animal, then it suddenly quietened as if recognising its master. He extended his hand again, nervously, and touched the sleek hair; it let him stroke it, shaking violently the whole time.

‘You need help,’ Bilal muttered. ‘I must take you into the house.’

The caracal did not struggle when he picked it up, no longer attempting to scratch or bite. It seemed to realise that it was safe with Bilal. He went into the kitchen, cleared a space on the table, and put the animal down. It lay there, shivering, licking its wounded limb, raising its head every so often to watch him as he searched cupboards and drawers in an attempt to find something helpful - antiseptic, anything.

Ten minutes' search revealed that the majority of kitchen space was taken up with rubbish, empty wrappers and tins pushed away out of sight, the overflowing dustbin outside not having been emptied for some time.

‘It's no good …’ Bilal sank his head in his hands in despair and then he heard somebody coming down the stairs. He tensed - Lester Hoyle would be angry, and then what would happen?

‘It's you, is it?’ Wendy appeared in the doorway, wearing the same crumpled jeans and striped blouse, the latter undone so that her breasts were partially visible. Hair awry and matted, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. ‘I wondered who the hell was raiding the kitchen. Hey, what's up with the caracal?’

‘His foot is hurt,’ Bilal relaxed, sensing an ally, someone who would show kindness, ‘He escaped and went hunting in the night. Somehow he has hurt his paw.’

‘You can say that again!’ Wendy approached the creature cautiously, and it tensed but made no move to attack. ‘My, that's nasty. I think the leg might be broken. We'll have to put it in splints.’

Bilal stared blankly, not understanding; not even embarrassed at being naked in front of the girl.

‘Two pieces of stick bound tightly on to the leg to hold it in place whilst it mends,’ she explained. ‘I'll see what I can find. There's some TCP around somewhere, too.’

After considerable searching she found what she was looking for - the bottle of antiseptic, some sticks from the kindling box, and a piece of reasonably clean linen.

‘You'll have to hold him,’ she muttered nervously. ‘I think I can manage then.’

It took Wendy less than five minutes to complete her first aid treatment. The caracal struggled but Bilal was holding it firmly by the head and the other front paw. When they had finished it licked and pulled at the bandage for a while, then gave up trying to remove it.

Sounds came from upstairs; people were stirring, the casual labour force getting ready for another day in the fields.

‘I’ll start the breakfast,’ Wendy turned towards the cooker. ‘Knowing Trix, she won't be down just yet. You'd better put your pet back in its cage for the time being. I'll have another look at it later.’

‘Thank you,’ Bilal's eyes were misty as he lifted the caracal off the table, cradling it in his arms. ‘What do you think happened?’

‘Not much doubt about that,’ there was bitterness in Wendy's voice as she tried to explain. ‘There's an estate behind this place. The gamekeeper there, a chap named Hughes, doesn't give a damn for anything except his pheasants. We know he sets gin traps, old-fashioned steel traps with teeth. They're not legal, but he doesn't care how much a creature suffers so long as it doesn't harm his birds. Wes and I found a trap once, and threw it into a nearby pool. We should have told the police but …’ she smiled faintly, ‘the less we have to do with the police, the better.’

Somebody was coming down the stairs, and through the half-open door Bilal recognised the short stocky figure of Ricky, with Lester Hoyle behind. Their eyes met and Bilal licked his lips nervously.

‘You're getting a regular bloody nuisance,’ Hoyle kicked the door wide. ‘I thought I'd made myself plain about that animal.’

‘He's been hurt,’ Wendy snapped. ‘Got caught in one of Melvyn Hughes' gin traps.’

‘Pity it didn't hold him,’ Hoyle grunted, ‘or chop his bloody head off.’

‘You're as bad as the gamekeeper. Anyway, it's going to live outside in the pen. Bilal will look after it, and so will I.’

Lester checked his rising anger, glancing from Wendy to Bilal and back again. Without the girl interfering he could have sorted things out - now it was difficult.

‘OK,’ he sighed, ‘but don't bring it indoors.’

Bilal was glad to get outside. The sun's reddish glow was spreading into the eastern sky; everything smelled fresh and sweet. Somewhere a curlew warbled, and rooks were cawing in Kinsley Wood.

Suddenly the peaceful atmosphere was shattered by a loud report that echoed through the hills. The corvines called angrily, wheeling high into the sky, circling. Some wild duck lifted off the river, and a cock pheasant voiced its disapproval loudly from some thick hedgerow.

The small stone cottage was situated halfway up the steep hillside, its narrow garden sloping and tapering to a sheer drop at the front boundary. The slate roof was patched and repaired, a trellis porch hung precariously on the wall, supported mainly by the mass of climbing roses. Once the home of a generation of farmworkers employed on the estate, shortly before the boom in property it had been sold off as a weekend residence for two thousand pounds. A year later the panoramic views had trebled its value, but Colin Rutter wasn't interested in selling in spite of numerous exorbitant offers.

‘Not for fifty thousand,’ he told one interested party, determination and stubbornness in his steely blue eyes, the long grey hair giving him a wild appearance. ‘Not for a hundred thousand.’

At first the locals regarded Rutter with suspicion, which changed to respect when it was clear that his regular stays at his weekend residence had no ulterior motive. Tall and gaunt, he looked like a retired professor, they decided in the early years. A rumour which began in the Horse and Jockey placed him as a zoologist, something to do with animals. That seemed fairly accurate, for he was constantly seen roaming the hills and forests with camera and binoculars. More important, though, he troubled nobody and kept very much to himself.

Melvyn Hughes was the first to strike up any kind of acquaintance with Rutter, a relationship which puzzled the scattered community. Hughes was disliked, a blustering individual who delighted in exerting his authority on the estate, evicting harmless trespassers with torrents of abuse. Dogs, too; had mysteriously disappeared, and there had been an outcry when Mrs Tomkinson's Jack Russell terrier had wandered from home and not returned. Of course, the keeper had shot it because it had wandered too close to his rearing pens; maybe it had got caught in one of his abominable traps or snares set for foxes.

Mrs Tomkinson had complained to the police, and the slow-thinking, easy-going PC Calvin Jones had gone up to see Hughes. That in itself was a waste of time, for Hughes was hardly likely to confess and even offered an explanation. There were some old-established badger setts in the oak plantation on Panpunton Hill, he said. The dog could have gone there and been killed below ground by an angry badger. There was no way of retrieving the corpse, for the underground tunnels covered almost an acre beneath the large spreading tree roots.

Neither Mrs Tomkinson nor PC Jones were convinced, but there was nothing further that could be done except to advise the locals to prevent their dogs from straying on to the estate. As the vengeful Mrs Tomkinson continually pointed out to fellow members of the local Women's Institute, Hughes wasn't a proper gamekeeper. He didn't even dress in the customary plus fours and polished leather gaiters like his predecessor, the ageing Parsons. Old trousers and a ragged pullover were not in harmony with his rural status; and he might have been any one of a dozen farm labourers. They all agreed it was a sign of the times, a decline in standards. The Earl of Powis would not have allowed one of his gamekeepers to dress or behave in such a fashion, but the old estate was split up now into separate farms, the shooting rights rented by syndicates. The old days were gone, never to return.

Melvyn Hughes took his time climbing the steep hillside. In spite of an outdoor life he was two stone overweight, his ruddy complexion indicating high blood pressure as well as exposure to all weathers. He was seldom seen without his shapeless deerstalker-style hat, worn principally to cover a steadily spreading bald patch. A bushy moustache shielded a weak mouth. He had considered growing a beard, but his wife had objected to the idea - a tyrant around the game preserves, his aggressive manner disappeared once inside his own house.

He paused at the gate of the small stone cottage, laid his gun down in the bracken, and lifted the latch. Colin Rutter did not like guns and abhorred killing in any form. That was one point they would never agree upon.

The door opened when Hughes was halfway down the path, and Rutter emerged to stand on the step. The gamekeeper knew the signs. Rutter was busy, probably working on his book, and today there would be no invitation to go indoors and discuss the habits of the creatures of the wild. Hospitality, where the zoologist was concerned, was as uncertain as the barometer.

The gamekeeper pushed his hat on to the back of his head and wiped his forehead with his band. ‘It's warm,’ he muttered ‘Too warm.’

Rutter scrutinised his visitor closely and detected an air of uneasiness beneath the bluff exterior. This wasn't just a casual call. If only it had been at some other time! Right now he was very busy.

‘I saw a polecat this morning,’ the grey-haired man's stubby blackened pipe wobbled unsteadily between his stained and broken teeth as he spoke. ‘Up on Panpunton. I got the picture I've been after for weeks.’

‘Good,’ Hughes nodded and made a mental note to set a trap up there. ‘There's … there's something else about, too.’

‘What d'you mean, something else?’

‘I'm not sure,’ uncertainty again, tracing patterns in the dusty soil with the toe of his wellington boot. ‘It got free of a trap the other night, but not before it'd broken the mesh into one of the release pens and killed a dozen poults.’

‘A fox, doubtless. And you've been setting those infernal gins again.’

‘It wasn't a fox,’ Hughes ignored the reference to his traps. ‘I think we've got a wild cat in the area.’

‘A feral domestic cat, almost certainly.’

‘No, it was too big, too strong. I reckon it's a true wild cat.’

‘Oh, that's nonsense,’ Rutter could not restrain his impatience. ‘There are none existing south of Perth.’

‘There was a sighting in Radnor Forest a year or two ago.’

‘Pure speculation. People always see what they want to see. The size and thick ringed tail do not prove it was a true wild cat - those features are often also found in the domestic species. Many cats desert farm buildings, preferring to live in the wild away from human interference. Doubtless you have come across them … and dealt with them accordingly!’

‘No feral cat could have done what this one did,’ Hughes grunted. ‘It chewed through wire mesh, crushed each bird to death with its jaws, then having got into the trap it had sufficient strength to pull its way out.’

‘Hmm,’ Rutter respected the other's knowledge of natural history. ‘Of course, it is possible but highly unlikely. However. I'd be interested to see the scene of the crime, so to speak.’

Hughes led the way, using a well-worn sheeptrack back down the hillside, and neither spoke until they reached the narrow winding river at the bottom, following its banks in the direction of Nether Skyborry. The gamekeeper carried his gun almost self-consciously, cradled beneath his arm close to his body as though trying to hide its presence from his companion.

‘I heard you fire a shot just after daylight,’ the zoologist seemed to read the gamekeeper's thoughts, sense his guilt.

‘Just a carrion crow. There are far too many in these hills, too much unkeepered ground.’

‘Nature maintains her own balance.’

Hughes fell silent. He had no wish to enter into another heated discussion on the merits of corvine control. They followed a path that led diagonally away from the river bank into a tall larch wood, the air fragrant with the scent of resin where some trees had been recently felled. The sunlight was shut out by the thick overhanging branches, the atmosphere of tranquillity and gloom reminding Rutter of a cathedral where one instinctively spoke in whispers.

A few hundred yards further on they emerged into a huge sunlit clearing, the entire perimeter encircled by a ten-foot-high fence of wire netting. Inside this enclosure pheasant poults scratched for insects, others sunned themselves in dust baths. Probably several hundred at a rough estimate. Rutter grimaced. This was the death cell, where the birds would be imprisoned until the commencement of the shooting season; then a brief reprieve, a few weeks in which they would be allowed freedom before being driven over a line of guns.

‘This is the place.’ The gamekeeper was kneeling down by a section of the fence which had been recently renewed, new wire covering a jagged hole in the old. Masses of feathers were scattered around and some mutilated pheasant remains had been raked into a pile. Flies buzzed, reluctant to desert their feast.

Colin Rutter stooped down, examining the ground. The recent heavy showers had softened the soil into black mud that was only just beginning to dry out. There were several footmarks: a jay that had alighted in search of spilled grain, a rabbit passing from one side of the clearing to the other and something else, partially obscured beneath the prints of a prowling fox … a cat!

‘No ordinary cat could …’ Hughes realised his companion wasn't listening.

‘It's a cat, all right,’ Rutter muttered, ‘but not a domestic cat … nor a wild cat … then what?’

The zoologist searched diligently. There were so many tracks of passing animals, and also the gamekeeper's clumsy tread when he repaired the damaged fencing. Just one partial print remained, wide claws that dug deeply into the ground and then petered out.

‘I can't be sure,’ he straightened up. ‘If only I'd seen them earlier! Roughly the same size as a wild cat but the spacing of the toes is wider. Almost like the print of a lynx!’

‘A lynx!’ Melvyn Hughes stared open mouthed. ‘You've got to be joking!’

‘No, just beginning the process of elimination. Once you've discarded the impossible you're left with the improbable.’

‘But there aren't any lynxes in Britain, except in zoos.’

‘Agreed. But let's not forget the escapes from wildlife parks in recent years. Two wolves in Argyllshire, three boar hunts, a beaver on Speyside and a wolverine by Loch Ness, not to mention the mythical Sussex puma.’

‘You don't think …’

‘No, too small for a puma and the wrong formation. Off hand, the only feline species I can liken that print to is the lynx. Even so, it isn't quite right.’

‘We can't have some wild creature loose in these woods.’

‘You're thinking of your damned pheasants again, Melvyn. You're not concerned with some creature of great interest which is only obeying its natural instincts. All you think about is the number of pheasants in the bag at the end of a Saturday's shooting.’

‘That's my job, and in any case without shooting there would be very few pheasants in this country,’ the gamekeeper's face became a deeper hue. ‘Nobody would rear them and vermin would soon clean up any wild hatches.’

‘I suppose you're going to try to trap this animal?’

‘I'll have to do something about it.’

‘Surely a man of your ingenuity could make a cage trap of some kind, using reinforced steel mesh?’

‘Hell, I haven't the time to make cages. I don't have the welding equipment either.’

‘I see,’ Rutter sighed deeply. ‘So the death sentence is already passed?’

‘Like I said, it's my job,’ Melvyn Hughes' belligerence had merged into acute embarrassment. ‘If I don't show the birds this autumn they'll look for another man to start next season. It's as simple as that.’

‘Then do me a favour, will you?’

‘What's that?’

‘Keep this business to yourself for the moment. I want to do some watching, see if I can get a sighting at least. The last thing we want is sightseers trampling through the whole countryside disturbing every living thing for miles around, as they surely will if word gets out. And if you do kill the creature, let me have first look at it?’

‘All right, I'll do that, I promise.’

‘Thanks,’ Rutter glanced at his wristwatch. ‘I have to be getting back, I've a lot of work to do. And I won't wish you the best of luck with your trapping.’

Melvyn Hughes stood watching the zoologist until he was lost to sight amidst the tall larches, then picked up his gun and loaded it. He felt decidedly uneasy now that he was alone. Scottish wild cats were within his capabilities, but anything larger sent little shivers up and down his spine. From now on, whenever he went in these hills he would carry a gun. And the sooner he intensified his trapping, the better.

Bilal remained at Pentre in spite of Lester Hoyle's frequent reminders that alternative accommodation would be arranged shortly. Clearly none of the communes in the area welcomed the prospect of an illegal immigrant in their midst.

He spent most of his time working in the garden. Already the rows of vegetables were growing fast now that he had cleared the obstructing weeds.

The caracal, too, had grown and no longer bore any resemblance to a massive kitten. Now almost the size of a fox, it had become more of a recluse, spending the daylight hours inside its sleeping quarters. The broken leg had set perfectly and it did not even limp.

Bilal had attempted to repair the mesh again but his efforts had proved futile. The wire was torn apart by next morning and half the section destroyed. The creature had been out hunting and returned as though it realised that safety lay within the poultry house. Yet its tameness, its affection for him was waning, he could see. The heavy purr was more of a warning now than a greeting when he approached it

‘How's the cat?’ Wendy had strolled into the garden, idly picking wild raspberries from some hedgerow canes.

‘He is well,’ Bilal stuck his fork into the soil and leaned on the broken handle. ‘But he won't let me touch him now. I nearly got a scratch yesterday when I was putting some fresh water into his bowl Not really … vicious, just wanting to be left alone.’

‘Lester was on about it again yesterday,’ she smiled. ‘He had to agree that nobody in the commune ever sees the caracal, unless they go down the garden and peer into its hutch, I also told him that since you'd been here the amount of garden produce had virtually doubled. He knows I'm right, so I think he'll let you stay on. Just keep out of his way and you'll be OK.’

‘You are very kind,’ Bilal felt embarrassed, as though he owed a debt to this girl, which he could never repay. ‘I think Lester will do what you want?’

‘Only because he fancies me,’ she sat down on the remains of an old garden seat as though she needed to talk to somebody. ‘He's a swine really. Sometimes I could punch him in the face, but it wouldn't do any good because Wes and I have nowhere else to go. He tried to get me to go to bed with him one day last week when Wes had gone into Knighton. It might keep him happy, but the very thought makes me squirm. I put him off, told him I'd just started a period. Wes would kill him if ever he found out. Wes is away today, too, hitch-hiking to Shrewsbury to do some research in the library. I wish I'd gone with him. That's one of the reasons I'm out here in the garden now, because I don't want to be alone in the house with Lester, I can't put him off with the same excuse again.’

‘He doesn't come into the garden much,’ Bilal glanced around nervously.

‘He's destroying Wes,’ she spoke bitterly. ‘Tears every book he starts to bits. Now Wes intends to completely rewrite his latest manuscript, and I know he'll never finish it which is just what Lester wants - ruin his confidence and make him a failure like the rest of us. I can tell Wes is back on drugs. Now I'll have to try and get him off them again. Each time it's harder, and sometimes I think I'll just walk out but that would be the end of Wes.’

‘Is there not another commune?’

‘Maybe, but Wes wouldn't leave Pentre unless he could get back into society and be accepted. I really don't have to be here at all. My people are quite well off and always wanting me to go back home. But they think writers are unstable and have no time for anybody without a regular job. My only chance is for Wes to make good.’

‘I was happy at home, too, but I didn't realise until it was too late,’ Bilal felt the tears welling up in his eyes and tried to fight them back. ‘This man told me that Britain was the promised land and I gave him all my money to get here. I thought it was all legal. Now I cannot go back.’

‘You could go to the police. You'd be deported and get sent home then.’

‘No,’ Bilal turned away so that she would not see the tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘I could not face the shame. And my parents would not have me back now that I have run away.’

‘So we're both trapped,’ she smiled ruefully. ‘We've got to stick it out whether we like it or not.’

‘I'm worried about the caracal,’ he glanced at the dilapidated wire run. ‘I am happy that he is free, but each morning I dread that he will not be returning. If he went off to the hills it would not be so bad, but I am frightened of the traps and this man called Hughes.’

‘Me too,’ she said. ‘But it seems the caracal's learnt to avoid traps. It isn't likely that he'll be caught again. By the way, have you ever thought of giving him a name?’

‘It would be nice, but I cannot think of a name.’

‘Let me see,’ she pursed her lips and closed her eyes. ‘What about … what about “King”? King Caracal. I think it sounds impressive, kind of regal.’

‘ “King” ’, he repeated the name slowly. ‘It is a good name.’

‘I'll help you with some of that weeding,’ she stood up. Anything to keep away from the house. She wondered how Wes was getting on. All the research in the world wouldn't help him while Lester Hoyle was around.

Reg Gwillam was very much aware of the responsibility which had descended upon him since his father's death in May. Throughout his life he had relied upon the old man. Reg knew what his duties were, but it was always nice to be instructed. ‘Go'n look over them ewes, boy. And we might be able to start cutting next week if the weather holds. Check the baler.’ Now he had to think it all out for himself, and carry out the tasks unaided. As well as cooking and cleaning in the house, not that he did more than the minimum to keep going. He could just about remember his mother, a bulky woman, grey at thirty-five, who always wore a full-length apron. He never knew what she had worn beneath it. She had died when he was three although he hadn't realised the truth for ages afterwards. Dad had told him that she'd gone to stay with Auntie Ethel at Presteigne for a long holiday. The holiday had gone on and on, and when he finally learned she was dead it didn't really seem to matter because he'd got so used to being without a mother.

It was a long climb up to the ‘Footy’, the top field which bordered the forestry plantation. The air was cold and damp, a thick mist hanging over the upper half of the steep slope. A typical September morning, warning you that autumn was not far off. And then it would be winter, maybe an early snowfall that caught you unawares with the sheep still on the top fields and not enough fodder in the tumbledown barns down below.

At thirty-four he shouldn't have been out of breath by the time he reached the hurdle which was a makeshift gate to the upper grazing field. Binder twine served as both hinges and fastener, enough to stop the stock from breaking out but too flimsy to climb over.

The mist was thicker now, like the low cloud which sometimes lasted for several days in the depths of winter. Reg shivered and set off along the straggling hedge. By following that he would walk in a complete circle and come back where he'd started. The sheep would probably be huddled up against the forestry boundary.

Moving silhouettes, bleating, so there couldn't be much wrong with them. Soon they'd be brought down to the fields around the house, which would make life much easier.

Seven or eight sheep were lying down and struggled up, almost reluctantly, at Reg's approach. But one lay some distance behind the others in an unnatural posture, silent and still. As Reg stared the mist thickened, obscured the animal for a few seconds and then thinned again. Now he saw it more plainly. God, not only was it dead but there was definitely something odd about it. He broke into a run, and then the truth dawned on him. The sheep was naked, its fleece gone, and all that was left was a heap of crushed bloody bones!

Reg Gwillam stared in disbelief. The animal had been flayed! At first he thought of sheep rustlers from the city, but realised that they would hardly take the trouble to climb all the way up here just to get one beast when there were forty for the taking. And why just take the fleece? Usually the animals disappeared completely. But neither ravens nor foxes could reduce the carcass to that state in so short a time.

He turned away in disgust and fear. This was awful, worse than the loneliness up here in the mist. His father would have known what to do. Reg could see him now, a small wizened man in his late sixties, a shock of unruly grey hair.

Toothless, gums hardened so that they were capable of supporting a pipe, puckered mouth with lisping speech. ‘Boy, sommat's been at that sheep, and I reckon I knows what it is …’

But what, for Christ's sake, what?

His thoughts in a whirl, Reg headed for lower ground, pausing every few yards to glance back. He was trembling by the time he reached the house and hastened inside, slamming the door behind him. He needed time to think. If it was rustlers then the police ought to be informed. Not that it would make much difference because Calvin Jones was hardly likely to spend the night there on the Footy.

Then a sudden awful thought hit him with the force of a power-driven piston. It must be the work of humans - he'd read in one of the few newspapers that came his way about a goat being found skinned and mutilated in an Essex churchyard. Devil-worshippers!

Reg sweated, his stomach fluttering and pulses pounding. Some vile cult had come here because it was remote, made their blood sacrifice and indulged in revolting rituals. Ugh! He was almost sick at the thought.

But - and this was even more terrifying - they might return! He thought about bringing the sheep down straight away, but that might bring the devil-worshippers nearer to the farm buildings. And what if he got in their way? They might seek a more powerful sacrifice - human blood!

He sat there shaking. The worst thing he could do was to inform the police, which was sure to bring the wrath of these people upon him. Calvin Jones would be no match for them, anyway. The only solution was to bolt the doors once darkness fell and not open them again until daylight. He would take a loaded shotgun up to bed with him too.

Such were the primitive fears of a man who knew nothing but the simple ways of country life.

Reg stepped out into the yard, shading his eyes and looking up towards the distant peaks. The sun was shining with full autumnal warmth, and had dispersed the last traces of mist on the hilltops. Two specks, hovering, circling, with ragged wings outspread. Buzzards. He heard their sharp mewing call, saw them going down beyond the brow of the Footy. There was something sinister about their sudden appearance. Some instinct had drawn them to feast on the grisly remains of that sheep, clean up the bones so that they whitened in the sun.

Reg began to fork hay into the cattle shed. In spite of the increasing warmth of the day he could not stop shivering, and kept glancing furtively around. The atmosphere seemed charged with evil; he would not be spared by the forces of darkness simply because he had no wish to become involved with them - the future was too terrible to contemplate.

Chapter 3

Les Powell had farmed seven hundred acres along Offa's Dyke since 1964 when he and his brother had gone into partnership. ‘Kip’ Powell had been killed the following year when his tractor went out of control while he was attempting to plough a steep hillside above Llanwen Hill.

Les carried on alone afterwards. The temptation had been to sell up, which his bank manager advised, but that advice had gone unheeded. Land was going to boom, Les forecast, and in ten years' time his would be the biggest and cheapest farm this side of the border, particularly if modern ideas and machinery were coordinated to produce the best out of a neglected tract of land. Besides, fifty was too early to retire.

It was a struggle at times but Les Powell made it. Sheer determination paid off, and by 1975 the bank overdraft had been cleared. Five years later his sheep had earned a reputation on both sides of the border, fetching top prices at auctions and winning first prize at Builth Show.

His greatest concern was roaming dogs, which seemed to be worse this year than at any previous time. No use calling the police - one had to make lengthy statements and absolutely nothing happened. There was only one answer - shoot any dog you saw on the sheepfields (provided you could get within range) regardless of whether you recognised it or not. Dead dogs don't run sheep! Les always carried some SSG shot in the pocket of his tattered working jacket and generally used at least one a week. One thing which could be said in favour of that gamekeeper fellow, he told his friends on auction days at the Norton Arms, was that he didn't mess about where unruly dogs were concerned. And as for Mrs Tomkinson's Jack Russell, he winked slyly, it was anybody's guess what had happened to that!

Les carried his old hammer gun with him on his trips up to the fields beyond Panpunton Hill. There was rust on the Damascus barrels and a split in the stock had been reinforced with a strip of wire. It was his ‘knockabout’ weapon, an old favourite that dated back to his youth, and secretly he preferred it to the Gallyon sidelock ejector with which he shot grouse on the Mynd in August and September. However, one could not use a dilapidated weapon in the company of gentry.

His train of thought led back to Melvyn Hughes. Next month there was sure to be an invitation to shoot pheasants on Panpunton, and they would meet again. The underlying dislike was mutual - one was a farmer, the other a gamekeeper. Landowner and servant. Class distinction would never be totally wiped out, no matter how hard those hippies down at Pentre tried to convince everybody that there was now a classless society.

The sun had already dipped behind the western range of hills when he climbed over the rustic stile in the hedge dividing the Long Acre from the scrub hillside. The haze on the horizon indicated an early morning mist followed by sunshine. An Indian summer, which was fine until the last of the harvest was carried, but rain was desperately needed - the springs were low and without heavy snow this winter it could be disastrous. He remembered the drought of 1976 only too well.

Les Powell paused, studying the sheep on the upper slopes. On a still evening like this they would usually be scattered, grazing peacefully, but instead they were huddled together in a bunch, bleating.

‘Now what the devil's up with them?’ he muttered. ‘A dog on the loose, I'll be bound.’

A movement to the left caught his eye, and he jerked round. That half of the hillside was in shadow and it was difficult to make out details, but he thought he saw an animal, dark in colour, bushy tail streaming as it bounded away between clumps of hawthorn.

His first conclusion was that it must be a fox. But the movements were too springy, back legs propelling the body so that at times it was airborne. So it had to be a dog, but even then something was wrong, the very speed at which it moved, the style.

‘What in the name of …!’

Even as he watched, the creature disappeared into a silver birch thicket. An area of gorse and bracken adjoining this would screen it from sight until it was over the brow of the hill.

Disconcerted and annoyed, the farmer started up the slope. Whatever it was, there wasn't much chance of getting a shot at it, but he had to check those sheep.

It took him fifteen minutes to reach the spot where the small flock of Cluns were bunched in a hollow. He ran an experienced eye over them. As he expected, they were scared - it only took a strange dog within a radius of five hundred yards to frighten sheep - but apart from that they seemed all right

He paused a few moments to regain his breath, telling himself that he needed to count the flock. Any excuse rather than admit that his age was beginning to tell. Otherwise it might have been another three or four weeks before he discovered that there was one ewe short.

Even then he had not expected to find her in the gathering dusk, and thought she might just have strayed. Less than fifty yards away, at the base of a small hummock, he saw what seemed like a heap of bones. There were sheep skeletons to be found on most hillsides in these parts, only this one still had strips of chewed and mangled flesh hanging from it. It was his missing ewe all right - and she was freshly killed!

‘My God!’ he approached, stood gazing in horror and disbelief, noting how the ribs had been crushed right into the vertebrae. The jawbone was pulped but the rest of the skull appeared unscathed. There was no sign of the skin, just a few tufts of fluffy wool scattered across the parched brown grass.

Les Powell knew that this was not the work of humans, nor fox nor dog. He cocked both hammers of his gun and stared back up the slope. The creature which had departed hurriedly at his approach was to blame, he felt certain. He had no idea what it was, but there was one man who might know, and he began to walk quickly in the direction of Colin Rutter's cottage.

‘Most interesting, most interesting,’ Colin Rutter stared across the large mahogany desk which took up the greater part of his study, the light from the table lamp reflecting the eagerness in his eyes. ‘You say the skin was removed completely and the ribs crushed into the vertebrae?’

‘That's right,’ Les Powell stood there like an erring schoolboy, fidgeting with his hands. The zoologist always made him feel uneasy, inferior. ‘The skull was virtually untouched, though.’

‘It all adds up,’ Rutter muttered, staring at the wall behind Powell. ‘I half guessed when I saw how Hughes' pheasants had been killed, and realised the strength of the brute. It was certainly the work of the cat family, but not of any native British species. I thought of a lynx, probably an escapee from some wildlife park. But the flaying of the skin, coupled with the damage done to vertebrae and ribs, is conclusive proof. It cannot be anything else!’

‘What … what is it, then?’ Powell's voice was low.

‘Without a shadow of doubt it's a caracal!’

‘A what!’ the other grunted, aware of his ignorance, and wishing he had waited for the explanation which would surely follow.

‘A caracal,’ Colin Rutter's manner changed to that of a sixth-form schoolteacher standing in for a colleague who was absent from the lower third, ‘is a member of the cat family, Felis caracal Temminckii. The name is derived from the Turkish “kara”, black, and “kulach”, ears. The animal you saw fleetingly was a caracal, normally found in Persia, Africa and India. Although it is sometimes tamed for the purpose of hunting, in the wild it is a savage and dangerous beast. It seems that the creature at large in these hills is not of the tame variety.’

‘But how the hell did it get here?’

‘Obviously it has escaped from somewhere. I know of no zoo or private menagerie in the immediate vicinity, so we must conclude that it has either been kept secretly and illegally or else has deliberately been turned loose by some unscrupulous owner who fears prosecution for harbouring dangerous wild animals without a licence.’

‘Something's got to be done about it,’ the farmer was already fearing for the safety of those sheep still up on the higher ground.

‘Quite. When I spoke to Hughes earlier I was against its destruction, no matter what animal it was, for I detest killing. However, I must now change my opinion. This creature is dangerous, and livestock, even human beings, are at risk every moment it remains at large.’

‘You can say that again! Right now I'm worried as to whether my sheep will be safe until morning.’

‘I don't think you need worry at this very moment,’ Rutter stuffed coarse stranded tobacco into his blackened pipe and struck a match. The caracal is a killer, but not an indiscriminate slaughterer which kills purely for the sake of killing. It has slain a sheep and fed, and will not need to do so again for another twenty-four hours. In the meantime we must attempt to locate its lair, not an easy task in this part of the country. I shall phone our, slow-moving, slow-thinking police constable and attempt to convince him that we have a dangerous predator at large. I should be grateful, Mr Powell, if you would alert your farming friends.’

Les Powell kept his shotgun cocked throughout the half-mile walk back to his farm. Every shadow seemed to move, and once the screech of a vixen in the Panpunton woodlands sent a wave of prickles up his spine and into his scalp. By the time he reached the safety of his own farmhouse his shirt was clinging damply to his body. He had never heard of a caracal before, and didn't really know what the creature looked like, but he could not get the picture of that mutilated sheep out of his mind, the way the ribcage had been crushed by powerful jaws. He was a very frightened man.

Report from the Sporting Gazette, dated 18 September 19—:

Farmers and gamekeepers on the fringe of Radnor Forest are concerned over sheep and game losses during the last few weeks. It seems from the method of killing that a sizeable feline beast is at large, possibly an escapee from a wildlife park although police enquiries have not so far found this to be so. All private menageries within a radius of fifty miles have been contacted without result. Professor Colin Rutter, author of Naturalised British Animals, is of the opinion that the creature in question is a caracal, similar in appearance to a lynx except that it has a long bushy tail. It is best described as a small mountain lion, slightly larger than a fully grown fox, and is capable of jumping ten-foot fences. It is mainly found in Africa, India and Persia, where it is domesticated from birth and used to hunt small game. In the wild, however, the caracal is an extremely savage and bloodthirsty killer, a peculiar characteristic of the species being that it flays the skin from its victims.

Police are urging hill farmers in the area to give their stock extra protection. Our own special correspondent, Tim Grayling, who is well known to readers through his weekly column ‘Around the Game Preserves’, is already in the area conducting his own investigations, which he will be reporting in a forthcoming issue.

The ‘Big Shoot’ was arranged for Saturday, 29 September, and for the past week reports and notices had been appearing in the local newspapers. The fact that no more sheep had been killed was of little consequence. The caracal was still around, skulking in the wooded hillsides by day, hunting the fields by night. It had to be - the public demanded it and the media obliged:

CARACAL SIGHTED AT CWMGILLA

‘Well, that's a load of balls,’ Wes Lansdale threw the newspaper on to the uncleared breakfast table, rattling crockery and catapulting a spoon across the floor. ‘They were trying to make out in the Courier yesterday that it had been seen over at Gladestry. Every cat in the district has suddenly turned into a caracal.’

‘Your argument doesn't hold water,’ Lester Hoyle sneered. ‘It can cover twenty or thirty miles in a night, maybe more. Anyway, why are you suddenly presenting a defence for the accused?’

‘Because it's nothing but a witch hunt,’ Lansdale retorted angrily. ‘If the truth were known, half the dead sheep have been killed by either rustlers or dogs.’

‘Not according to Rutter. He's the expert. And don't forget, there is a caracal at large. Half the theories are now in favour of pumas or lions. Only we really know. And we've got to put an end to it before the whole thing rebounds and lands us in real trouble. We should've killed the bloody thing when that wog first turned up with it. Sure, they'll have their hunt, and the whole countryside will be bristling with guns and dogs from Knighton to Radnor Forest, but they'll draw a blank because the damned animal will be peacefully snoozing the day away in this very garden! I tell you we ought to kill it now, bury the thing and swear blind we've never set eyes on it. In a week everybody will have gone back to drooling over mass murderers and the sports pages. I tell you it's the only way. Hell, I am in charge of this commune!’

‘And how are you going to kill the caracal?’ Wendy lit a cigarette and regarded him steadily, ‘We don't even have a shotgun between the lot of us.’

‘An axe will do. Smash its head open. Just one blow.’

‘OK, white hunter, see how you get on,’ she was mocking him openly now. ‘Try to get it out of that coop so you can swing your axe at it. Even Bilal daren't put his hand inside, and I don't give much for your chances once it realises what you're up to.’

‘There are other ways,’ Hoyle felt his authority slipping down another rung. ‘We could poison it.’

Wendy looked at him with contempt. ‘What do you suggest? Grind up some deadly nightshade or hemlock and hope the animal will merely think its meat is highly spiced? The only stuff that would work is strychnine and we don't stand much chance of getting any of that.’

‘Hughes uses it. Remember that fox we found dead last summer?’

‘Yes, contorted with agony even after rigor mortis had set in. Forget it, Lester. We're supposed to be against that sort of thing.’

‘It's Bilal's job, anyway,’ he kicked at the leg of a chair angrily. ‘He brought it here and it's up to him to get rid of it’

‘Which he'd like to do,’ Wendy snapped. ‘He's as worried as we are.’

‘There's only one way,’ Wes Lansdale pursed his lips and for a moment his dull eyes seemed to clear as he made a determined effort to grope his way out of the lethargy which had once more begun to claim him.

‘What's that?’ Hoyle seized upon a chance to ridicule the other. ‘Talk to it nicely and tell it to kill rabbits instead of sheep?’

‘These bloodthirsty shooters are trigger-happy for a caracal,’ Wes replied. ‘So we'll give them one. We'll wait until nightfall, after the creature's gone out to hunt, then we'll barricade that rickety old hen house so securely that it can't get back. That way there's a fair chance that it'll take to the hills. Maybe it'll get shot, maybe it won't. Whatever happens, nobody will connect it with Pentre and we'll be in the clear. There're enough sheets of corrugated metal from that old lean-to that blew down last winter to seal up the pen.’

Lester Hoyle nodded slowly. It was something he should have thought of earlier. He tried to think of a reason why they shouldn't barricade the caracal out of its daytime refuge, and failed.

‘Bilal can do it,’ he said. ‘It's his pigeon. And maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to shut him out, too. Once we've got rid of the caracal that Paki's next for the chop!’

Colin Rutter chewed hard on the stem of his pipe and contemplated the three men seated in his study: Jones, the policeman, out of his depth and realising it; Hughes, the gamekeeper, seething with anger; Grayling of the Sporting Gazette, as eager as a cocker spaniel at the start of a day's shooting - looking a bit like one, too, Rutter reflected, with his drooping features and large ears. But self-important; vindictive, too. He would probably delight in rejecting a submission from a well-known columnist in favour of one of his own pieces. A man to watch carefully.

‘Well, we've got to go through with the shoot,’ Jones shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘The Chief Constable has authorised it. It's out of my hands.’

‘But that's not the way to find a … a caracal,’ Hughes hesitated over the name, foreign to his own world of clearly defined game and vermin species. ‘The countryside will be teeming with blokes who have no idea how to handle a gun, anyway, and dogs will be yapping their heads off not knowing what they're supposed to be looking for. The creature will hear them miles off and just lie low.’

‘Maybe,’ Rutter acknowledged, ‘but it's the first step, combing the area.’

‘And then what?’ the gamekeeper's eyes narrowed, shifted suspiciously from the zoologist to the policeman.

‘We shall have to be more subtle,’ Rutter spoke slowly, aware of the opposition to any infiltration of the Panpunton estate. ‘The commandos go in where the massive invasion forces have failed. We know that the caracal is more likely to be active at night. One or two experienced men with spotlights and rifles may have better success that way. But the demand is for an all-out mass attack …’ His gaze shifted to Tim Grayling.

‘Let's go over the plans for tomorrow again,’ the journalist spoke quickly, afraid that he might be expected to produce some novel idea. ‘You reckon you can muster sixty or seventy guns, constable?’

‘Easily,’ Calvin Jones nodded. ‘A lot of the local boys are only too eager for a chance to give their guns an airing.’

‘Poachers,’ Hughes grunted. ‘Some real hard cases amongst them. Some have already been had up for poaching on the estate. You don't think they're coming along on the off chance of a shot at a mythical wild animal, do you? No, sir! They've never had a better opportunity to give the estate the once-over, see where the bulk of the birds are. Come next month, next week in fact, the buggers will be back, after dark. And there'll be folks out tomorrow carrying guns without shotgun certificates.’

‘That's something we'll have to overlook for once,’ the officer mumbled. Christ, he couldn't go round booking half the volunteer force - the Chief Constable would have him back in Birmingham before the week was out. The caracal was a priority, those were the chief's very words. ‘Kill it and kill all the publicity.’ The cat was making a fool of them all.

‘Huh!’ Melvyn Hughes blew his nose loudly, a habit when trying to keep his temper in check. ‘And another thing, all the birds in the woods will be scattered and scared to hell. They might not even return to the feeding points. I can see half of them arriving at Clun and stopping there. Can't we skirt Panpunton Wood? I've had no losses there for over a fortnight now. If you ask me, the caracal's moved on.’

‘We can't skirt anywhere,’ Jones tapped the Ordnance Survey map which was spread out across the desk. ‘Chief's orders. We start at Lower Stanage - the thing's killed some pheasant poults on the estate there, too. Work our way down to the Lee, cross the river and up into Panpunton. Meantime, the Anchor Fox Club will have worked their way down from Knucklas to Cwmgilla, swinging north-east up across Garth Hill to meet us.’

‘Somebody'll get shot for sure,’ the gamekeeper lit a cigarette with shaking hands. ‘Two lines of guns converging on each other, I've never heard the likes of it.’

‘Three!’ There was almost a note of jubilation in the constable's voice. He was remembering all those fruitless chases after poachers which the other had instigated, the cold winter nights when he had been forced to leave fireside or bed. Now Calvin Jones was getting his own back. The third line will draw from Rhos-y-meirch, following Offa's Dyke, skirting the town and meeting the others at Panpunton. They'll be the party using Davies' otter hounds. Since otter hunting was suspended those dogs haven't had any work. They'll be as keen as mustard.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ Hughes blew out an angry cloud of smoke. ‘Three lines of guns, hounds, every mongrel in Powys and Salop, not to mention the poachers. I reckon I'd best leave you gentlemen to it.’ He rose to his feet, glaring defiantly at the others.

‘You can't,’ Calvin Jones elatedly drove home the jibe. ‘The Chief Constable has laid it all on with your boss for you to lead the Panpunton team. The syndicate has no objection to the woods being driven. In fact, Mr Hidderley-Walker reckons it's a good thing, make the birds wilder, good fliers for the early part of the season.’

Fuck Mr Hidderley-Walker, the gamekeeper thought, and sat down again, visibly trembling with suppressed rage. He'd change his tune when there weren't any birds to shoot at in October. ‘Keeper, where the devil have all the birds got to?’ Fuck him!

‘That's settled then,’ Rutter became the referee, pushing the fighters back into their respective corners. ‘Now, Mr Grayling, perhaps you would care to inform us which party you intend to accompany in the morning?’

Fencing again, the professor's rapier drawing blood, remembering a destructive review of his book, The Life of the Grey Squirrel, which had appeared in the pages of Grayling's journal under the initials ‘TG’. The Sporting Gazette saw no redeeming features in the intruder from the States. The term ‘tree rat’ was becoming overplayed even for them.

‘If it's all right with you, gentlemen, I'll tag along with Mr Hughes.’

Melvyn Hughes nodded. He was sure to get a mention in the next leader article: perhaps ‘Gamekeeper heads chase after wild beast’. ‘The Black Beast of Radnor’, Grayling had termed it a few weeks ago.

‘There'll be scores of reporters hanging around,’ Rutter drew blood again. Interfering bastards, without exception. ‘Doubtless there will be many conflicting accounts, not a single one truly accurate.’

Grayling flushed. ‘I shall report the facts,’ he spoke tersely. ‘Nothing else.’

‘Well, that seems to be it,’ Colin Rutter folded the map, an eminent man suddenly tired of inferior company. A fleeting thought crossed his mind, that of a strained young man, drug-punched, struggling over a typewriter, a distinct talent threatening to evaporate. Lansdale didn't deserve sympathy. Like the caracal, he was a victim of circumstances. The only thing the two men shared was an ability to write and get published. The content was of no importance. It was an association that few would understand, certainly not these three.

‘Nine o'clock tomorrow at Panpunton,’ PC Jones looked at the others.

‘I always rise at six,’ Rutter banged his pipe out loudly in the heavy glass ashtray. The tension seamed to escalate, inflating the petty hatreds that had developed during the last hour. Lansdale would be coming along tomorrow, too, which was strange and quite out of character. Rutter guessed, though: a kind of secret ‘Caracal Saboteurs Association’, a quiet hope that the hunted creature would slip its pursuers, wanting it to escape. Rebellion against an alien society.

‘See you at nine then.’

Rutter stayed at his desk while the others filed out into the night, making no attempt to follow them to the door. Rarely did he regret a decision made, but right now he wanted to opt out God, how had he come to be mixed up in the organisation of a blood hunt? The answer lay in his one weakness, his ego. This was an episode of animal life about which he would never put pen to paper. Tomorrow he would be just a hunter, nothing more, and he was ashamed of himself.

Wendy was both worried and frightened. Worried because Wes had been gone since breakfast, and she knew that he had lied to her. He hadn't gone to Shrewsbury to do more research on his book, she was sure - she always knew when he lied.

She was frightened because she was alone in the house with Lester Hoyle. Bilal was somewhere around, maybe out in the garden. He seemed unable to keep away from the old hen house these days, standing by the broken sundial staring at the rusted corrugated sheets as though unable to accept that they were the final barrier between himself and the animal which he had nursed all the way from his homeland. The caracal had grown up and gone, but Bilal had become a boy again, brooding, sometimes weeping when he thought nobody was watching.

Wendy thought about going into the garden in search of him, and wished that she had gone into Knighton with the others. She had stayed behind because she couldn't face the thought of endless mooching, staring into shop windows at goods she was never likely to have the money to buy.

She decided to wash the dishes. That should have been Trix's job, but the plump girl had already left. She was back with Jon again, and the two of them had spent the last two or three days in serious muttered conversation away from the others. That either meant that they were planning to leave the commune or that Trix was pregnant. Maybe both. A funny girl, Trix, Wendy thought. She'd been the rounds with nearly all the men, except Wes and possibly Lester. Nothing to look at but she seemed to conjure up sexual attraction despite her sluttishness.

Suddenly Wendy stiffened and almost dropped a cup in the sink. She hadn't heard Lester come into the kitchen, and now he was standing directly behind her, his hands encircling her waist in an ‘I'm-only-playing-but-I-mean-it’ fashion, sliding upwards. She shuddered as his fingers touched her breasts through her blouse and remained there.

‘No boyfriend today?’ his voice was soft. Sexy if you liked your men that way, but it made her flesh creep.

‘I expect … he'll be back soon,’ a desperate lie and not very clever. Wes had made a point of telling everybody at breakfast that he was hitching to Shrewsbury, which was why she knew he'd lied.

‘I doubt it,’ Lester Hoyle's fingers found the nipples for which they had been searching and began to rub gently, almost imperceptibly. ‘He's gone to Shrewsbury. At least, that's what he said.’

‘If he said so, then that's where he's gone,’ her tone was cool, her body tensing.

‘I don't think so. He told us he'd gone into Knighton the other day, but that wasn't where he went.’

‘I … I wouldn't know about that,’ she was aware that her cheeks were flaming. Her stomach seemed to drop down into her bowels and when she spoke again her voice was scarcely louder than a whisper. ‘How do you know, anyway?’

‘Because I followed him. When I think anybody in this commune is lying I check on them … for the good of all of us. He went to see that professor fellow who owns the cottage up on the hill. The other writer … Rutter.’

‘I … well, there's nothing wrong in that,’ Wendy's voice quavered.

‘Then why lie about it?’

‘There must be a reason,’ her reply sounded weak, unconvincing.

‘Of course there must be. I think young Wes is up to something, playing some deep game that he doesn't want either of us to know about. And he's back on drugs. Harder than before.’

To say ‘I know’ seemed a betrayal. She took a deep breath and remained silent, her body screaming out at her to yell at Hoyle to ‘take your hands off me’. Instead she just stood there, dazed, letting him fondle her nipples.

‘You're the sexiest girl I've ever met’

It sounded corny. More than that, frightening. She experienced the feeling which a fly has on finding itself trapped in a spider's web. Sheer helplessness. She wished again that she had gone out with the others but it was too late now. Lester Hoyle was kissing the nape of her neck, lusting, a hardness jabbing into her buttocks.

‘Don't … please!’ she struggled to turn round, but he had her pressed hard against the sink.

‘Why not?’ he whispered in her ear. ‘We're the only ones around. Nobody else will know. Not that it matters, anyway. Wes is no good to you, Wendy. He'll ruin you as surely as he's ruining himself.’

Suddenly her anger returned. Somehow she slipped from his grasp, and turned to face him.

‘Don't you try that crap with me!’ she flared. Her blouse was undone and she knew that he was looking at her breasts but she didn't care. Let him see what he would never have. ‘You'll never come near Wes Lansdale, either as a man or as a writer.’

‘Wes has gone to pieces,’ he sneered, ‘His work is proof of that.’

‘Because you keep interfering, destroying his confidence because you're jealous of him!’

Her words hit him like a clenched fist and he stepped back a pace, lips compressed into a thin bloodless line. ‘You bitch!’ he hissed. ‘Can't you see I'm trying to help him?’

‘I can see through you, Lester,’ her anger was smouldering now, burning up the initial fear. ‘You're one of life's failures, in every respect. Coming here to Pentre was a last chance for you. You couldn't make it in conventional society so you had to find somewhere where you could be somebody, con everyone into thinking how clever you are. But it won't work with me, it never has.’

He backed away towards the door, his expression a mixture of rage and amazement. For once she had reduced him to silence, and this gave her a distinct sense of achievement

‘You thought I'd fall for it, too,’ she pressed home her advantage viciously. ‘You couldn't make it, Lester, so you're determined that Wes isn't going to either.’

He rushed out with a curse, and she stood listening to his footsteps going up the stairs. Somewhere above a door slammed. Silence.

Wendy stood trembling, frightened not so much for herself as for Wes Lansdale. Lester Hoyle was a dangerous enemy.

Chapter 4

Editorial in the Sporting Gazette dated 4 October 19—:

As reported in last week's issue the organised shoot in an attempt to rid the countryside around Knighton of an escaped caracal took place on Saturday, 29 September. Three parties of guns and beaters, assisted by teams of dogs, drew an area of some twenty square miles. The operation was under the direct supervision of Melvyn Hughes, gamekeeper on the Panpunton Estate.

The day was warm and sunny and your correspondent, who accompanied Professor Colin Rutter - eminent zoologist and author of several books on various aspects of wildlife - felt that the scene was reminiscent of a late season grouse shoot. The dogs worked tirelessly but were often distracted by the scent of rabbits and hares. Much of the terrain being inaccessible to the guns, greater reliance had to be placed on dogs to flush out any lurking beast. Several foxes were seen, and one was accidentally shot by an over-enthusiastic member of a fox club.

By lunchtime there had been no signs of the caracal, but towards mid-afternoon a dead sheep was discovered, the skin having been removed and the ribs chewed into the vertebrae. An examination was carried out by Professor Rutter, who is convinced that this was a kill made by the caracal only a few hours previously. As we pressed on the dogs became more excited and it was clear that the ‘Black Beast’ could not be far away.

The climax to the day came shortly after four o'clock on the outskirts of Kinsley Wood, on the edge of some open pasture. The caracal had apparently been feeding on a hare which it had killed, and had been so preoccupied that it failed to hear the approaching dogs until they were almost upon it. Indeed, it seemed such an unlikely place that the nearest gun was caught unawares and afterwards confessed that at first he did not realise that the animal was in fact the caracal.

Several members of the party had a good view of the creature as it sped for freedom, and there is now no doubt concerning its identity. Approximately the size of a fox, and obviously not quite fully grown, it is dark brown in colour with lighter underparts, ears long and upright, tail about ten inches long. As it bounded off at tremendous speed, a shot rang out and it veered to the right. A volley of gunfire followed, but by this time the animal was sixty or seventy yards away. One of the line of guns claimed a hit, but the caracal did not falter and within half a minute of being put up, disappeared into the dense thickets of Kinsley Wood.

The original plan for the three parties to meet at a prearranged rendezvous about five o'clock had to be changed, but it was after six by the time everybody had converged near the quarry's refuge. A cordon was thrown around Kinsley Wood, guns spaced at sixty-yard intervals facing outwards so that any shot taken would be at the departing caracal and the chances of an accident minimised. All those with dogs were summoned to drive out the wood systematically, additional beaters being enlisted to help through the thick undergrowth. The operation was lengthy owing to the nature of the terrain.

It was already dusk when the party finally broke from cover into the small cul-de-sac formed by the north-east side of Kinsley Wood and Panpunton Hill. There was a distinct atmosphere of anticlimax as the weary hunters gathered together for a post-mortem on the day's events. Few had expected to see a caracal, and most doubted its existence in this part of the country. The unbelievers had been converted, but at the last moment the caracal had eluded its pursuers. Thorough as the search had been in Kinsley Wood, the area is so vast and dense that an animal the size of a buffalo could remain undetected. Moreover, it had been assumed that the caracal would bolt when it heard the dogs rather than be flushed out.

However, it has now been established without any doubt that the animal is a caracal, and the danger of its presence in the countryside cannot be overemphasised. The Chief Constable has called a meeting with officials of the Forestry Commission to determine the next move.

A short while ago the Gazette made clear its views on the use of fox snares. These are now reiterated, and we urge those readers living in Powys not to set snares in the hope of catching this wild beast. Steps will be taken to ensure the safety of poultry and livestock, and any further sightings should be reported at once to your local police station. Meanwhile, we shall be reporting week by week on the progress made by those responsible for capturing the caracal. ‘TG’

Extract from the Courier dated 1 October 19—:

The Black Beast of Radnor.

Parties of blood-lusting ‘sportsmen’ congregated in the Welsh hills on Saturday in an attempt to track down an escaped feline creature known as a caracal. Towards the end of the day the animal was seen, fired upon, and a trail of blood led the hunters to a nearby forest. All efforts to find the wounded creature failed and as darkness fell the hunt was called off. Labour MP Mr Herbert Lessing referred to the episode as degrading. Mr Lessing, who is on the committee of the League Against Cruel Sports and a campaigner for the abolition of blood sports, said that the caracal has probably died a lingering death as a result of the shotgun blasts and was confident that it had been no real threat to livestock anyway.

Foxes were indiscriminately shot at throughout the drive.

‘Well, he got away,’ there was genuine relief in Wes Lansdale's voice as he accepted the cigarette which Colin Rutter offered him from the small teak box on the desk. ‘That's something at any rate. The fellow who claims he hit him is either a fool or a liar. I saw the shot kick up at least a yard behind the caracal's tail.’

‘For one who has lived in urban surroundings all his life,’ Rutter watched the other carefully as he spoke, ‘you seem to show an unusual amount of interest in this animal.’

‘It isn't every day you get a ferocious wild beast in the locality,’ Lansdale hoped his sense of guilt didn't show. ‘I don't agree with blood sports, anyhow.’

‘I'm totally unbiased,’ the zoologist took his time over filling his pipe. ‘I've never been interested in killing, and guns terrify me. But I can understand other people's points of view. For instance, the anti-field sports people thought they were doing the deer a good turn when they rented the sporting rights over large acreages of land in Devon and forbade shooting there. Instead, the whole scheme backfired, for without culling the herds increased out of all proportion and devastated the crops on neighbouring farms. They paid the penalty for interbreeding, and drew most of the poachers in the county, chaps who use shotguns and crossbows from vehicles at night, not caring if they merely wound a beast that will suffer agonies for days before it finally dies. That's what I'm against, kindness that is far more cruel than killing in the proper way. However, in the case of the caracal, sympathetic as I am, it is not a native wild animal of this country and until it's either caught or killed a lot of farm animals and game are going to die.’

They sat in silence for some minutes, each occupied with his own thoughts, the diversity of opinions seeming to cement rather than delay their relationship.

‘By the way,’ Rutter searched amongst a pile of papers on his desk and withdrew a sheaf of typewritten sheets. ‘I thought these chapters of your book were excellent. Not a masterpiece, but good enough for any publisher.’

‘Oh!’ Lansdale's surprise was evident ‘You're kidding! It's rubbish.’

‘Good God, no! There are some minor criticisms, but basically the work's sound. Three chapters. Where's the rest?’

‘I never got around to writing it.’

‘It's crying out to be finished. Why did you stop?’

‘I … I was told it was a load of rubbish, a thin plot with weak characterisation.’

‘Who by? That girl of yours?’

‘No. She liked it, wanted me to go on with it. There's this fellow who runs the commune, a guy named Hoyle. He's got a degree in English. Used to be a university lecturer.’

‘And how many books has he had published?’

‘None that I know of, except a thesis of some kind. I've never actually seen it but apparently he had a number of copies printed.’

‘Because,’ Rutter laughed, ‘he couldn't get anybody else to publish it, and if his literary work is as good as his criticism then it's no wonder. Don't listen to him. Finish the book, for God's sake.’

‘Are you sure? I mean … well, I'd written it off, started something else. I just let you see it because … I don't really know why.’

‘You let me see it,’ Rutter smiled softly through a haze of aromatic tobacco smoke, ‘because deep down, subconsciously, you knew it was OK. You've lost your confidence, Wes. This chap Hoyle has got under your skin and you're trying hard to convince yourself that his opinion matters. But I think this book - what you've done of it so far - is streets ahead of Whispers?’

‘Whispers!’ Wes Lansdale rolled the word out as though testing the pronunciation. ‘You mean to say you've actually read Whispers!’

‘I picked it up on a second-hand stall in the Narrows the other week,’ the zoologist held up a well-thumbed paperback which had been lying in one of the trays on his desk. ‘It's good for a first book but you've progressed since then. I just don't want you to slip back. Take a tip from me, if that fellow starts peering over your shoulder at the typewriter, tell him to mind his own business. I don't really think communes provide an atmosphere conducive to writing.’

‘I think you're right,’ Wes said. ‘Hell, I'd like to get out, so would Wendy. But it's not possible at the moment. One good, book would see to it, though. Maybe I'm trying too hard.’

‘And taking too many drugs,’ Colin Rutter's expression hardened. ‘It'll be tough, but you'll have to throw them over if you're going to make it, believe me. Tell you what …’ he paused as though temporarily uncertain. ‘I live here alone, and I'm often away for weeks at a time. The other room used to be my study until I moved in here. It's in a mess, but could soon be tidied up. Why don't you come up here to work? Neither of us would disturb the other - how about it?’

‘Thanks,’ Wes Lansdale hesitated. ‘I'd like to, but … really I would …’

‘But you're scared Hoyle might have something to say about it.’ A statement, not a question.

‘No … not entirely. Living in a commune isn't an idyllic existence, self-sufficiency and all that. It's squatting with a lot of lazy dropouts who leave everything to the next person and sneer at anybody who wants to work. They fight and squabble amongst themselves the whole time.’

‘I know. That's why I suggested you came up here to work.’

‘I … can think it over, let you know in a day or two?’

‘Of course. I don't want to push you into any decision … except about finishing your book. I expect I'll be staying on here for a few weeks, at least until this caracal business is cleared up. By the way, Wes, would you mind if I asked you a personal question? I won't be offended if you don't answer it.’

‘Sure. Go ahead.’ Wes's mouth had suddenly gone dry.

‘You've got a personal interest in the caracal for some reason, haven't you?’

‘I … no, not really.’

When he looked up Colin Rutter was busily shuffling some papers on his desk, his very actions saying ‘Liar!’

Wes stood up, ran his tongue round his lips. His trouble was that he never had been a good liar. Wendy always sensed immediately when he was lying, and so apparently did Colin Rutter.

‘Let me know when you've made up your mind,’ the zoologist suddenly smiled as though he had never asked the question.

Jack Evans had been Chief Forester on the Powys Border area for five years. A small bearded man with a strong Yorkshire accent, he still longed for the open moorlands where his father had been a beat keeper. Yet he had to admit that the Shropshire-Welsh border country was a fair substitute for his native county. Maureen liked it, too, and when a woman approaching forty says she likes a place then it's a good idea to stay there, but almost overnight his tranquil existence had disintegrated when his Divisional Officer had told him he was to be transferred to take over a larger area. A move to Yorkshire would have caused no more than a temporary domestic disturbance, but the thought of Lancashire was like the beginning of a new War of the Roses.

It had happened a week ago, and Jack thought that after a few days Maureen might have calmed down and accepted the situation, but he should have known that she was no fatalist. The depression which surrounded her had deepened with every passing day, which was one reason why he had brought little Eddie out with him in the Land-Rover today. It wasn't good for a four-year-old child to be left in the house all day with a mother who was perpetually weeping.

Eddie liked Land-Rovers. He enjoyed the way they bumped their way over rough ground, jogging him up and down in his seat like the metal horse outside the chemist's shop when his mother dropped a 2p coin into the slot between its ears on their weekly visit.

Jack Evans drove up the rutted track to the top of Panpunton Hill. A thinning programme was in progress here and he should have checked on the contractors earlier in the week but had never got round to it, principally because that damned caracal had wasted everybody's time. Jesus, if only it hadn't showed itself on Saturday afternoon everything would have been fine. The doubters who had been saying all along that it was impossible for such an animal to be loose in Wales would have gone home satisfied. Better to lose a few sheep than have a constant army of reporters trampling through the woodlands and wasting the time of every forester they came across.

Evans pulled the Land-Rover to a halt on the summit, and switched off the engine. Silence everywhere, a tranquillity only known to foresters and sheep farmers in remote places. The fact that it was Sunday helped - no chainsaws whined, no bulldozers growled.

It was exceptionally warm for early October, clouds of flies buzzing and crawling on the windscreen, some finding their way inside through the open window in the driver's door.

‘See over there, Eddie,’ he attracted the child's attention and pointed in a south-easterly direction. ‘That clock tower is in Knighton. We've come all this way and you can still see your home.’

But Eddie wasn't listening. He was pointing in the opposite direction, spotting the low-flying aircraft and covering his ears in anticipation of the deafening noise which would follow hard on its tail. The plane passed over, fifty feet or so above the nearest trees, and then came the ear-splitting roar of its engines. Eddie clung to his father, sobbing with fright. Jack wanted to sympathise but the boy would have to get used to it. He hated these aircraft, too, felt sure that some of the pilots flew much lower than the legal limit. A couple of months ago he had written and complained to the Ministry of Defence about a particularly low plane, but three weeks later had received a reply to the effect that no plane was in the area at the time. He had written back that in that case it was an unauthorised aircraft and would they please investigate and let him know their findings. So far they hadn't replied to that one.

‘Come on, we'll go for a walk down that path,’ Jack Evans pointed to where a grassy ride disappeared into a belt of tall larch trees, ‘Daddy's got to look at some trees which the men are going to start cutting down tomorrow.’

‘No!’ Eddie screamed. The aircraft had obviously frightened him badly. ‘I don't want to go!’

Jack Evans sighed - if he forced the boy to come there would be an hysterical outburst the whole time and it wasn't worth it. He would only be gone ten minutes at the most, and Eddie had often stayed in the car while he popped into a shop in town. If anything, it was safer out here.

‘All right, you can stay away,’ he ruffled the boy's hair. ‘I won't be long.’

‘It's too hot.’

‘I'll leave the door open then. Now don't get out. Understand?’

Eddie nodded, still trembling, and Jack climbed down. The door of the Land-Rover swung shut and he had to hunt around until he found a stout stick to prop it open.

‘There,’ he smiled reassuringly at Eddie. ‘You'll be all right. Now, remember, don't get out or I shall be very cross when I get back.’

Eddie watched his father walk across the clearing and disappear into the woodland. His tears had subsided, to be replaced by a sense of abandonment and infantile anger. He was in what his mother termed a ‘mardy mood’. He'd really wanted to accompany his father but sheer stubbornness had made him refuse. Now he was regretting it.

He kicked out in temper and gave a cry of pain as his plimsolled foot struck the gear lever. Then he looked around the vehicle for some means of revenge on the older generation, something which he could pretend had been pure accident. He tugged at the handbrake, but it wouldn't move.

His foot still ached and he swore, using a word which he had sometimes heard his father mutter. If only he could do something which would really inconvenience everybody, like letting the Land-Rover roll away and crash. But he wasn't strong enough, and didn't know whether he'd be able to jump out in time.

He crawled to the edge of the seat, braced himself, and then leaped out into space, hitting the parched brown grass and rolling over. He remembered his father's last words, and smiled. It was always something of a victory to disobey.

It was too hot to do anything energetic but it would be cooler beneath the trees, so Eddie got up and began to walk across the clearing. He looked down the track where his father had gone, but there was no sign of him. If he went after his father he would probably be scolded at first, then petted and carried back like a two-year-old. But if he went off elsewhere …

This was an intriguing thought, and a bit frightening too, but might have a very satisfying outcome. Certainly he'd get his bottom smacked, but it would be well worth the discomfort when they got home. His mother would blame his father for leaving him on his own in the forest, and they'd have one of their big rows like he'd heard a few weeks ago when Jack had come home in the early hours of the morning and found the front door locked. He had lain in bed listening as his father hammered on the door, and his mother yelled down from the bedroom window.

His father's words were muffled, but his mother's had been clear enough. ‘You've been with that Cynthia again, Jack. Don't make an even bigger fool of yourself by denying it. Sure Ben'll back you up, he's as bad as you are, probably had her as well. Jesus, there's something wrong with you going with the likes of her!’

Eddie wondered who Cynthia was. The only Cynthia he knew had long straw-coloured straggling hair, wore a frayed and stained coat reaching almost to her bare ankles, and always had ash falling from a cigarette in the corner of her mouth. She mooched round the streets gazing vacantly into shop windows but never going inside. She smelled, too. He'd caught a whiff as his mother had hurried him past her one day.’

He remembered how his parents hadn't spoken to each other for days after the row. Young as he was, he sensed that when it came to the crunch his mother was the boss. And he benefited by it. For a few days she had made a great fuss of him, buying him sweets and small toys every time they went into town. But it hadn't lasted, and things were soon back to normal.

Another ride led off to the right of the one his father had taken, and Eddie began to walk down it, slowly, nervously, picking his way around trailing briars. The entwining branches overhead shut out most of the sunlight, and the narrow avenue of gigantic larches reminded him of a story his mother had read to him once about a little boy who had wandered off into a wood and eventually arrived in fairyland. But the little people weren't all kind fairies; some of them were wicked gnomes and goblins who had captured the intruder and made him do all their everyday chores.

As he turned a bend in the path, it got even darker. His fear rose and he began to tremble. Any moment now goblins might appear from behind the trunks of trees, cackling, rushing to cut off his retreat. Then he would be a prisoner for ever, and never see his parents again. He turned to run back the way he had come, when he heard a stealthy rustling in the undergrowth. He stiffened, trembling violently, his limbs frozen with the paralysis of sheer terror, his eyes rolling.

And then he saw the animal, which seemed to materialise out of the gloom a few yards ahead of him. Eddie knew that it was some kind of cat, although it was much bigger than the one that came across from Radnor Drive every morning and messed on their doorstep. Almost black in colour, with enormous green-yellow eyes that shone and flickered as it watched him, its pointed ears were erect, and back arched as though it was angry. It was purring, but not a nice sound, more of a menacing noise.

Eddie's first thought was that only a witch could own such a large ferocious creature, and any moment she might appear, an evil wizened face beneath her pointed hat, lips drawn back to expose toothless gums, hooked forefinger beckoning him. ‘Come here, little boy, I am going to take you back to my cottage where you will clean and do jobs for me. Sometimes I eat young children.’

A voice inside him screamed:

‘Run … run … RUN!’

But there was no place to run, only back down the dark narrowing tunnel which ended in the land of goblins! He opened his mouth to yell for his father but no sounds came out.

The cat was coming closer, stepping daintily and cautiously, its huge eyes malevolent. Then it stopped, crouched, uttered one shrill screech, and sprang.

Eddie Evans' heart stopped a split second before the creature's vicious claws shredded his shirt and ripped through the tender skin, gouging his features beyond recognition. Mercifully he was spared those terrible minutes as the caracal vented its fury on him, ripping the skin in strips from his body, peeling it off in scarlet ribbons, then sinking its fangs into the bloodied flesh beneath.

Having feasted, it loped away into the gloom of the deep forest.

Chapter 5

Wendy was in bed but not asleep when Wes Lansdale returned to Pentre. She heard him moving about, undressing, but only when she felt his naked body slide beneath the blankets did she speak,

‘You lied when you said you were going to Shrewsbury, Wes,’ there was hurt and bitterness in her low whisper. She hoped that Trix and Jon in the adjoining cubicle were asleep. Earlier she had heard them making love, but for the past half-hour the only sound had been deep heavy breathing, It was unlikely they were pretending - they had no reason to eavesdrop,

‘What makes you think I lied?’ He gave a sharp intake of breath.

‘I can tell. I know you too well, Wes. You didn't go to Shrewsbury, you went somewhere else.’

‘It doesn't really matter. I didn't go anywhere important.’

‘Then why make such a secret of it?’

‘Because,’ he hesitated, ‘I did something I've always preached against. I went on a hunt, joined the bloodthirsty throng with their guns and dogs.’

‘Oh!’ Sudden relief surged over her. So simple, but somehow typical of Wes and his strange ideals.

‘But why did you go?’

‘A number of reasons, some that I don't even understand myself. I wanted to see the caracal get away, although there was no way I could have stopped them from killing it. They flushed it near the end of the day, and one guy claims he hit it, but he's either a liar or a fool - I saw the shot charge kick up way behind. Then I did something that I've not done since I was a kid. Wendy, I prayed, prayed to God that it would get away, and my prayers were answered.’

Her fingers sought his and squeezed. For some reason she felt her eyes flooding with tears and was glad that it was too dark for him to see her.

‘Another reason I went was because of Colin Rutter,’ he went on. ‘He certainly didn't expect me to turn up, but in a strange way I felt I owed it to him. He doesn't really want the caracal killed either although he realises the danger it presents. By the way, he's offered me a room in his cottage to work in.’

‘Hoyle knows you're friendly with him,’ she couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice. ‘While you've been away I've had some bother.’

She told him briefly what had happened between Lester and herself, feeling the tension and anger building up inside him.

‘The bastard!’ he breathed. ‘I'll have it out with him tomorrow!’

‘No, Wes, please don't. I've shattered his fantasies, and now he hates me too much to pester me again, I'm sure of that. I don't know how much longer we can go on living here.’

‘We'll stick it out. Sod Lester! He only runs this commune because everybody lets him, a façade that he's gradually built up. We voted him down over the caracal and he had to accept our decision. Anyway, Colin thinks my manuscript is OK, and I'm going to work at it up at his place, away from Lester. If I can make it, then we can get out of here.’

‘What's going to happen to the caracal?’

‘I don't know,’ he replied. ‘It's only a matter of time before somebody gets him, Every farmer and gamekeeper from here to the furthest boundary of Radnor Forest is keeping a gun in readiness. On the other hand, that puma down south several years ago just vanished into thin air. Maybe it died of old age in some secret lair and was never found. The same could happen to King.’

They lay in an embrace that would last until morning, dozing and content with each other's company. The air had been cleared between them - only one problem remained: King, the escaped caracal.

Tuesday, 3 October.

The Divisional Officer's room in the local area headquarters of the Forestry Commission was crowded, the atmosphere thick with tobacco smoke in spite of the open window. The sun shone warmly as the Indian Summer continued.

Baldwin, the Divisional Officer, stroked his moustache nervously, cleared his throat and glanced around at the others: the Chief Constable, stoic faced, steel-grey eyes, waiting for somebody to speak; Hidderley-Walker, wearing a Norfolk jacket and tweed trousers, a deerstalker hat on his knees; Melvyn Hughes, the gamekeeper; Colin Rutter; Joe Simmons, the Forest Ranger, lean and wiry, his weather-beaten complexion paler than usual under the fluorescent lighting; PC Calvin Jones; five beat foresters in all. Outside the Press waited in their cars - this was a day that Powys would remember for many years.

Baldwin cleared his throat more loudly, and conversation subsided as he spoke.

‘Gentlemen,’ he licked his lips, ‘we all know why we are here. On Sunday morning the son of Jack Evans was savaged by a wild beast which has been at large for the past few weeks. This is no ordinary wild animal, but a ferocious killer, not only of livestock as we originally believed. Now we know it for a … a maneater! A beast which removes the skin from a young child and then devours the corpse must be exterminated without delay!’

Everybody seemed to be looking at everybody else as though psychologically seeking safety in numbers. Even the hardened Chief Constable; he had seen the remains of Eddie Evans, a sight which would linger in his memory and haunt his nightmares for many months to come.

‘We know for a certainty,’ Baldwin continued, ‘that the caracal is still at large in the vicinity. Had our hunt on Saturday been successful, then a four-year-old boy would still be alive and his parents would not now be under sedation. The position is quite clear. The Press will blame the Forestry Commission for harbouring such a beast in their woods, but only those familiar with country life can appreciate the difficulties involved in dealing with such a beast. Nevertheless, human lives are in danger and no effort must be spared until this caracal is dead. I have had a request from a wildlife park that they be allowed to send in specially-trained hunters to catch the creature alive. Obviously, however, we cannot waste time while elaborate traps are set up or efforts are made to shoot it with a drugged dart. We must organise one of the biggest hunts ever carried out in Britain. The Chief Constable informs me that the armed forces have offered to help, and the Forestry Commission are drafting in every Ranger and beat forester in the county. We are working full out to organise a drive for Thursday, on the same lines as last Saturday, only this time the net must be drawn much tighter. Teams of men will cut their way into the thickets with billhooks, and every available gun will be out in the hills.’

‘One further point.’ the Chief Constable rose to his feet, his height and physique emphasising that here was a man who had already been twice decorated for bravery outside the limits of normal police duties, a man whose very presence inspired confidence. ‘We have not yet established how the caracal came to these parts. Every zoo and private menagerie has been investigated without result, so we can only conclude that the animal was brought into the country illegally. In that case somebody somewhere is aware that they have a murder on their conscience!’

The force of his words hit those in the room, made them cringe inwardly because they knew he spoke the truth. This senior police officer not only wanted to see the caracal dead, he also intended to find the person responsible for bringing it to these Welsh mountains, and would spare no effort in tracking down the culprit

‘Read it!’ Lester Hoyle's voice rose to a scream, indicating his panic and fear. ‘Fucking well read it!’

Bilal trembled as he took the newspaper thrust into his hands. Everybody in the dining room was staring at him; he felt their guilt, terror and hate as he read the large black print of the headlines: MANEATER. Given time he could have translated the rest, but nobody was prepared to wait.

‘You're a murderer, that's what you are!’ Hoyle shrieked.

Bilal swayed, thought for a moment that he was going to faint. The newspaper dropped from his fingers and he held on to the table, averting his eyes from the accusing stares.

‘It's not just him,’ Wes Lansdale spoke softly. ‘It's all of us. We're all murderers if you look at it that way.’

‘Rubbish!’ Hoyle's complexion was deep red, the veins in his neck standing out. ‘I'm not. I wanted to kill the bloody thing but everybody said “Oh, no, we musn't harm the poor creature.” Now see where it's got you. This Chief Constable is as keen to find the guy who brought the caracal here as he is to kill the bloody thing. God, you lot ought to be publicly flogged!’

‘Cool it,’ Lansdale stood up. ‘We're not going to get anywhere by looking for scapegoats, and we've all got to stick together. If the police trace the caracal here we're all for the high jump, not just Bilal. OK, with hindsight Lester was right, we should've got rid of the caracal, but we didn't and that's that. Now we've got to make sure the police don't get on to us.’

‘Very magnanimous of you, Wes,’ Lester Hoyle sneered. ‘I just hope you haven't let anything slip to that zoologist friend of yours.’

‘I've said nothing,’ Lansdale's gaze flickered round the room, challenging them to dispute his clandestine relationship with Rutter, but nobody spoke. ‘Anyway, it's my business whom I make friends with. Now, leave Bilal alone. Anybody who interferes with him answers to me!’

Lansdale glanced at Bilal, then at the commune leader. The Pakistani's eyes reflected gratitude, Hoyle's smouldered with hate.

‘It's entirely my business,’ Wes continued, ‘but I may as well tell you that as from next week I shall be using a room in Professor Rutter's cottage to work in. I find the atmosphere more conducive to writing than here. Now, the sooner this caracal is shot, the better. If any of us see it, or if by any chance it ventures back into the grounds of Pentre, we report it immediately and swear blind that we've never set eyes on it before. OK?’

There were nods of assent. ‘But we've still got to keep him out of sight,’ Hoyle made one final attempt to reassert his authority, nodding towards Bilal.

‘Sure,’ Lansdale smiled, ‘but that doesn't mean he's got to skulk in the attic all day. He can work in the garden as usual, and if anybody comes he can lie low. If the police came with a warrant and searched the place then that'd be that, but at the moment there seems no reason why they should. There's nothing to connect Pentre with either the caracal or Bilal … so long as we all keep our mouths shut!’

Bilal had made up his mind to leave Pentre. It wasn't a sudden decision following Lester Hoyle's outburst, but a gradual one that had germinated and borne fruit. Nothing else mattered except to get away. He never wanted to see the commune or its occupants again, with the exception perhaps of Wes Lansdale and Wendy. They had always shown kindness towards him, and were the only ones he would miss.

He went outside into the garden. A mist which had been hanging over the hills was gradually dispersing in the morning sun, and birds were chattering in a silver birch copse nearby.

Night would be the best time to go, he thought, with darkness screening his movements and the commune sleeping. He couldn't live on the run, though, hiding all the time. He would have to give himself up to the police, tell them about the caracal even if it meant trouble for the others at Pentre, whom he would never see again, anyway. Eventually he would be deported, but anything was better than existing like this.

Bilal went down to the far end of the garden where there were some runner bean stalks to be pulled up, his mind on tonight's escape. It was then that he saw the caracal. He stared, wondering if he was still daydreaming, but it was real enough - sitting outside its old home, the barricaded poultry house, basking in a patch of sunlight as though it had every right to be there.

As he approached, the caracal's head went up, the lithe body stiffened, ears erect and eyes fixed on him. But it stayed where it was, and Bilal's breath quickened. He stretched out a hand, the long brown fingers trembling, and moved forward cautiously.

‘My little friend … you have returned to Bilal …’

His fingertips touched the coarse hair and smoothed along its back, up and down. The caracal sat motionless, ears twitching and wary, some instinct telling it that this human was a friend. Perhaps there was a vague memory of the long sea voyage and the boy who had caressed it during that time.

Bilal's gaze moved to the old poultry house, an idea forming in his mind. Perhaps … just perhaps, the caracal had returned to seek refuge in its former home, harassed as it was by guns and dogs. At least it wasn't wounded.

He crossed to the hen house, gripped the edges of one of the iron sheets, and pulled it away from the woodwork, lowering it gently to the ground. The animal watched him intently as, working quickly, he removed three of the obstructing sections in less than five minutes.

‘There,’ he turned and spoke softly to the watching animal, ‘your home is ready if you want to use it. You will be safe here.’ It was unlikely that anybody would visit this secluded corner of the garden; Wendy was the only one who ever came here lately.

The caracal made no move to enter, perhaps fearing a trap. It was lying down again now.

‘All right,’ Bilal muttered. ‘I will go on with my work.’

He walked away, glancing back to see the creature still lying there in the patch of early morning sunlight. It seemed strangely content and he found it hard to believe that it had killed a young child. Perhaps some savage dog was to blame, and the police were making a scapegoat out of the caracal. He began to pull up the rows of withered beanstalks, his pulses racing as he worked. He wondered if the caracal had gone into its shelter, but he wasn't going to disturb it by returning. Perhaps after dark …

Suddenly he remembered his decision to leave Pentre, and a feeling of doubt crept into his mind. Now that his pet had returned, he couldn't leave the animal to its fate. He was responsible for bringing it here … for the death of Eddie Evans! No! He couldn't accept that. The caracal was too tame to, have mutilated the boy. Sheep, maybe. After all, it had to kill in order to live, and these farmers wouldn't suffer from an odd loss.

He worked steadily, his brain in a turmoil. If he stayed, he would have to put up with insults from Lester Hoyle, and hate from some of the others who didn't want someone of a different colour in their midst. Maybe if he had entered the country legally it wouldn't be so bad. He couldn't really blame them for despising illegal immigrants, but he hadn't wanted to come in that way. He had thought it was all above board. Like the caracal, he was a victim of circumstances.

No, he wouldn't leave while the caracal was still hiding out in the grounds of the commune. He owed it some sort of protection, food and shelter. But the future frightened him. He couldn't take King with him when he eventually left, and if the animal was discovered in the old hen house it would be shot immediately, mercilessly. It would have been better if it had not returned, but had stayed in the hills and run the gauntlet with the hunters. Bilal felt he understood the animal - a boy and a caracal in a strange land with everyone against them.

Guns and beaters were assembling soon after first light. A thick autumnal mist enshrouded the whole of the rugged countryside, reducing visibility to a maximum of twenty yards. Dogs barked and whined eagerly in vans and Land-Rovers.

‘Hell, we could've done without this mist,’ Melvyn Hughes grunted. ‘It won't clear before mid-morning.’

‘We'll have to make a start, though,’ Baldwin, the Forestry Commission Divisional Officer, was dressed in plus fours, cradling an expensive shotgun under his arm. ‘Otherwise we won't cover the ground.’

‘It's dangerous,’ Hughes replied. ‘Somebody could get shot.’

‘Well, we'll have to try and keep as straight a line as possible, each man ensuring that he can see the gun on either side of him at all times. When the mist clears there'll be helicopters trying to spot the creature.’

‘Never heard of anything so bloody daft,’ the gamekeeper had already decided that he didn't like the forestry official. Baldwin was as bad as Hidderley-Walker on shooting days, trying to organise things and blaming the keeper when he eventually made the inevitable balls-up of everything. ‘Apart from the fact that the woods and undergrowth are too thick to see anything on the ground, the noise'll scare the caracal into hiding.’

‘It might have the reverse effect and flush it from cover.’

Oh, Jesus Christ, you can't win! Hughes turned away. Let them get on with it!

The plan of campaign was much the same as before, a triangular assault taking in some twenty square miles, only this time the force numbered around five hundred. There were at least a hundred dogs, including the pack of otter hounds.

Cartridges were being issued from an army Land-Rover, two per gun, BB load. Nobody was likely to need more than two shots; after the second barrel the caracal would be out of range, and if the animal was wounded there was a full complement of arms to deal with it. A youth with a five-shot Browning automatic 12-bore was arguing that he wanted to fill his magazine, and the corporal in charge was becoming irate. A terrier was hurling itself at the rear window of a Mini Countryman in a futile attempt to get at a yellow Labrador in the next vehicle. There was no sign of the Chief Constable - possibly he was still in bed or perhaps in the comfort of his own headquarters, in touch with his men by radio. Soldiers were everywhere, in denims, carrying shotguns. Rifles were considered too dangerous on an exercise such as this.

Baldwin and a young army captain were in charge of this particular drive. Melvyn Hughes had been relegated to the rank and file; he would be called upon if his rural experience was considered necessary, but both leaders hoped that this would not arise.

There was some delay whilst the line of guns was drawn up, men shouting to each other in the thick mist. The dogs had now been let out; they barked frenziedly and tugged at their leashes, further excited by the presence of police tracker dogs.

Baldwin checked his watch: 7.30 a.m. The captain had a whistle at his lips, and for a brief moment the scene took on the bizarre atmosphere of some ludicrous sporting event in which the competitors attempted to keep up with the dogs over almost impossible terrain. A shrill blast, then dogs were unleashed, an untidy army stumbling forward in their wake. Suddenly everything became real, a hunt for a maneater!

There was no way that the otter hounds could be checked. Since the sport for which they were bred had been banned, they had had to be content with more mundane exercise. Then last Saturday had whetted their appetite for the chase again, the fast-flowing current in the river below Kinsley Wood reviving old memories as they forged ahead upstream. There were no otters but they could have gone on for miles regardless.

Tige, the lead hound, raced ahead of the pack into the mist, cleared a barbed wire fence which suddenly loomed up before him, and carried on without waiting for his followers. He smelled a variety of scents, but none interested him. He longed for the cooling waters of the river, the fast foaming current that was a challenge to his swimming prowess. Nothing else mattered.

On. On. A thick wood lay ahead and the dog slowed its pace, nose down to the ground again. Rabbits, an abundance of scent; sheep had been here, too. It stopped, listening to the baying of the pack far behind, the horn of the whipper-in as he strove to call them back. Tige had no intention of returning. Freedom called and would not go unanswered.

The hound entered the wood, its brown markings blending with the dying bracken, the track it had been following now petering out in the dense undergrowth. It leaped a wall of brambles and stopped again - the river was all that mattered, but there was no guiding sound of rushing water.

Tige's earlier eager pace had dropped to a fast trot. The hound was not used to these alien woodland surroundings. The trees were much denser now; neither bracken nor grass grew here, just a thick carpet of decomposing pine needles which were springy beneath the dog's heavy pads.

Suddenly Tige pulled up, the hairs on his back beginning to rise like a hedgehog's spines as a sharp rancid scent assailed his nostrils, a smell which reminded him of the tortoiseshell cat which lived in the barn behind the kennels. There was definitely some sort of cat close at hand. Tige growled in the depths of his throat, an instinctive warning to a natural foe which was answered by a sharp spitting hiss. He backed away, looking upwards towards the sound, and then he saw it - a huge cat lying on a thick branch some six feet above his head. Its lips were drawn back to display huge sharp fangs, its eyes glinted with yellowish-green malevolence and its ears were erect.

As the two animals faced each other Tige experienced fear for the first time in his life. The sensation was new to him and it alarmed him even more than the unexpected presence of this gigantic feline creature. His tail flicked in between his legs and remained there; his intended growl became a short whimper. Courage and pride evaporated as he thought about flight, half turned, but was too late. The caracal came at him with the speed and determination of an attacking fighter plane.

Tige's view of the opening encounter lasted less than a couple of seconds. Needle-like claws ripped into his eyes, puncturing the pupils and dragging them from their sockets in a trail of bloody sinews. He howled with pain as his attacker landed on his back, clung on and then bit deeply at the base of his neck like a blood-lusting stoat killing a helpless rabbit.

At most the contest lasted five seconds. In one moment of blinding, excruciating pain it all ended for Tige the otter hound. His legs buckled and he sank to the soft ground, rolling over as his attacker sprang lightly aside and stood erect to survey its kill.

King, the caracal, hesitated with paw raised and then slowly lowered. He only skinned to eat, and otter hound did not figure on his menu. This had been a mortal combat, and now a natural foe lay dead at his feet. He had done all that was necessary.

Then noise intruded upon his proud moment of conquests. A horn blew, hounds bayed and men shouted. His back arched he spat viciously - it was time to retreat.

Chapter 6

The bright October sunlight finally broke through the mist around midday. By that time the party led by Baldwin and Captain Niall had beaten out Kinsley Wood and assembled for a council of war before pressing on towards Panpunton Hill.

Derek Houghton, the short stocky whipper-in, clad in black jacket and white jodhpurs (relics of the days when his chosen sport was still legal) had finally managed to bring - the pack of hounds back. But there were only seven of them. There should have been eight.

‘Sod it, Tige's missing,’ he spoke to Joe Simmons, the Forest Ranger, another keen otter hunter.

‘I shouldn't worry about Tige,’ Simmons was carrying his camouflage jacket over his arm, sweat running down his gaunt features. ‘Can you ever remember a time when Tige has come back with the rest of them? Remember up at Bwlchybryngolan when he stuck to that big otter for five miles? It was two days before we got him back.’

‘Oh, sure, he can look after himself,’ Houghton lit a cigarette and drew the smoke gratefully into his lungs. ‘It just means that I've got to spend hours riding round the Radnorshire lanes looking for him tomorrow.’

‘Powys,’ Simmons, corrected him with a wry smile.

‘Radnor, always has been and always will be. What's in a name? Call it what you like.’

‘The dogs have worked Kinsley Wood very thoroughly,’ Baldwin moved out and addressed the group, ‘and I think we can safely say that the caracal was not in there. Now, a break of twenty minutes for lunch and then we'll see what Panpunton Hill holds.’

Three miles away Colin Rutter and Wes Lansdale were sharing their sandwiches apart from the main group. Their morning had passed uneventfully. On one occasion the dogs had gone into full cry, but the cause had proved to be a vixen lying out in the warmth of a patch of heather on a sun-soaked hillside. She had stopped and looked back, almost in surprise, a hundred yards further on.

‘Doesn't look like the caracal's around any more,’ Wes Lansdale broke a ten-minute silence, voicing his optimism.

‘He's around,' Rutter said. 'I'd stake my reputation on it, and you know he is as well as I do.’

Life generally was getting June Whymark down. The strain of four babies in seven years was beginning to tell. The early stages hadn't been too bad, and the drudgery of washing nappies and being housebound hadn't troubled her unduly. Now, as the children began to grow up (Jackie seven, Adrian five, Sarah four, and Dominic two) they quarrelled and fought incessantly. She absolutely dreaded school holidays, and with half-term just over a fortnight away, the schools were closed for one day on a token strike. She blamed the unions for the screeching of juvenile voices which came from the front room of their council house.

‘Piss!’ was her favourite swear word. The children had picked it up, and she recognised Adrian's voice as he used it now. She felt at the limit of her endurance - a sunny day like today and they insisted on staying indoors to squabble. There was no reason why they should not go out into the fields below the house and continue their verbal and physical battles there, where most of the children from the estate played. God, it wasn't like being in a town where you were frightened of the kids straying on to the road and getting run over. The spasmodically busy A488 was well over a mile away and they wouldn't go that far, not when they had young Dominic along with them.

‘For Christ's sake!’ she burst into the front room. Jackie and Sarah were busy kicking each other and screaming whilst Dominic was doing his best to brain Adrian with a heavy Tonka tipper lorry. ‘Stop it!’

There was a lull in the fray, inquisitive (not guilty) looks in her direction, and Dominic's arm drew back for another blow.

‘Get outside, all of you! And stop out till teatime. Jackie, you're in charge. If anything happens to any of the others I'm holding you responsible. Now, go out into the fields.’

Reluctantly, with sullen glances at their mother, the children trooped out through the back door. Dominic was still carrying his Tonka toy but she snatched it from him; at this moment it was a lethal weapon.

As she watched them go down the path her thoughts turned to her husband, Ken. He could easily have stayed at home and helped her with the children today. On the dole for six weeks, he seemed to be unemployed indefinitely. She knew he wasn't really interested in getting a job. Yet the prospect of another hunt for this cat creature (she couldn't remember what they called it) had jerked him out of his permanent lethargy. He'd borrowed Bill Jackson's gun, and she wondered idly about this; people were always being prosecuted for carrying guns without licences, but that was Ken's worry. He was not a deliberate lawbreaker, he just didn't take the trouble to find out. Like those hippies down at the commune less than half a mile away - Ken would have been in his element there, lounging about all day smoking fags until his money ran out. Then he'd soon be on drugs. Strangely enough, he didn't bother much about women - probably sex was too much like hard work. Lately they had had it about once a month, and June couldn't remember her last orgasm; except during masturbation, of course, which was her main means of sexual relief these days. In fact … she glanced out of the window to see how far the children had got. They were already in the field, heading towards the wood. She smiled to herself, her body already tingling in anticipation.

The four children reached the lower boundary of the sloping field in about half an hour. Dominic had delayed them considerably, having fallen down twice and been consoled by Sarah. He had cried and whimpered, then the lure of an expedition away from his mother had calmed him. Jackie and Adrian were arguing, as usual.

Dominic picked up a loose pebble and tried to throw it, laughing as it spun away behind him. Pulling his other hand free of Sarah's he began searching amongst the grass for more and, having found one, windmilled his arms, and watched it fly in front of him. Adrian screeched as the sharp stone struck him on the neck.

For a few minutes four squabbling children screamed insults at each other, Adrian shouting ‘Piss!’ and Dominic trying to return the insult in his own baby language, something that came out as ‘Hiss’.

They looked around for something else to occupy them, and it was then that they saw the big cat squeezing its way out through the hedgerow which bordered the thick woodlands. They stared. Dominic laughed, a shrill sound, and shouted ‘Hussy.’

‘It's a big cat,’ Jackie stated, and turning back to Dominic said, ‘Pussy.’

But Dominic was too busy searching for another stone to listen. The caracal dropped into a crouch, the hairs on its back slowly straightening up. Its ears moved forward and it hissed, a low warning sound. The children, with the exception of Dominic, backed away.

‘I don't like cats,’ Jackie said.

‘They're nasty,’ Adrian added. ‘They scratch.’

Sarah clung to her elder brother. Only Dominic was undaunted. He had found the stone for which he was searching, now he grasped it in his tiny fingers and drew back his arm.

The chances of the pebble flying true were remote. His aim was erratic, well to the right of the menacing creature in front of them; which was probably why the missile sped at an angle of forty-five degrees in a lob such as a fielder might use to return a cricket ball to his wicketkeeper, striking the caracal with moderate force just above its right eye.

The big cat screamed, a harsh ear-splitting noise which incorporated more rage than pain, as it straightened up on its hind legs with forepaws raking the air. Then, with one movement that coordinated every muscle in its body, it was airborne, a snarling bundle of fury. One misguided stone had transformed it from tranquillity to rage, a mood that would only be satisfied by terrible revenge.

It did not single out the culprit. All four children were to blame just as much as the hundreds of men who had hunted it earlier that day, driven it from Kinsley Wood. They were - all the same enemy and it was a question of kill or be killed.

Jackie and Adrian, clinging fearfully to each other, were borne down by the weight of the spitting caracal. The girl managed just one scream. The boy's cry of terror never materialised; there was a sharp crack as his neck snapped, his head going right back, and then he was flung to one side like a cast-off rag doll.

Jackie's dress shredded, billowing out like carnival bunting, blood spraying into the air and spotting the two younger children. They simply stared, their infant minds incapable of comprehending, and made no effort to flee as the beast turned on them.

One blow felled the two of them, both crumpling into a silent heap, faces lacerated, blood welling out of the cuts and beginning to saturate their clothing. The caracal stood over them, immobile, as though uncertain of its next move. Then it turned and bounded away, pausing once to glance back before squeezing through the small gap in the hedge. Four mutilated and bleeding bodies. The youngest child was on his feet, screaming, his face hidden beneath the blood which streamed from his forehead. He tottered, lost his balance, and fell.

Silence. The caracal slipped away and was lost in the darkness of the wood.

June Whymark sensed rather than heard Jackie's scream. It vibrated in her brain, a terrible warning siren alerting every nerve in her body. She was naked on the bed, sweat glistening on her body, her orgasm only seconds away. She stopped, and almost instantaneously her sexual desires began to wilt. She sat up, her warm damp fingers going to her throat in horror as she picked up Dominic's scream in her subconscious nervous system. He was calling her frantically.

She didn't wait to dress - nothing mattered except the safety of her children. Stumbling, almost falling headlong down the stairs, she rushed out through the side door. Gossiping neighbours turned with amazed expressions, and a milkman almost dropped a crate of bottles.

‘My babies!’ she shrieked as she tore across the road, heedless of the squeal of brakes from an approaching car. ‘My babies!’

People were following but she paid them no heed - sobbing before she saw the children, on the verge of hysteria.

And when finally she topped the grassy rise and looked down the slope towards the thick fir wood she could not restrain the scream that had been building up inside her, a long-drawn-out sound like an animal in agony.

Four small shapes lay sprawled in the grass, twisted at unnatural angles. Unrecognisable, except to June Whymark. Subconsciously she'd known what she was going to find, but in no way had she visualised the total horror of it all. She fell, dragged herself to her feet, almost fainted, but somehow fought against the feeling and, screaming again, staggered forward.

She ran from one to the other, pulling at them, shaking and slapping them. You're not dead. You're alive. Unhurt. OK God!

Dominic was in her arms, lying limply, head hanging down, almost slipping from her grasp. Screams behind her, one group of people hanging back in shocked horror, others running down from the road above. In the background a stream of vehicles passed by, the occupants blissfully unaware of the horrific nightmare which was turning to stark and terrible reality only a short distance below.

June Whymark stood there, stark naked, blood from Dominic's body running on to her, dripping from her breasts and splashing on to her stomach and thighs. Wild-eyed, mouthing words that were incomprehensible to the circle of watchers, cursing mutely.

Slowly she sank down, the baby still clutched to her bosom, and rolled over. Only then did anybody think of running for help.

Wendy was no longer afraid of being left alone in the commune with Lester Hoyle. She knew he wouldn't pester her any more, but in many ways the hate that smouldered between them was worse. They had not spoken since that last outburst in the dining room.

Bilal was working in the garden, and Lester was somewhere around. The others had gone potato picking on a farm somewhere over by Five Turnings. It was a long walk there and back, and they would not be returning until later in the evening, probably after dark. Wes was away on the hunt for the caracal; at least this time he had told her where he was going. She hoped that they didn't kill King - in all probability they would not, he was too cunning and elusive.

She thought about going into the garden and spending a few hours sunbathing in the nude. She wasn't worried about Bilal seeing her, but the idea of Lester Hoyle staring at her she found repulsive. So she went back upstairs, intending to lie down for a while and rest, maybe go outside later.

As she entered the large room in which she and Wes had their own partitioned cubicle, she became aware that someone was in their quarters and stopped, listening. There was definitely somebody there - she could hear a rustling of papers from the direction of Wes Lansdale's desk.

Anger welled up inside her. How dare they! Even in a commune one was entitled to a small grain of privacy. She could contain herself no longer, and stepping forward she flung wide the curtain which served as a doorway.

‘Lester!’ The name whiplashed into the tall well-built man who looked up, surprise on his features, stepping back a pace. He had been poring over the desk and a file of papers was strewn on its surface. ‘What the hell d'you think you're up to?’

‘I was …’ His complexion reddened as the flush spread down to his neck, Gone was the usual arrogance and in its place was guilt, a slight quivering of the lips, shifty lowering of the eyes. ‘I … I … was just …’ He failed to find the excuse he sought.

‘You were prying!’ Her accusation was full-blooded, arms akimbo, eyes blazing. ‘You thought you'd take this opportunity while everybody was out to go through Wes's desk. What are you looking for? Rejection slips to gloat over? Unpaid bills?’

‘Don't be bloody stupid!’ He raised his eyes to meet hers. ‘Can't you see I'm trying to help him?’

‘You're doing your best to ruin him, and thank God he's had the sense to go and work up at Rutter's place, well away from your criticism and interference. You won't find what you're looking for there, I can assure you.’

‘You're a stupid bitch,’ he spat. ‘Infatuation, that's your trouble. Wes is just another drug-sodden hippie like the rest of this trash in here. He's finished as a writer, but you can't see that. You're clinging to fantasies, but they'll never be any more than that. One day you'll come down to earth with one hell of a bump, and don't come crawling to me then.’

‘You're mad,’ she laughed. ‘I wouldn't come to you if you were the last man left on earth, Lester. I'd rather …’

Her voice died away. Subconsciously they had both been aware of the siren somewhere in the background. Ambulances and fire engines went by from time to time, to emergencies that you never heard about, accidents, sudden death. But the sound was not fading as it should have done as the vehicle drove on into the distance - it was getting louder. Now there were two sirens. Then a third.

‘What the hell's happening?’ she pushed past him and strode towards the window, staring up over the tops of the trees to where the road snaked away to the west. She squinted, shading her eyes. Some blue lights were flashing, and she made out an ambulance, then a red and white police patrol car. Another vehicle speeded, slowed, then came to a halt. A second ambulance. A small crowd had gathered, and a policeman was waving them back. Stretchers were being unloaded, negotiated over the stile in the hedge, then out of sight.

‘There must have been an accident,’ she spoke more to herself than to Hoyle, their quarrel temporarily forgotten. ‘A car gone off the road, probably. Poor devils. There must've been a crowd of them to warrant two ambulances.’

She continued to watch, with the fascination always conjured up by the gruesome. It was impossible to see much, the tall hedges screened her view from whatever was happening in the field. It occurred to her to go up there and see for herself, but she dismissed the thought at once with a feeling of shame. That would be a form of gloating, much the same as Hoyle did over her lover's failure. Despicable. All the same, she continued to stand in the window.

It was ten minutes or so before the ambulancemen reappeared, a couple of policemen helping them to lift the stretchers over the stile. The crowd had grown and had to be ordered back again. A long line of parked cars now stretched right back over the brow of the hill.

Wendy shaded her eyes, trying to make out the figures on the litters. Shapeless forms were completely covered by red blankets, and she shuddered and turned away. Whoever they were, they were dead, of that she was sure.

Only then did she realise that she was alone in the small enclosure. Lester Hoyle must have slunk away while she was engrossed in the scene below the main road.

She went back downstairs and out into the garden, gulping in great breaths of the warm autumn air. There was no sign of Bilal and she was glad. Right now she wanted to be alone.

‘Hail, the White Hunter himself!’ Lester Hoyle appeared to have shaken off the effects of his humbling encounter with Wendy as Wes Lansdale entered the untidy kitchen where a dozen or so members of the commune were fixing their own supper in Trix's absence. ‘And how has the blood sport gone today?’

‘You …’ Wes kicked the door closed behind him and pointed a finger at the commune leader, ‘can shut your bloody mouth before I shut it for you!’

Hoyle paled. There was something disconcerting, frightening even, in the other's appearance - dishevelled more than usual, gaunt and pale, scared to hell.

‘What's the matter?’ Wendy sensed some disaster, too. She had never seen Wes this way before, not even at the peak of his last spell on drugs.

‘The caracal has killed again!’ His voice was little more than a whisper, yet everyone in the room heard him. ‘Four children, just up the road from here. Their mother had a heart attack when she found them.’

‘What did I tell you?’ Hoyle shouted. ‘I said …’

‘Shut up!’ The veins on Lansdale's neck bulged as he yelled. ‘For Christ's sake, shut your fucking mouth! Five deaths. Five!’

Silence. Heads were turning, looking for Bilal, but there was no scapegoat this time.

‘What … what are we going to do?’ As Lester Hoyle spoke, he was aware that he was being humbled for the second time within a matter of hours. For once he didn't care. Oh, Christ, if, anybody wanted to take over running this commune then they were bloody well welcome to it!

Nobody spoke. Everything seemed to focus on Wes Lansdale.

‘The score is six dead,’ Lansdale's voice was husky. ‘Kids, with the exception of one. The caracal's tasted blood and it won't let up now. We've unleashed a monster in these hills. They could hunt it every day for a year like they've done today, but they won't get it. It'll leave them standing every time, double back, kill, and return to wherever it's hiding out. We're all murderers, every one of us, and there isn't a goddamned thing we can do about it!’

Bilal wept, his body shaking with the convulsions of grief and despair, lying there on the floor in the darkness of the old outhouse. His lingers toyed with part of the rusted shaft of an old ploughshare as he thought again about taking his own life. The point was sharp enough - slash his wrists and by the time they found him, next day or the day after, it would all be over. All his problems solved. Easy … if one had the courage.

There was an alternative; kill the caracal!

Bilal caught his breath at the very idea. Gone now was any affection which he had once had for his pet. His only emotions towards it were hate, revulsion and fear. Nothing could change its instinct to kill, but when it came to humans - especially children - there could be no sympathy for the animal.

He had crept away after hearing Lansdale's account of the mass slaughter, ashamed and guilty, unable to face any of the others, even Wendy. He was the murderer. It wasn't the others. He alone shouldered the responsibility for the killings. He might even kill himself after all, after he had slain the caracal. At least by destroying it he would in some way atone for what he had done. More important, he would ensure that nobody else died by the claws of King.

He sighed deeply, having made his decision. The next thing was to work out exactly how to slay the creature. His only weapon was this rusted piece of iron, but it was sound enough. A kind of spear, the pointed end capable of inflicting a fatal wound if driven into the right place - throat or heart? Probably the caracal would not die immediately, and in its death throes might save him the trouble of committing suicide. Whatever happened to him did not matter now. He was an outcast and would be an object of contempt even amongst his own race. If he returned to his family he would not be able to face the degradation.

Bilal scraped the door open and slunk out into the garden.

The night was cool and a mist was starting to form, seeping up from the damp ground. Overhead a three-quarter moon cast its faint silvery-yellow light over the surrounding hills. There was enough light to see by.

He moved stealthily, keeping to the shadows, more afraid than ever now. Once he paused and almost changed his mind, but there was no alternative. The chances were that King would not be in the old poultry house now, particularly as it was night, the time when he hunted. In that case Bilal would have to wait patiently for the cat to return at daybreak. And if it didn't … well, he had done everything that was humanly possible, he could do no more.

Ahead of him he saw the tumbledown structure of the pen starkly outlined against a background of bushes on which the moonlight shone softly. All was still and silent Bilal shivered. It looked as though the caracal had gone, and he, hated himself for feeling relief. Cowardice!

His relief was short-lived though. The branches of the moonlit bushes rustled, and even as he watched he saw the deep yellow glow from a pair of large eyes. The caracal eased itself out into the open, stretching, displaying the sheer strength of its feline body. And then, quite unexpectedly, it - lay down and looked at him, purred and twitched an ear.

His palms started to sweat as he clutched his improvised spear. This animal could not possibly have slaughtered innocent children. It had, though. It had.

Kill it... kill it... kill it!

‘You are hungry, my little friend.’ The Pakistani advanced slowly, holding his weapon against his thigh. The caracal purred again, a coarse yet strangely musical noise. Another step.

He talked to it in his own tongue, sentimental nonsense which he hoped his tone did not belie, all the time searching for a target. Heart or throat? It would have to be a rapid thrust, his own speed matching that of one of the wildest of creatures, using every ounce of his strength to drive the point home.

Kill it! Now!

He hesitated, having picked his mark: the throat. Wait until it lifts its head again.

Somehow the thoughts of man and beast communicated, a split-second telepathy that warned the hunter's prey and triggered off retaliation before the death blow was even launched.

Bilal took his eyes off the caracal, glanced down at his spear, and then it was too late. The animal did not even snarl, but simply hurled itself forward over the yard or so which separated them.

The youth was hurled backwards, the length of iron flying from his grasp and thudding harmlessly to the ground. He was trapped beneath the caracal, its four limbs pinioning his own as its hot breath seared his face. He stared up into its eyes and read death; bared fangs threatened for a fraction of a second before biting deeply into Bilal's unprotected throat, tearing a jagged wound in the jugular vein so that warm blood spouted high into the air.

It was several seconds before Bilal died, seconds in which he saw the huge cat rearing back, felt the wicked claws tearing at his flesh, peeling off the skin while he still lived. Deep gouges scraped the bone beneath, and the first scream was on its way up his throat when he died, a sound that ended in a low hiss of expended air like a balloon suddenly deflated.

This time the caracal was hungry so it feasted well, and by the time it left for the hills the moon was well past its zenith.

Chapter 7

The caracal made the front page of every national daily newspaper on the following Monday morning. Knighton, which had lived in obscurity for centuries, was suddenly more prominent than the capital itself. The Courier was the only paper to carry a picture of Pentre, and underneath a photograph showing the hen house boarded up with corrugated sheeting.

WAS THIS THE SECRET LAIR OF THE KILLER CAT?

Following five horrific deaths at Knighton, Powys, on Saturday afternoon while a hunt for the animal was in progress, the killer caracal struck again within a matter of hours. An unidentified Pakistani youth was mauled, skinned, and partially eaten within the grounds of a commune.

Detectives have examined a tumbledown fowl pen in which it seems that the animal had been living. Members of the commune have been questioned in connection with this, but so far the police have made no statement. Mr Lester Hoyle, leader of the commune, also declined to comment.

The first tragedy took place while the beast was being hunted through the mountains and forests by hundreds of armed men. It sneaked back to the outskirts of the town and savaged four children. The mother, Mrs June Whymark, who attempted to rescue them, died from a heart attack.

Further armed searches are being organised in an attempt to destroy this monster before it kills again. In the meantime, people are urged to stay indoors after dark and not allow their children to wander.

Wes Lansdale was nervous to the point of wanting to rush outside and vomit. Pentre teemed with police officers. So far they hadn't searched the place for drugs but that would be bound to come later. At the moment they were too preoccupied with finding out everything they could about Bilal.

Every member of the commune was seated in the dining room, exchanging nervous glances, smoking, chewing gum. Nobody spoke. A uniformed policeman stood by the door, there was another out in the hall. At this moment Lester Hoyle was being interviewed by the small sharp-featured Detective Inspector in the front room. Wes wondered how much Hoyle had said, exactly what he had told them. Individual interviews were the way to get the truth out of a group. These cops were experienced, knew how to deal with hippies and drop-outs. “No nonsense, there's a number of charges we can bring. Any drugs? No, OK, well, we'll search the place later.” Jesus Christ!

There was no sign of Trix or Jon, who had been gone four days now. The police would be circulating their descriptions, doubtless. They had to be extremely thorough with six deaths on their hands and a maneater at large.

‘You next!’ the constable at the door singled out Wes with a stabbing finger and jerked thumb. Harsh, a process of breaking you down, making you quaver even before they asked you the first question. Lansdale rose to his feet, felt a quick squeeze of his hand from Wendy. He wished they didn't have to interrogate her.

The room was small, a kind of lobby. Claustrophobic, but ideal for this purpose. The Detective Inspector was dapper, with a small clipped moustache that reminded Wes of an old-fashioned London spiv. Eyes that bored into you, and (located the truth no matter what you said. Another detective sat on a chair in the corner and a constable guarded the door. There were no other chairs. You stood there like a prisoner in the dock, feeling guilty whether you were or not.

‘You're Wesley Lansdale?’ the detective motioned him to sit down, consulted a clipboard in front of him and made a pencil tick. ‘The writer.’

‘Yes,’ Wes thought he had detected a note of scorn in the other's tone and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

‘I see. Now, tell me, what do you know about this Pakistani youth who was killed by the caracal?’

‘Nothing much. He just turned up one night. I didn't pay much attention to him; nothing to do with me.’

‘He brought this caracal with him.’ A statement, the eyes staring so hard that Lansdale could almost feel their force.

‘Yes.’

‘And you were party to harbouring it … and him?’

‘Now hold on …’

‘I asked a question. Answer it!’

‘OK. I knew they were both living here, Bilal in the attic, the cat in the old poultry house. But it was none of my business. I just get on with my writing, and sod everybody else, except my girl.’

‘Why didn't you report to the police that an illegal immigrant and a wild animal were being hidden here?’

‘Hell, I never gave it a thought.’

‘You should have. As it is, you could be facing a number of charges. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. What're you on, heroin?’ The question was fired like a bullet from a snap-shooter's gun.

‘Not any more,’ Wes answered evenly, unflustered in spite of the churning in his stomach. ‘I've bucked it.’

‘For how long?’ Open scorn now. ‘They all say that.’

‘Call and see me in twelve months' time and I'll prove it to you.’

‘Sorry,’ the Detective Inspector smiled, a slight movement of his thin lips. ‘In twelve months' time you might be in some place where I can call on you much more easily than in this pigsty. Do you know the whereabouts of a couple known as Trix and Jon?’ Another staccato question.

‘I haven't the remotest idea. As far as I know, they ducked out three or four days ago and haven't been back since. It's unlikely they'll show up again. People living in communes rarely return to the same one.’

‘We'll find them. Right, constable, Wendy Drew next.’

Wes Lansdale's brain was reeling as he stepped out into the hall and was directed to another room.

Jesus, herded about like cattle at an auction. This room was empty except for a sullen Lester Hoyle sitting on the edge of a broken-down sofa. And a policeman with his back to them staring fixedly out of the window. No comparing notes - not yet, anyway.

Wes lowered himself on to a straight-backed chair. Silence except for light footsteps crossing the chipped quarry tile floor of the hall. The swine was going to put Wendy through it now. He stared at Hoyle, returning the sullen looks of the other: a mutual hatred that had boiled, simmered, and would boil over again before long.

Outside the sun was melting the mist on the hills. Somewhere up there a dangerous killer rested after a night of hunting.

‘I wondered how you'd got on,’ Colin Rutter sauntered into the small room where Wes Lansdale was staring vacantly at the sheet of paper in his typewriter. ‘Are the police still at the commune?’

‘They've gone now. But they'll be back. So far they haven't charged anybody. A kind of cat-and-mouse game … sorry, pun not intended.’ Wes smiled thinly.

‘You should've told me about the caracal,’ there was only the barest hint of a reprimand in the professor's tone. ‘It would have made things easier, and all this might never have happened. I half guessed, though. I even gave you the opportunity to tell me.’

‘I'm sorry,’ Wes sighed. ‘I really am. I feel as though I've let you down, but if I'd told you I would have betrayed the people at Pentre. It wasn't an easy decision. I just played for time and hoped that everything would work out all right, and, as we all know, it didn't. What the hell are we going to do about the caracal now?’

‘I don't know, quite frankly. A lot of people have come up with stupid ideas. That fellow Grayling of the Sporting Gazette, for instance. His idea is foxhounds and huntsmen on horseback. No foxhounds are going to get the better of an animal like a caracal - they'd be slaughtered if ever they cornered it. That otter hound hasn't come home yet, and I'm afraid it won't. Probably dead deep in the woods. Melvyn Hughes thinks a night expedition might bring results, and I suppose it's as good an idea as any. A few good marksmen aided by a team with powerful spotlights. That's the way to make a bag of rabbits or hares after darkness, and it might just work with the caracal.’

‘Of course it could return to Pentre,’ Wes mused, ‘even though it killed Bilal. It lived in that old poultry house for weeks and it might still go back there.’

‘That hasn't been overlooked,’ Rutter smiled. ‘Joe Simmons, the Forestry Ranger, is working “nights” on that one. If the caracal shows up there, then that will be an end to all our troubles. Now, the best thing you can do is concentrate on your writing and forget all about this business.’

‘I can't,’ Wes shook his head. ‘I can't produce good work in this state. The only way I'll ever get round to finishing my book is to get this matter cleared up. I might even find myself facing police charges. That Detective Inspector said …’

‘I shouldn't take too much notice of what he said,’ Colin Rutter smiled. ‘I'll be very surprised if they bring any charges at all against anyone at Pentre. The only person they might have prosecuted is Bilal and he's dead. Tell you what, though - forgive the interference, but I was looking at your typescript the other day and I see you've got another one there, almost completed except for the final chapter. Pawns of Time. Why on earth did you stop?’

‘Hoyle again,’ Wes shrugged. ‘He said it was bad and would reflect on anything I submitted afterwards.’

‘Oh, what nonsense! Maybe it isn't quite as good as your latest, but I'll warrant a paperback publisher somewhere will buy it. Why not finish it first and get it off to your agent? Who knows, by the time you've completed your current book, Pawns of Time could well be sold.’

‘It's an idea,’ Wes looked up. ‘I'll do just that, Colin.’ It was the first time he had used the other's Christian name. ‘I'll make a start on it tomorrow.’

‘Excellent! I'm sure you won't regret it. Just leave the caracal to us.’

‘I'm surprised at you getting involved in this. A famous conservationist. Hunting an alien creature is a bit out of your line.’

‘I'm afraid so. Originally I thought we might turn up some interesting wild creature which was relatively harmless except to game and livestock. Unfortunately I got caught up in events and now I've got to see things through. I don't want Grayling or any of the other journalists reporting that I ducked out when the going got rough. Would ruin my reputation, though I suppose in a way it's all good publicity for my wildlife books. At least, I ease my conscience by telling myself that.’

Lansdale nodded. Already he felt that he had entered a new phase in his life and was throwing off the despondency bred by Pentre and its occupants.

Trix was far from happy with life, and was already regretting having left Pentre. The decision had been made too hastily. Not hers - Jon's. He would have left anyway, and she could not afford to let him walk out of her life now that he had got her pregnant. At least, she thought she was going to have a baby - it was too early to be certain yet, but she had been sick most mornings and felt generally unwell.

Now this. She lay on a blanket spread on the hard floor of the tumbledown hut and took stock of her surroundings. Through the broken window and the hole in the roof she saw nothing but tall pine trees. It was gloomy here in this clearing, the sun only really penetrating at midday when it was directly overhead. The nights were cold, too, and the only warmth came from each other's bodies as they huddled together.

The shack had been a woodman's store shed at some time, and probably hadn't been used since the war. Jon had attempted to patch it up, but his efforts had been limited to existing timber, most of which was rotten anyway, and rusty nails which had fallen out of it. Christ, what a fool she had been, she reflected as she heard him moving about outside, collecting kindling wood. They couldn't stay here much longer. By tomorrow the food which they had brought with them would have run out, and they had no money to buy further supplies. Pentre was less than two miles away on the other side of Panpunton Hill. They'd be forced back there, returning in humiliation. Not that that mattered. She didn't give a damn what anybody thought of her. Lester Hoyle would welcome her for one reason only, even if she was pregnant! She didn't mind even that so long as she had a warm bed and something to eat.

Yesterday they had wandered out of the wood and remained in the fields until the hunters had gone. It was easy. Probably the caracal had done the same. What a lot of fuss to make over one animal - sooner or later somebody would shoot it, probably one of the farmers.

She wondered if she could persuade Jon to go back to the commune. He was a contradiction in himself, quite likely at any time to change his mind over a decision he had only just made. When he had announced that he was leaving Pentre on the following day she had never really expected him to go, but he had, and the pair of them had left with their belongings in a couple of haversacks without a word to anyone. Just like that!

Once she had thought that Jon felt something real for her. He never said much, keeping it all bottled up inside. Even when they were having sex he never really expressed himself, and often she wondered whether he enjoyed it or not - perhaps he just did it because he thought it was expected of him. Even now she didn't really know why he had suddenly made up his mind to opt out of commune life - probably just another of his frequent changes of mood.

At that moment he pushed the door open, using a foot to force the rusted hinges back. Small and lean, his features were a mass of acne, glazed eyes denoting a heavy intake of drugs, long straggling hair that was thinning at the crown. Another few years and he would probably be bald.

He ignored her and went straight to the stove, dropping an armful of wood on to the floor beside it. The cast iron structure with its chimney pipe going vertically up to the roof was as sound as on the day it had been installed. Trix was surprised that the tinkers who converged on Knighton periodically hadn't taken it to sell for scrap, but this wasn't really surprising because the place was so remote that one would only come upon it by chance as she and Jon had done.

‘Jon?’ She raised herself up on an elbow.

‘Huh?’ He didn't look round but continued to stuff dry grass and sticks into the stove.

‘Jon, why did we leave Pentre?’

‘Dunno, really,’ he carried on building the fire. ‘Just thought it was best. There's going to be trouble there before long.’

‘Over the caracal?’

‘That and other things. Hoyle and Lansdale are sparring up for a big set-to. Hoyle's set his sights on shagging that girl Wendy but she hates his guts. Then they're always falling out over Lansdale's writing. There'll be big trouble, you mark my words. Hoyle's got it in for that wog, too - you can see how he loathes the poor bleeder.’

‘But what's going to happen to us, Jon? We can't stay here.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, by tomorrow we'll be out of food. It's cold, too. We won't be able to survive much longer, winter's not far away. And another thing, in case you'd forgotten … I'm pregnant?’

‘Sure. I know. What's that got to do with it?’

‘Oh, Christ, don't you know anything about anything? I shall have to be careful, I can't rough it. I shall need rest!’

‘You can rest here.’

She caught her breath, tried to check her anger. ‘Jon, I have to go back to Pentre; there's no two ways about it.’

‘All right,’ he turned to face her, squatting on his haunches, looking at her blankly. ‘I'm not stopping you. You can go now if you want to.’

‘Not without you,’ she clenched her fists. ‘You've a duty to look after me, now, Jon. You can't just walk off the moment you get a girl into trouble.’

‘Hold on!’ His eyes flickered and his brow furrowed as though he was making a tremendous mental effort to get to grips with the situation. ‘How do you know the baby's mine? You‘ve fucked with most of the guys in the commune.’

‘Not recently. Lately I haven't had it with anybody except you, Jon. Anyway, it happened that night when we didn't take any precautions. I knew it the moment you started to come, that you were shooting a baby into me.’

‘I see,’ his eyes clouded over once more. Either he understood or else it had all slipped away from him again. ‘In that case, we'll have to stay together. We'll be all right here. I'll look after you.’

She turned away, biting her lip and trying to choke back a flood of emotion. She wanted to scream, to yell at him, ‘You just want me here to fuck, you don't want me, you only want my cunt.’ What the hell was the use?

After a while he went back outside, and only then did she surrender to a fit of sobbing. It lasted about a quarter of an hour, after which she became remarkably calm. She'd have to do something, Jon wouldn't help her, so it was all up to her. If he wasn't prepared to care for her now, then he certainly wouldn't trouble in later life, so what was the point in sticking with him? There were thousands of unmarried mothers around. The State looked after them, all part of the “System”.

She rose to her feet unsteadily. At first she thought she was going to faint but the sensation passed. She felt sick, but was rapidly getting used to that these days.

Cautiously, almost like a fugitive, she pushed open the rickety door and stepped outside into the open clearing. There was no sign of Jon, which was all for the best. She didn't want to see him again … ever!

There was only one ride leading from the clearing, the one they had entered by, so it was logical to go that way. Once beneath the trees it was much darker, only fingers of sunlight filtering through here and there. She hurried on, glancing behind her every few yards, almost expecting to see Jon coming after her. But he did not appear.

Silence, except for some wood pigeons cooing, gently digesting their afternoon's feed, and a jay chattering harshly from the middle of a dense thicket - its rasping noise got on her nerves.

She did not know the time, but it had to be late afternoon according to the position of the sun. She tried to work out how long it would take her to get back to the commune. It was impossible to tell, three or four hours perhaps. Of course it wasn't a direct route, lots of twisting paths, junctions, forks … she stopped and stared. Immediately ahead the path she was following divided into two: one track leading off at right angles, the other bending round almost as though the two might join up again further on, but both disappearing into a thick forest of rhododendron bushes. She couldn't recall seeing the bushes on their way here, but they must have passed through them because there was no other way.

She trod warily, her mouth dry, her heart pounding. The path was narrow, seemed to be getting even narrower, shutting out the light … or was it already starting to get dark? Christ, no, not yet!

The track widened and she walked on for some time. Hope. Some distance further on it tapered again. Despairs

Panic threatened to take over when she came to another fork. Right or left? She took the left one, starting to run, but after fifty yards or so it came to a dead end, a towering wall of rhododendrons barring her way. She let out a cry and turning, caught her foot in a protruding tree root and fell heavily. Crying now, she staggered back to her feet, limping, hopping, desperate to get out of this darkening wood.

It was a relief to reach the junction again. She blundered down the right hand path, oblivious of an obstructing holly bush with sharp leaves which scratched her face and arms, sobbing now and gulping in her breath noisily. It seemed to be getting darker by the second. Somewhere close at hand an owl was hooting, but everywhere else there was a deathly hush.

A twig cracked with a sound like the report of a .22 rifle. Trix pulled up, looking wildly about her, trying to peer into the dense plantation on either side of the track, but it was impossible to see anything.

Another sound, soft and slithering such as a snake might make. She shuddered and crossed herself, an instinctive reaction, something which she had not done for a very long time. Mother of God!

She stood there listening with a desperation that emphasised every tiny sound: the thumping of her own heart and laboured breathing; the breeze soughing softly through the tops of the firs; dead twigs scraping as branches brushed … a stealthy movement only yards away. She tried to hold her breath. Must be a rabbit or some other harmless creature … too big; a fox or a badger, then, they didn't harm humans.

Suddenly she saw the animal eyes staring out at her in the darkness, two orbs glowing like car sidelights flickering with a faulty battery. Then the creature moved forward and she could pick out the feline shape, the upright pointed ears, the arched back, blocking her escape, menacing.

She watched it, knowing that it was going to attack but helpless to defend herself, paralytic fear robbing her of logical thought. She did not even recognise it as the caracal which had lived for so long at Pentre - it was an alien beast of prey, cat-like, and it was going to kill her.

She made no resistance as the caracal's leap knocked her to the ground and she fell, its fetid breath searing her face. Only when its claws ripped through her clothing and half-severed a big fleshy breast did she start to scream. She writhed and flayed her arms, beating at the sinewy silky body with her fists, tasting the blood which sprayed on to her mouth and knowing that it was her own. Her blows became more feeble as the crimson fluid continued to jet from her slashed wrists, her screams reduced to soft moans, scarlet bubbles forming on her lips and bursting.

Now she accepted death, almost grateful for the release from life. Only one regret: her baby. Probably the embryo was already destroyed, shredded or crushed within her womb. Jon wouldn't care, he'd be glad. She didn't love him, only the baby. The creature's eyes glittered. Claws still tore at her flesh but she was past feeling any more pain. Oh, God, please let me die! This couldn't really be happening; perhaps it was all the drugs she had taken, or maybe the lack of them. Now sleep was closing in on her, comforting cooling waves of darkness - soon she'd be all right. Trix tensed, then relaxed, went limp.

The caracal ate ravenously at first and then lay down alongside its kill, picking at its food from time to time, gorged yet unwilling to leave. It had been watching the humans in the hut for two days now, and had not forgotten the other one, the man, but there was no hurry. Its hunger appeased, it could afford to wait and began to toy with a piece of severed bone.

Chapter 8

‘It's crazy,’ Melvyn Hughes thumped a fist into the palm of his hand and looked defiantly from Baldwin to Hidderley-Walker. ‘Going out at night with spotlights makes a kids' party game out of looking for needles in haystacks. We won't be able to get anywhere near nine tenths of the ground which we covered on the two previous shoots. We can't use dogs, either. And the damage we'll do to game is nobody's business. Coveys of partridge will fly blindly and rip themselves to shreds on barbed wire fences. Pheasants will desert their native woodlands and …’

‘I'm afraid game and our own sporting interests have to take second place,’ Hidderley-Walker replied coldly. ‘People have been killed. More will die if we don't get the caracal soon.’

‘All right, but don't blame me if there's nothing left to shoot at on the Panpunton Estate,’ the gamekeeper seemed to shrivel under the hostile glares of the others in the small forestry office. Please your bloody selves then!

‘Anyway, I think you were one of the first to suggest that the caracal might be shot more easily after dark,’ Hidderley-Walker fired another salvo, sensing that he was expected to act as spokesman on this particular issue concerning the tenancy of his syndicate.

‘Right, but I didn't mean half the population scouring the hills with lamps and guns,’ Hughes replied. ‘One or two guns, the same way as culling deer. Experienced men.’

‘There isn't time,’ Baldwin said. ‘We don't have weeks ahead of us in which to experiment. As Mr Hidderley-Walker has said, lives are at stake and others have been needlessly lost. Tonight we must make an all-out effort to destroy this killer cat.’

The late afternoon sun cast a pattern of golden squares on the far wall, the tranquillity and beauty of autumn gracing the surrounding hills with a carpet of purple and gold. It was hard to believe that somewhere out there a maneater lurked. The third hunt was only hours away.

‘That's settled then,’ Baldwin spoke in clipped tones, rejecting further objections, eager for action and desperate to appease the media. ‘Three parties: Hughes in charge of the Panpunton one; Sirtmons bringing in the one from Garth Hill; Professor Rutter and Constable Jones working from the northern side of Lurkenhope. Land-Rovers will be used where possible to cover the ground more quickly, but only a small part of the area can be worked on foot. Each party will have a .226 rifle fitted with telescopic sights and light enhancement device, one main lamp, and a backup shotgun force. We move off at eight o'clock from our respective starting points. Gentlemen, I wish you luck. This time we cannot afford to fail.’

‘I finished off Pawns of Time today,’ Wes Lansdale spoke with a note of pride, his sudden announcement jerking Wendy into wakefulness as she half dozed in the bed by his side.

‘You what!’

‘I've finished Pawns of Time. Not only completed it this afternoon, but packed it up ready to send off. Colin says he'll drop it in at the post office for me tomorrow. He had a quick look at it, says it's good.’

Wendy felt a sudden surge of elation. Things were really looking up.

‘I'm so glad,’ she murmured. ‘I knew you could get it finished, but this is much sooner than I dared hope. Lester's really depressed at the moment, been in his room all day and hasn't even come down to eat. Talking of food, I wonder what's happened to our esteemed cook and her boyfriend.’

‘They could have gone anywhere. People have just walked out before, and we've never set eyes on them again.’

‘But this time I've got an odd feeling that something's happened to them.’

‘Well, if it has there's nothing we can do about it, they've only themselves to blame. Anyway, the police are looking into it.’

‘There's another hunt tonight, isn't there? I heard it mentioned earlier on the radio, and thought maybe you'd be going with Rutter.’

‘I think I've done my share. Anyway, he had to go to a meeting at the Forestry Commission this afternoon and he's probably gone straight off from there. Christ, I hope they get the bloody thing this time! You should just see the sightseers that are drifting into Knighton - caravans, hikers, the lot. The hotels are booked to bursting point and I shouldn't think there's a weekend cottage vacant for miles around. That's the trouble, there are too many people mooching, about, trespassing all over the hills and woods. If the caracal is on the lookout for another quick kill there are plenty of prospective victims!’

Fred Reece and his wife Mary had moved out from the Black Country to the outskirts of Knighton in 1972. From Tipton to Lower Cwmgilla was a complete contrast of scenery, but Fred had convinced Mary years ago that it was necessary to ‘get away from it all’. That was long before it became the ‘in thing’ to do.

‘It's no good leaving it until you've reached retirement age,’ he told her on more than one occasion. ‘At sixty-five you can't do what you can at fifty-five.’

‘Agreed.’ Plump, with a pink complexion and grey hair, Mary Reece regarded her husband quizzically. ‘But what exactly are you going to do in Wales? There are no foundries there and that's where you've always worked.’

‘Which is just why we're going.’ His glasses always slid to the end of his nose so that he peered over them when he was annoyed. ‘I've worked in a bleeding foundry since I left school at fifteen. Forty wasted years, but at least we've got a few bob saved up. We'll buy a smallholding, just a big paddock will do, and keep goats.’

‘Goats!’ Mary Reece sat bolt upright in astonishment ‘Why, for heaven's sake? They stink.’

‘Rubbish! Only the billy stinks, and if we have one he'll be kept for stud purposes only and in a shed well away from the nannies. Don't you fret, dear, I do know something about goats. When I was a lad my uncle Arthur at Brierley Hill used to keep them and …’

‘And he used to put them on the wall with the pig to watch the band go by!’

‘Now you are talking rot. Just leave it all to me, as you usually do. I'll see to the goats, and you won't even have to go near them. Wales is the place for us. My uncle Jack came from South Wales, and he was ninety-two when he died. Have I ever told you about him?’

She sighed and grunted. The odds were that they would go to Wales whatever she said. Once Fred really made his mind up over anything, that was it.

It took them five years to build up their herd of fifteen goats, mostly Toggenburgs and British Saanens. They had started with one small goatling, Florrie, bought for £30. A sweet little creature, snowy white from head to foot, intelligent and mischievous, she had soon changed Mary's opinion about goats. From October to March she had done most of the feeding, walking the length of their five-acre field in all weathers to attend to the animal, and when Florrie kidded, Mary had spent most of the night in the goat house with only a storm lantern to see by. Unfortunately, the kid had been a billy, which Fred sold the next May in exchange for another nanny.

In 1975 Fred bought a two-year-old billy which they called Bertie, a fine specimen not yet fully grown. Twice the size of Florrie, Bertie soon learned to use his long wicked horns to maximum effect - a downward movement of the head followed by a quick upward sweep that could impale the object of his wrath with terrible force. Soon it was all too obvious that even tethered in the paddock Bertie was dangerous.

‘I'm not going out there while he's there,’ Mary Reece stated emphatically one morning, returning to the kitchen where Fred had just sat down to breakfast. ‘If the rope had broken I wouldn't be here now. And it wasn't just his breakfast he was in a hurry for, you mark my words, Fred. That animal's wicked - the sooner we get rid of him, the better.’

‘No!’ Fred Reece was unruffled. ‘He's too good an investment at a fiver a stud, and two nannies are booked to be served next month. If he gets obstreperous the thing to do is to grab him hard by the beard and hold on tight - he can't do a thing then.’

‘Huh!’ Mary snorted and began washing feeding buckets in the long stone sink. ‘If Bertie needs grabbing by the beard, I'll leave that to you. And I'm going to leave all the feeding to you from now on. I mean what I say, Fred, I'm not going out in the paddock while he's there!’

‘All right, all right,’ he frowned as he attacked his fried bread and overdone bacon; the prospect of feeding the herd in addition to three hours' milking, morning and evening, was not appealing. ‘What if I build Bertie a shed, one he can stay in permanently? Tethered as well. That way he can't get at anybody.’

‘Fair enough,’ she placed two empty buckets by the kitchen doorway. ‘But until then, the herd's all yours!’

Fred Reece began to build Bertie's shelter later that day. It didn't need to be very elaborate, he told himself: a few eight-foot fencing stakes and some spare corrugated iron sheets would do - no need for a door because Bertie would be permanently tethered. In fact, the whole job could be completed before it was time for evening milking.

He finished just after five o'clock, standing back and surveying his handiwork proudly.

‘Well, I've seen some sights in my time,’ Mary Reece Came out of the back door to look, ‘but that really takes the biscuit!’

‘No need for a bleedin' palace,’ Fred sniffed, ‘just something to keep the rain off him. That'll do the job.’

But Bertie was not impressed with his new surroundings and soon discovered that by using his horns on the sides he could rock the whole shelter. The noise and vibration gave him an acute sense of satisfaction, spurring him to even greater efforts, and his fury mounted with every blow.

‘Just listen to him!’ Mary Reece stood by the kitchen window looking across to the rough paddock, seeing the flimsy shelter beginning to totter like a pile of books on an uneven surface. ‘The devil will have the lot down before dark, Fred!’

‘Never!’ Reece called out from the adjoining brick lean-to which he proudly referred to as ‘the milking parlour’. He never paused in his rhythm, squeezing Florrie's teats so that the white fluid squirted and foamed in the plastic bucket. ‘That shelter will be up long after Bertie's gone to serve the nannies in the promised land!’

Loud metallic bangs filled the air, echoing in the still atmosphere of the mild October evening.

Bang … bang … clatter … bang! There were barely seconds between each vicious, determined assault.

‘It's leaning over,’ Mary Reece continued her commentary. ‘One of the stakes has snapped off. I told you they weren't strong enough …’

The crash of falling tin sheets and splintering timber drowned her shout that was more jubilant than dismayed. The entire structure caved in as sheets flew in all directions. Then, rearing out from the pile of debris, Bertie's horns angrily tossed aside the smashed materials which had temporarily buried him. He stood there, proud and angry, a victorious general surveying the scene of his victory.

Fred Reece muttered ‘Bloody hell!’ and hoped that Mary hadn't heard him. Florrie was forgotten for the moment as he approached the scene of destruction with extreme caution, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw that the rope tethering the billy to an iron stake in the ground still held firm.

‘You stupid bugger!’ he grunted. ‘You can bloody well stop there for the night and I hope it pisses down with rain. That'll cool you off! And don't expect me to come running out to see if you're all right.’

The goat regarded him with a malevolent stare, eyes glinting redly and horns dipping as though issuing a warning. The house had not been built that could hold Bertie.

Fred went back to finish milking Florrie, followed by Mary who leaned against a doorpost, plump arms folded, an ‘I-told-you-so’ expression plain on her face.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ he told her. ‘Bertie's big and strong, that's all. I'll get some more timber and fix it back in the morning. The old devil won't be able to knock it down again.’

‘You can't leave him out there all night!’

‘I can and I will. Do him good, especially if it rains. Can't see what you've got to worry about, you don't like him, anyway.’

‘That doesn't enter into it. Animals are animals, and if the RSPCA got to know about it …’

‘Well, they won't, will they? And if they do, then the shed fell down in the night, see?’

She turned and went back into the kitchen. When Fred said that Bertie was stopping out all night, he meant just that. And the billy hadn't been fed either. Well, that was Fred's problem. She certainly wasn't going near the animal.

Bertie had finished clearing a space for himself in the centre of the pile of wreckage by the time darkness fell. The pupils of his small red eyes contracted into horizontal slits as the daylight waned, and he stood watching the kitchen door in anticipation. But it did not open and there was no sign of the tall stooping man who brought his evening feed and cursed him while he ate it.

The billy tugged at his rope again. It tautened but did not give, and he was too experienced to waste time and effort trying to break it. He was quite used to being tethered, but had not yet worked out how to free himself this time. His ultimate ambition was to drive his horns into Fred's stomach before his beard could be grabbed. That trick of Fred Reece's was humiliating, but it wasn't going to happen again.

At the moment hunger predominated. The goat attempted to satisfy his craving by nibbling at the grass around his feet, but it was sour from his foulings and he soon stopped. As he saw the downstairs house lights go out and the upper ones go on, he knew for certain that neither of the occupants were coming out again.

Bertie snorted angrily and managed to reach a leaning stake with his horns. There was a loud crack of splintering half-rotten wood, and the poultry in the hen house twenty yards away squawked and fluttered in alarm on their roosts. But nobody even looked out of the upstairs windows - Fred Reece had meant what he had said, and Bertie was going to spend the night out in the open without any supper.

After a time the goat lay down, his anger unabated. The remnants of the ramshackle shed had been tossed beyond his reach and there was nothing on which he could vent his fury. From the other outbuildings he could hear the sound of suspended hayracks being banged against the walls as the nannies fed before lying down to sleep, and that made him even angrier. By morning his rage would have reached a terrible pitch.

Owls hooted, and one flapped almost noiselessly over his head in its hunt for mice and voles. A vixen screeched in a nearby copse, answered a few seconds later by a dog fox's bark from up in the hills. These were natural sounds, part of the night, but suddenly a loud sharp report escalated as it echoed, dying away slowly across the mountains. Bertie quivered for a few seconds, but gunfire was relatively common in these parts and he soon subsided.

The silence filtered back, but somehow the earlier tranquillity did not return. A vehicle started up after a few minutes, and even when that had moved out of earshot there seemed an atmosphere of unease in the night air. Bertie flicked his ears restlessly, and stood up. The grass beneath him was wet and cold with a heavy dew, and he was not accustomed to such discomforts. As anger seethed through him again, he suddenly caught a whiff of rancid odour that drifted across and was gone. He stiffened, staring about him. This was not a scent he knew: too strong for fox or badger, it had an air of unfriendliness about it - the stink of an enemy.

He saw the eyes first, two saucers of yellowish-green light which seemed to appear out of the shadows around the heap of wreckage. They watched him intently, and as he stared back he made out the outline of a large cat. It was big, very big, which frightened him, and was perched on top of a pile of corrugated sheets and broken timber. As it crouched, a low snarl began deep in its throat, and the billy goat knew that it was about to spring at him. His reactions were tuned to split-second perfection, head going down at the very moment the cat's back legs catapulted it into the air. Horns went down and then up, and Bertie felt a satisfying crunch as a horn ripped through fur and skin to grate on bone. A heavy weight on his head, then the sharp pain of a claw raking his neck. He straightened up, a quick movement transmitting his entire strength into his neck. With a jerk and a twist, the pressure on his head was immediately eased, and the cat screeched and spat as it was flung high into the air, somersaulting and falling. It struck the heap of iron and timber with a loud thud, slithered and somehow managed to hold on. Blood poured, dark and thick, from a gaping wound in its shoulder. The eyes reflected pain, and a momentary fear that vanished almost immediately. Fangs glinted in the increasing light of the rising full moon.

The caracal was hurt, surprised and shocked. For once he had underestimated his prey, a lesson he would remember, but he was far from finished. The only way in which his fury could be abated was by destroying this huge white animal with horns which had dared to challenge him; a challenge which was already being taken up.

Bertie charged, blinded by fury, oblivious of his tether until the rope pulled him up short. His neck was jerked with sufficient force to slew him round and at that moment the caracal launched its second attack. It leaped high into the air, its spring carrying it a foot or so above the deadly horns, twisting to land squarely on the back of its adversary and sink its teeth into the goat's neck at the moment of impact.

Blood gushed and streamed down the white coat as Bertie began his grim battle for survival, squealing loudly, rearing and bucking. Somehow the cat hung on, fangs and claws buried deep in the flesh.

The goat ran in circles, limited by the extent of the rope; round and round, throwing itself from side to side. Suddenly, with a flash of natural cunning, it stopped, bucked and rolled like a rodeo horse dislodging an unwanted rider.

The caracal screamed as it felt the full crushing weight of the billy goat, the breath expelled from its body, every bone threatening to crack. Instinctively it relaxed its hold, and remained motionless. The goat was already rolling back again and this time the battle would surely have been won, but a split second was all that the hunter of the wild needed to escape. It jumped, using every ounce of its waning strength, in a desperate effort that carried it beyond the radius of the goat's restricting tether.

Bertie snorted, pawing at the ground like an enraged bull, looking anxiously about him in the moonlit paddock, fearing another assault from the rear.

The two creatures stared balefully at each other, both weakened and with blood flowing from their gashes. The caracal stiffened, then relaxed as it sensed its weakness and the foolhardiness of continuing the struggle. Bertie lowered his head, but it was merely a defensive stance, his rope remaining slack on the ground.

The big cat hesitated, like a punch-drunk boxer who knows that only a lucky knockout blow will win him the fight.

Seconds turned into minutes, and the goat could only wait, horns poised. Finally the caracal stood up, and without another glance limped off into the shadows cast by the tall hedges. Bertie stared, saw it cross an open patch of moonlight, and then it was gone.

The billy goat voiced his pain and rage until the noise dwindled to a feeble snicker. He looked expectantly in the direction of the silent house but no light showed from the darkened windows. Finally he lay down again but made no attempt to sleep; there was always the possibility that the caracal might return. The blood was congealing in the gashes on back and neck, and the pain had subsided to a dull throbbing. Only the terror was as vivid as ever, and the goat waited anxiously for dawn to break.

Editorial in the Sporting Gazette dated 17 October 19—.

As reported in the national press the hunt for the man-eating caracal continues. Two massive daylight drives having failed, a night assault was organised by the Forestry Commission in conjunction with local landowners, farmers, gamekeepers and police. As before, it was a three-pronged attack concentrating on the area known as Panpunton Hill where the animal in question is thought to be hiding. Land-Rovers fitted with powerful spotlights especially for the purpose were used.

True to form, the big cat proved itself a habitual night-time hunter, and at about ten o'clock was spotted in the moonlight on one of the sheepfields. It appeared to be leaving the area of thick woodland but paused on hearing the approaching vehicle. Mr Melvyn Hughes, the Panpunton keeper, shot at it from the tailboard of the Land-Rover at a distance of approximately seventy-five yards, using a .226 rifle. It is still not known whether the caracal was hit, but at the sound of the shot it leapt high into the air before bounding off across the field, then jumped a five-foot fence and was lost to sight.

Attempts were made to follow it but the steep terrain favoured the fugitive, and eventually the hunt was called off. The following morning it was discovered that a billy goat belonging to a local smallholder had been savaged. The fact that the goat was still alive bears out the theory that it managed to drive off the attacking caracal.

At the time of going to press an open meeting of all farmers in the area is being called by the NFU. Their local secretary, Mr David Boston, is concerned by the recent failures to kill the caracal and is inviting suggestions from the men whose livestock is endangered. In the meantime your correspondent will remain in the area to report developments. ‘TG.’

It was late afternoon when Jon returned and discovered that Trix was missing. At first he was not unduly concerned - she had been in one of her moods when he left her; she had frequently got depressed when they were living at Pentre and used to wander off into the hills for hours. But she always came back. In another couple of hours it would be dark and she could not stop out in the woods overnight. He did not believe her threat to return to the commune - she'd never find the way amongst paths that twisted and turned back on themselves.

He went inside and lowered his haversack to the floor. It was heavy with several pounds of juicy blackberries, some of them already overripe. He had found them growing in clusters on the south slopes of the hill and in half an hour had picked the lot.

There was no need for Trix to worry about the food running out. Tomorrow he could go back and pick more blackberries, and there were lots of other berries growing on trees and bushes. Maybe some of them were edible - he didn't know much about the countryside, but Trix might know.

Jon recalled his childhood days when he had played with the other children in the park behind the housing estate. They had dug for pignuts in the uncut grass on the banks, delving down into the earth with penknives and scraping away at the base of the tall white flowers. More of a root than a nut, tasting earthy, making you want to spit it out but you didn't because you pretended to everybody that you enjoyed it; even kidded yourself.

He wondered idly if pignuts were to be found up here in the hills. He would search for them tomorrow, and if he found some that would be an added bonus. They'd be healthier than people whose diet consisted of conventional foods. After all, that was what self-sufficiency was all about.

As dusk fell and Trix did not return, Jon became angry like a child whose mother is late back from a shopping trip. Goddammit you bitch, where the hell have you got to? Hell, he didn't need her, she was just an encumbrance; handy when you needed a fuck, but a pain in the arse the rest of the time, moaning about everything and never satisfied. Good riddance if she had gone back to Pentre. Maybe she'd manage to convince Lester Hoyle that the baby was his. If she was really pregnant. She might just be faking, seeing it as an easy way to get excused all the chores, stopping in bed most of the day. Shit!

He sat on the ground outside the hut for a time, looking towards the path leading away into the tall pines. That was where she would come from if she was coming. If … if ... if ...

Suddenly it was dark, and much colder, too. He shivered, stood up, and after a final glance around went inside and forced the door shut behind him.

Sod it! The fire had gone out. He found some matches and started to relay it, but the wood was damp and although the dry grass spluttered into a few seconds of bright hungry flames, it soon fizzled out and smouldered again. Bastard! He gave the stove an angry kick. The chimney pipe rattled and rust flaked off and fell.

He wished Trix was here. No, he didn't. She wouldn't be any good. Picking a handful of blackberries out of the bag, he crammed them into his mouth and spat some pips out. They were sour. By the time he had had enough, it was too dark to see what he was eating.

He realised he was sweating heavily. Jesus, he needed a drag! Hell, why? To go on a trip which he was on already?

Distant sounds: a vehicle, stopping and starting; a sharp crack that hung on the still night air; Then silence.

He lay there on the rough wooden boards, scraping at them until splinters lodged beneath his long grimy fingernails, bringing pain. Pain was only in the mind.

Something was at the door. Or somebody. Trix? Open it, then. It was opening, scraping back a few inches, just enough to admit … an animal! The caracal, of course! Christ, think of something else and it'll go away; think hard … Trix, threshing like a hippo in the muddy shallows, making almost as much noise as she orgasmed. Yelling. ‘You've given me a baby. You can't leave me now. I won't let you.’

God, the caracal was still there, standing just inside the partly open door in a jagged patch of moonlight that filtered down through the broken roof. No, it wasn't - all in the imagination. Don't be scared of it. I'm not! All that wog's fault, he brought the caracal over; and got his comeuppance. Now you'll get yours.

The animal was close now, standing right by him. He could smell it, or was it himself? It was bleeding too, had a great gash in its side. Look, now, it wasn't me that did that to you. Understand? I like caracals. Always have done. Don't mean you any harm, mate. You can live here if you like.

A friendly paw was outstretched. It had to be friendly, couldn't be anything else, wanting to shake hands. Oh, Jesus God!

A raking slash tore Jon's forearm right down to the wrist, severing an artery, blood jetting out like a garden sprinkler with a stench that reminded him of iron.

It wasn't happening, it couldn't be. Don't be scared, don't take any notice; think of something else! He jerked upright out of his drug fantasy, clutching a wrist, trying to stem the flow and scrambling back. The caracal struck again, almost casually as though lacking in strength, just enough to ribbon the flesh on a cheek. Jon's fingers flew to his face, leaving his abdomen exposed. A sharp jab with claws going deep, his navel popping out like the core of a baking apple, on downwards to tear out clumps of pubic hair, shredding the cotton jeans.

Jon writhed like a speared eel, bloody limbs flailing, screaming obscenities, while the cat poked and slashed almost lethargically. Suddenly it relaxed and lay down only a foot away from its victim, watching him and waiting for him to die. The mouth opened, displaying the sharp incisors, then closed. A yawn - boredom.

His struggles were now no more than a twitching of muscles in the lacerated limbs, the screams dying to a gurgle. The caracal's head rested on its front paws, eyes almost seeming to droop. The red haze before his eyes obscured the maneater. He tasted sour blackberries and belched blood, and for some inexplicable reason thought fleetingly of Trix again. She was dead, that was why she had not returned. He ought to have guessed that she'd been killed by the caracal. A pity, they might have made a go of it. They had never really talked. But words only evaporated.

As he died the caracal slept.

Chapter 9

Wes Lansdale stared almost in disbelief at the shotgun which was propped up in the corner of Colin Rutter's study, its blue-black barrels leaving a small oil mark on the white wall, the stock a rich polished walnut. It did not look like a wall piece despite its grace and balance. It was first and foremost a weapon, one that functioned as efficiently now as when it had left the gunsmith's over half a century ago. Moreover, it bore the stamp of recent handling.

The professor followed the other's gaze, a faint, almost apologetic smile on his lips. ‘My gun,’ he said. ‘It belonged to my father, specially made for him. Why so surprised?’

‘I'm sorry.’ Lansdale's expression was as embarrassed as if he had been caught reading Rutter's private correspondence. ‘It's …. it's just that I didn't expect you to own a gun.’

‘No, I don't suppose you did. You might be surprised to learn that in my youth I seldom went out into the countryside without a gun under my arm. In those days I used a small folding .410 with a skeleton stock, one that my father took from a poacher he caught. That little gun encouraged me to study the habits of the creatures I hunted, to learn from those I shot. I never killed indiscriminately, only for food or to control the numbers of those creatures harmful to the edible species. That is conservation, maintaining the balance of nature is just as important as protecting an endangered species. As I became prominent in the natural history field I found myself hypocritically pretending to abhor killing. I kept that gun hidden away, broke the law by not taking out a licence. I even tried to convince myself. But the other night I found I didn't want any of the others to kill the caracal. I wanted to shoot it, hold it aloft, maybe even have a taxidermist prepare its mask as a trophy for my wall. A photograph in the papers perhaps.’ He smiled whimsically.

Wes Lansdale nodded. ‘I can share your feelings up to a point. The first time I went on the hunt I was praying that the caracal would get away. At that stage it was just a soft, lovable creature which had killed a few sheep and pheasants, but so what? Then suddenly it was a vicious killer which had to be killed in turn. I'd kill it outright this minute if I could get hold of it.’

‘Quite so,’ Rutter paused to light his pipe, slightly embarrassed at having expressed himself so freely. ‘By the way, how's the battle against the drugs going?’

‘I'm fighting them. Hard. I had to have one shot early this morning but that's all. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to do without altogether. I feel absolutely shattered, but that's only to be expected. Right now the only thing I want is to see the caracal accounted for. Two daylight hunts and a nocturnal one have failed. What now?’

Rutter blew out a cloud of tobacco smoke and sat down again. ‘All the authorities involved have exhausted their ideas. The police are concerned in case it attacks human beings again, and they've even organised patrols in Knighton to ensure that no child goes about alone. The Forestry Commission have closed off all their woods to the public, but there's no way you can keep people out if they're determined to get in. Troops are forming a cordon round the woods, although idiots are already hiding out there. The RAF have supplied helicopters for aerial patrols but that's no good in country like this. Most of the farmers have brought their sheep down a month earlier than they would normally do, but the caracal will go and help himself when he feels like it no matter where they are. So, we're back to square one, no further forward than when the first sheep was killed.’

‘You don't mean to tell me that you've run out of ideas, Colin?’

‘Almost,’ the professor smiled, and hesitated momentarily before going on. ‘The usual methods have failed miserably. The more the caracal is hunted, the wilier he becomes. Right now he's probably wondering which farm to raid tonight, maybe hoping he'll find somebody out after dark. You see - and this is something the authorities are trying to play down - the human deaths haven't just been chance encounters. In its wild state the creature will usually avoid contact with people. But this one has gone kill-crazy. It's tasted human flesh and now nothing else will satisfy it.’

‘My God! You really think …’

‘There's no “think” about it, I know. Fortunately the media haven't tumbled to it yet, although they soon will. The Chief Constable and Baldwin have both pooh-poohed the idea. I can't publicise it too widely, though, or else there'll be mass hysteria in Knighton. I know this saying is getting very hackneyed, but we've got to get the caracal!’

‘What about this idea of yours?’

‘Nothing very original. One or two men who know what they're doing have been camping out on Panpunton Hill, just hanging about but on the alert the whole time, one sleeping, one on guard. I think it's a big mistake to go after the caracal rather than wait for him to come to them.’

‘So you're going camping?’ Wes asked slowly.

‘Maybe. But I can't go alone. I can't keep awake twenty-four hours for days on end. On the other hand, I don't want the company of someone like Baldwin or that pompous fellow from the Sporting Gazette. Hughes is the obvious choice, but he's too steeped in gamekeeping ways and wouldn't have the patience; he'd want to be off setting traps and snares the whole time or poking about in thick undergrowth. What about it, Wes? It's entirely your decision, I couldn't ask any man to undertake something like this against his will. It'll be no ordinary hunting trip. The caracal will be the hunter, we'll be the prey! Every second we'll have to be watching because just when we least expect it he'll be likely to creep up on us.’

Wes helped himself to a cigarette off the desk. ‘It would do me a power of good to be away from Pentre for a while, and I'd say yes right away, but …’

‘Your girl?’

‘Yes. Normally I wouldn't worry about leaving her at the commune but now this feud with Lester Hoyle has come to the boil, I just can't do it. He's embittered against both Wendy and me, and he'd take advantage of any situation which arose to get even with us. I think he's mentally unstable. He might do anything …’

‘She could come here while we're away. Provided she didn't go out on her own at night she'd be all right.’

‘I'll ask her,’ Wes said, ‘but my participation in this rests with her. So long as she's safe I'll go along with you, Colin.’

‘I don't like it,’ Wendy's features were strained with worry. ‘I don't like it one little bit.’

‘Look, there's nothing to worry about,’ Wes smiled reassuringly, keeping his voice low; the partition wall was thin and he did not want other members of the commune to overhear his plans.

‘Its score of human victims is mounting up. I just know it's got Jon and Trix, and I don't want you to be the next. God, I'd kill myself if anything happened to you, Wes! You don't have to go!’

‘I owe it to Colin Rutter.’

‘That's nonsense. He wouldn't expect you to risk your life just because he's given you the use of a room in his cottage.’

‘It isn't that, Wendy. He needs me. You'll be all right in his place while we're away.’

‘If you're set on going then I'm going with you, make no mistake about that.’

‘Don't be ridiculous. You can't … Colin wouldn't let you.’

‘We shall see. If I don't go, then neither do you.’

‘You,’ Lansdale sighed, ‘are making things very awkward.’

She smiled. ‘I intend to make them much more awkward if you two don't take me along.’

‘I'll ask Colin in the morning,’ Wes replied. He knew only too well what the zoologist would say, the arguments. And in the end Wendy would go along with them.

Grayling had been absent from the Norton Arms Hotel where he was staying for most of the day, and hoped his presence had not been missed. He drove slowly back to the Welsh borderlands in a long queue of traffic; caravans, cars, towing trailers loaded high with camping gear. Idiots, all of them! Bloody fools who could not keep away from anything gruesome. Just when the caracal was slipping from the front pages of nearly every daily newspaper, it had returned that morning, more sensational than ever. The bodies of the two people missing from the commune had been discovered late the previous afternoon by a party of unauthorised caracal hunters. A girl who had been with them was being treated for shock.

The youth, Jon, had been found in a disused woodman's cabin, ripped to shreds and partially eaten. His girlfriend had been over a mile away in a dense conifer plantation. At least, they thought it was her - a heap of crushed bones. Other animals had been feeding on the remains since the caracal, probably foxes and rats mostly.

Grayling smiled faintly to himself. He would have no difficulty in getting past the patrols. Most of the soldiers knew him (he had made sure of that) and in any case he had his press card. He cursed the traffic again, wondering if there was a turning off anywhere which might spare him the frustration of travelling with the main stream. He wished now that he had thought to buy a map. It was too late in the day to experiment by trial and error; there was nothing else but to stick it out.

A bottleneck at Craven Arms, which a harassed policeman on traffic duty was doing his best to cope with. In all probability it would have been better to have let the cars sort themselves out instead of wasting taxpayers' money!

It took Grayling forty minutes to cross the main road and as he drove past the constable he sensed a sinking feeling in his flabby stomach. For a second their eyes met. Contempt in the officer's, fear in the journalist's. Contempt because the man from the Sporting Gazette was just another sightseer; fear because ... because of what rested beneath the rug on the back seat.

He was sweating heavily as his Granada crawled under the railway bridge at Craven Arms. For a few seconds he had understood the apprehension of an armed criminal who finds himself caught up in a roadblock. But even if he had been stopped and searched, possession of the weapon in the back of his car was not illegal. You didn't need to possess any firearms licence to own it, in fact a child could walk into a shop and buy one. One of the deadliest and most silent weapons on the market, and in most cases overlooked by the criminal - the crossbow!

He was a hypocrite, too. Strewth, if the readers of the Sporting Gazette ever got to know about this his whole reputation, the façade carefully constructed over the past few years, would be completely destroyed. Extracts from one of his recent articles grated harshly in his brain as though his conscience had set off a tape recording: ‘the crossbow is a curse on the modern countryside … silent, lethal at a hundred yards … used by deer poachers and sheep rustlers regardless of the suffering a misplaced bolt can cause … overlooked by the law in spite of their eagerness to impose restrictive firearms legislation …’

However, he consoled himself, the end - in this case - justified the means. Once the caracal was dead nobody was going to criticise the method by which it had been killed. Even gin traps rediscovered after twenty-five years in barns and attics would be condoned if the killer cat was caught in one. And the man who accounted for it would be a national hero.

Already he was mentally composing the leader article for a future issue: ‘BLACK BEAST OF RADNOR SHOT BY MR TIM GRAYLING [more dramatic in the dailies, with the same head-and-shoulders photograph sold to a score of journals]. After intensive hunts organised by the Forestry Commission, the Combined Forces, and every local landowner, the man-eating caracal was shot on … [the date didn't matter and there was no need even to mention a crossbow] by Mr Grayling who conducted a lone war against the cat in its own territory …’

A screech of brakes, and he almost went into the back of the car ahead. Sod it, these bloody fools kept stopping and starting, progressing at less than walking pace because half of them had no idea how to tow caravans. Christ, there were people inside the caravan in front, sitting down to a meal at the table while on the move. Now that was flouting the law; how the hell had the copper on traffic duty failed to spot them? Probably because he was pissed off with all these silly buggers getting excited over an outsize cat.

His forthcoming article having undergone its first mental draft, Grayling began to plan his assault on the caracal in more detail. Getting past the cordon of troops lining the forest area presented few problems. It wasn't worth trying to sneak by - you looked such a bloody fool if you got caught. The open casual approach was best, as the soldiers rarely questioned bona fide hunters. He didn't want them to see the crossbow though, it would be best to strip it down so that it could be in his large leather camera case and reassemble it on site.

OK. Now, when to start? Early morning rather than late evening. Not that he was scared of prowling about cat territory in the dark, but logically daylight would be preferable. You can't shoot anything, even with a crossbow, if you can't see it! A caracal is by nature nocturnal, but recent developments had proved that it can adapt to daylight forays. So you stand as much chance of shooting it by day as by night. Too late to start tonight anyway. First thing in the morning after a good night's sleep.

It was 9.30 p.m. when Tim Grayling reached the Norton Arms.

‘Any messages?’ his tone was nervous as he fired the question at the receptionist.

‘No, sir,’ she smiled wearily. ‘Nobody has asked for you,’

Thank Christ for that! It had taken him a full day to fetch the crossbow from the Midlands. But it was not wasted time, more in the nature of a halt in order to be fully prepared for the final assault.

‘Well, I just hope we've got everything we need,’ Colin Rutter said as the three of them left his small cottage.

‘Food, water, ammunition,’ Wendy checked. ‘We've even got a tent!’

Lansdale glanced at her, made as though to speak but changed his mind. He did not know the professor well enough to indulge in frivolities about the need for sex.

‘I still think we ought to have left the young lady behind,’ Rutter crinkled his forehead into a frown. ‘I should have insisted …’

‘I insisted,’ Wes laughed, ‘but we still ended up bringing her.’

‘I suppose three pairs of eyes and ears are better than two,’ the zoologist strode ahead. ‘We'll just have to be extra careful. We really ought to have brought along another gun.’

‘Not really,’ Wes glanced appreciatively at the magnificent workmanship of the weapon that Rutter carried under his arm. ‘I've changed my views about blood sports … well, to some degree, anyway. But I really don't fancy using a gun myself, although I'm prepared to have a go during my night watches if necessary.’

‘Ever fired a gun before?’

‘Only on the rifle range at the fairground.’

‘Well, shotguns are different. If the target is moving, get your barrels on to it, swing until you're ahead of it, and keep on swinging after you've fired otherwise you'll shoot behind it.’

‘Where are we going to camp out?’ Wendy asked.

‘Doesn't matter a great deal,’ Rutter glanced up at the sky and estimated that there were two or three hours of daylight left. ‘One place is as good as another. The caracal might be anywhere. I reckon, though, that we ought to get a fair way up Panpunton and pick an open patch of ground so that we have a clear view.’

They were ten yards from the edge of the big fir wood when a soldier, rifle slung on his shoulder, stepped out of the trees.

‘Nobody goes … oh, it's you, sir.’

‘We're going up on to the hill,’ Colin Rutter said. ‘We may be there for several days.’

‘Going to join the other gentleman, sir?’

‘Which other gentleman, Private?' Rutter's eyes narrowed.

‘The one who writes in the shooting paper. There's always a copy lying around in the mess room, not that I'm the sporting type myself. Too much like being on duty. Now what's his name? Grisling … no, Grayling. That's the one, sir. Went up just after nine this morning, lugging a blooming great camera with him.’

‘Oh, Lord,’ Rutter muttered. ‘So he's hit on the same idea. Well, let's just hope we keep well clear of each other.’

Tim Grayling chose his own place of ambush towards midday, a high outcrop of rock which jutted above a plantation of three-year-old spruce trees. From his vantage point he was able to survey three rides and a firebreak which had become overgrown with bracken. Just the place to find the caracal, he decided. He was high enough for his scent not to reach it and near enough to bring off a fatal shot. Most important of all, he felt safe up here, like an ancient Briton taking up a defensive position from which to hurl down rocks on an invading foe.

He ate some of the sandwiches which he had brought with him and drank a can of light ale. The next job was to reassemble the crossbow, which should have been easy. A screwdriver would have helped, but all he had was a penknife. Christ, the screws were tight! A drop of oil would have done the trick.

He worked feverishly, clumsily, dropping screws and nuts, scrabbling on the ground for them. Somehow, an hour or so later, he had managed it. A long sigh of relief, followed by another can of beer. God, he needed that!

Grayling glanced at his watch. 2.30 p.m. Suddenly time seemed to slow, and there was nothing to do but wait. And wait. Until darkness … Doubts began to cloud his mind again. He had brought neither tent nor sleeping bag though it wasn't likely to rain; the weather forecast had predicted clear skies, a ground frost, and the possibility of fog patches before dawn - certainly not camping weather.

He decided to stay where he was until an hour or so before sunset, then hide the crossbow here and return to his hotel. Tomorrow morning he would come back here. Early. Soon after dawn. One snag … on the long trek to and from his vantage point he would be unarmed … That wouldn't do: take the crossbow, hide it somewhere on the edge of the wood.

Voices. He lay low, peering over the edge of the miniature plateau. Two people were walking down one of the rides, youths dressed in jeans and denim jackets. One carried a gun, and Grayling's practised eye ran over it, identified it as being of Russian manufacture, solid but unwieldy, no grace or balance - all right for kids like these two, a loud bang and a bruised shoulder and they thought they'd had their money's worth. No good for large game … like caracals!

They passed below him and disappeared down another ride. Once or twice during the afternoon he heard voices and cursed to himself. These bloody idiots had no hope of even catching a glimpse of the cat. Worse, they might cause it to move away into thicker woods … unless it was desperately hungry!

The sun was dipping in the western sky when Tim Grayling saw Colin Rutter, Wes Lansdale and Wendy Drew. He watched them through his binoculars and their intentions were only too clear - they were going the whole hog, camping out, roughing it.

For one awful moment he thought that they had decided upon the rocky outcrop for their camping site, and shrank back, listening to their muffled voices a few feet below him. Much to his relief, their footsteps receded into the distance.

It was time to move and he picked up the crossbow, feeling its sheer power seeping into his own body. That was what it gave him, power! In the right hands it would have been capable of killing a much larger animal than the caracal … He suddenly realised that he hadn't even fired it yet. Damn, for all he knew the thing might be faulty. Too late in the day now, though. First thing tomorrow, he would try it out.

It was as he turned to leave that he first saw the caracal, and stared, wondering if his eyes deceived him. It stood sideways on in the ride below him, some fifty or sixty yards away, taut and alert, staring into the thicket as though it had scented prey. The dying sunlight glinted on its coat, making it appear jet black in colour.

The journalist's podgy hands trembled as they struggled to cock the crossbow, sweat standing out on his forehead. It was the caracal, no doubt about that. After weeks of ceaseless hunting it had virtually surrendered itself to him!

He stared. It hadn't seen him, had no idea of his presence. Christ, his big chance, fantasy suddenly becoming reality; like that time he had gone up to the Highlands on a stalking trip, primarily to provide material for a series of articles in the Gazette. MacDonald, the stalker, had counted the stag's points through his glass. Fourteen, an Imperial! The ghillie lying behind them in the heather had whistled soundlessly - the first Imperial to be seen on this forest for two years.

‘Aye, he's a beauty,’ MacDonald's usual dourness was replaced by enthusiasm. ‘Think you can manage him, sir?’

‘I reckon,’ Grayling hoped his nervousness didn't show.

His eyesight worried him, too. He only wore glasses in private, and had left them back at the hotel.

‘Good,’ the stalker handed him the rifle, a .240. ‘Take your time. He hasn't scented us yet. Go for a heart shot. Head's too risky, might result in him getting away with a smashed jawbone.’

Tension. Grayling felt the sweat running down his face in rivulets, his hands clammy as he took a sighting with the rifle. The 'scope seemed blurred, and it took him several seconds to realise that his eyes had misted up from the perspiration running down into them.

‘Go on, sir. He's starting to get restless. Might move off at any second.’

Shut your bloody mouth and let me concentrate! Got a bead, wavering, cursing his shaking hands. The stag moved a step forward, head erect, scenting humans but not knowing where, looking round.

Go for a heart shot. Jesus, the heart is shielded in this position. It'll have to be the head … can't keep steady … it's walking away …

‘Hold it, sir!’

Too late. The sharp report of the rifle shattered the moorland stillness.

‘Got him! He's down!’

‘Aye, and up again, sir!’

The beast was struggling to its feet, swaying, somehow managing to break into a canter. Another shot, too wild, the bullet screaming off over the glen below.

‘I said a heart shot, sir!’ Reprimand in MacDonald's tone, forcing himself to keep his temper with a client. ‘We'll have to follow him if it takes us a week.’

Grayling had staggered in the wake of stalker and ghillie, the rifle suddenly seeming much heavier. Trying to keep up, the other two disregarding him and showing their contempt by the way they hurried on.

Two hours of sheer hell labouring for breath. Chest bursting, his companions constantly topping the rise ahead of him. He had to go on, though; the reputation of the Sporting Gazette was at stake, not to mention his own.

In the evening they found the stag at bay at the foot of a corrie. It looked at them and for a fleeting second there was a plea in its large eyes - kill me, quick!

MacDonald glanced at Grayling - the journalist turned his head away, closed his eyes and braced himself. The shot jarred him, vibrated in every nerve, echoed in his brain. My fault, I fucked it up. He would never forget that awful moment when he'd known deep inside him that he'd never find his mark. It had haunted his dreams ever since. And now it was back again, only this time it was reality personified in the form of a caracal.

The crossbow was cocked. Hell, his hands were shaking again. Take your time. Go for a heart shot. Head's too risky. Might result in a … For Christ's sake, shut up!

‘Go on, sir. He's starting to get restless. Might move off at any second …’

The caracal's head was up. It had got a human scent, was tensing, aware, starting to move away.

‘Hold it, sir!’

Grayling felt the bolt go, staggered forward, almost stumbled headlong. He heard the sound of steel on stone and saw a shower of sparks. Then nothing - not even a caracal.

Jesus God! He stood there, crossbow clutched in one hand, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the other. Not even a smashed jawbone to show for his unsteady marksmanship this time.

‘We'll have to follow if it takes us a week.’ Not bloody likely! Grayling glanced around. It would soon be dark, and the sooner he was back in the bar at the Norton Arms, the better. Nobody had seen him come except that soldier. He could pretend it had been a photographic expedition. There would be nobody to tell tales, nobody to report that ‘TG’ of the Sporting Gazette had missed a sitter with the very weapon he had decried in the pages of his own journal.

He climbed down on to the ride and began to head back the way he had come, forcing himself to walk quickly in spite of his dejection. Success had been within his grasp and he had let it slip away. The most hunted animal in Britain had virtually surrendered to him and he had …

He heard the long drawn-out spitting roar but had no time to turn before the big cat landed on his shoulders. A claw raked the side of his neck; another ripped the flesh from his arm as he flung it up to protect himself.

Man and beast landed on the ground. As Grayling opened his mouth to scream, a claw ripped it into a hideous, slitted, bloody grin the length of his cheeks. His tongue was severed, blood pouring from the wound and filling his mouth.

The caracal snarled in fury, and Grayling heaved with the foul stench of his attacker's breath, vomiting, spewing blood. Their eyes met for the first time, the cat's glinting with lust and hate, savouring the kill. The journalist pleaded mutely. Kill me … quick!

Suddenly the caracal went into a frenzy, a windmill of claws that tore and shredded flesh oblivious of the blood that sprayed up from its victim.

Grayling hovered between life and death for a second, seeing the stag again, experiencing the agony of its shattered jawbone, drowning in blood … Then it was over.

Chapter 10

The three of them had remained around the campsite throughout the day. As Rutter emphasised, their objective was not to seek out the caracal - it had to come to them! With the approach of dusk Wendy began to prepare the evening meal. Wes Lansdale had already lit a small brushwood fire, and the yellow flames were crackling and dancing. There was nothing to be gained by stealth; the creature had to know they were here.

‘It'll come,’ Rutter was confident but for the girl's sake did not add ‘because it now has a Craving for human flesh.’

Within a quarter of an hour the food was ready, and the three of them sat round the fire as darkness closed in. New potatoes out of a can, baked beans, some tinned meat and toast.

Lansdale couldn't help feeling they were sitting ducks, that the caracal could jump them without warning. He looked round for the gun, saw it lying at Rutter's side, hammers down. He ate quickly, wiped his hands on his jeans and reached for the weapon.

‘I'll take the first watch,’ he said. ‘You can wake me sometime after two, Colin.’

‘No,’ Rutter's hand dropped to the shotgun. ‘I'll go first, as we arranged. Relax, Wes.’

Lansdale sighed. If it wasn't for Wendy's presence things might be a lot easier. To reduce the tension he said, ‘I expect it's miles away from here, so what the hell?’

‘Could be,’ Rutter scraped the remnants from his plate and reached for his pipe. ‘Like you say, we're probably wasting our time, but we mustn't be lulled into a false sense of security.’

‘It's out there,’ Wendy stared, white-faced. ‘I just know it - I don't know why, but I do.’

‘I'm glad you finished Pawns of Time’ Colin Rutter changed the subject. ‘I'm sure somebody will buy it.’

‘Maybe,’ Wes was too tense for casual conversation, ‘There's certainly a chance. About the same as of the caracal leaping in to join the dinner party.’

‘We'll turn in then,’ Rutter got the message, and suddenly found himself wanting the night to pass. ‘We'll have to get used to this idea of early nights. Primitive man used to sleep when it got dark and wake up with the dawn. A nice idea, but it wouldn't be easy where there's artificial light available. We really ought to have brought two tents, you know.’

Wes smiled, detecting an undercurrent of embarrassment in the older man. It was something they would have to overcome - they might be out here for a week, perhaps longer. The only time limit set for their return had been the death of the man-eating beast.

‘Don't worry,’ Wendy smiled. ‘I'm so shattered I'll be away the moment I get my head down. You get used to all sorts of company living in a commune.’

Wendy crawled into the tent and the two men heard the rustle of nylon as she sorted out her sleeping bag. They sat in silence by the fire, each busy with his own thoughts, the only common link being the caracal and the girl.

Rutter ran his fingers along the cold steel of the gun's Damascus barrels. It brought back memories: a smell of heather and the sharp odour of samphire on a distant foreshore, where geese gaggled out on the mudflats awaiting the dawn so that they could flight inland to feed on the golden barley stubble.

Lansdale's train of thought led from the caracal to Lester Hoyle. The cat and the commune leader had something in common - an inbred hatred of people in general. There was an almost animal-like ferocity in the big man, a loner who distrusted everyone but could not survive outside the commune. He had to have others around on whom to vent his dislike, and unlike the caracal would never make it on his own.

He tried to push the commune leader out of his thoughts. Lester depressed him, but he didn't know why. Perhaps because the man was a failure and tried to make others feel the same. He had to admit, if only to himself, that Lester unnerved him, mostly because of Wendy; like the beast they were hunting, one never knew when Lester might erupt, do something drastic.

‘I'll turn in,’ Rutter spoke at last. ‘I'll leave the rest up to you, Wes. Keep the fire going, not that it will frighten the caracal away but without its light you won't see to shoot. Stay awake, keep the gun on half-cock, but for God's sake make sure what you're shooting at. These woods are full of people crawling about trying to make a name for themselves. We don't want to face a manslaughter charge just because some Peeping Tom thinks he'll creep up and have a gander at us.’

‘Don't worry,’ Wes picked up the gun, hefting its balanced weight. ‘Get your head down and I'll call you at two.’

‘Make sure you do. No nonsense about seeing it through till dawn.’

Wes Lansdale settled down, his back against a rotted tree stump, the shotgun resting across his knees, hammers drawn back to half-cock. The long night had begun.

It was after eleven when he jerked into wakefulness, suddenly aware of his heavy eyelids and the insidious way his body had started to relax. The night was cold in spite of the fire which still blazed only a couple of yards away from where he sat. Earlier he had mentally scoffed at Rutter's warning, but now the prospect of dropping off and being taken unawares terrified him.

His thoughts turned to Wendy again. Between them they could make it. He was bucking the drugs for her sake, whereas without her he would just have drifted, eventually becoming submerged. Even if he never sold another book they could live in a tent out in the wilds like this if necessary. Anything was better than pigging it in a commune, though maybe without Lester Hoyle the place wouldn't seem so bad.

But neither of them was going back. This was the break they had been looking for. In the morning he would tell Wendy.

A twig cracked somewhere in the shadows on the opposite side of the clearing, and Lansdale tensed instinctively, bringing the gun barrels to bear on the direction of the sound, cocking the hammers as his forefinger rested on the front trigger, waiting to take a full pressure.

Silence. Fully awake now, he continued to stare into the blackness. Nothing moved. The fire could do with a few more branches from the pile in front of him but that would have to wait a minute or two.

A scurrying died away amongst the undergrowth. Relieved, his finger eased off the trigger. Probably just a hedgehog - they moved faster than most people thought.

The weather forecasters had been right about a frost. Wes noticed his breath vaporising as he rekindled the blaze. Overhead the clear night sky was a myriad of stars.

He wondered idly how Grayling was getting on. The fellow had got something more than just a camera in that case, probably a repeating shotgun. Wes didn't blame him for trying, but his slyness over a matter that could have been carried out openly didn't add up. The journalist was not the type to dodge publicity. Probably didn't give much for his chances though and couldn't bear the thought of being just another also-ran amongst the hunters,

A vixen screeched two or three times but there was no answering bark from her mate. Lansdale didn't hear her again, either she had given up or moved further afield. The thought of mating led him back to Wendy. Pleasant exciting thoughts, but hardly conducive to staying alert.

A glance at his watch showed him that it was 2.25 a.m. He opened the flap of the tent and gently shook the sleeping Colin Rutter by the shoulder.

‘It's your turn to take over, Colin,’ he whispered. The gun changed hands and Wes eased himself into the sleeping bag alongside Wendy, trying not to wake her.

Colin Rutter squatted on his haunches, staring into the leaping flames as he felt for his pipe. An inveterate smoker, he could not face a long vigil without the companionship of tobacco. Using a blazing twig to light his pipe, he drew the smoke deep down into his lungs.

In the early stages an expedition like this was fun, but by tomorrow they would be more aware of the discomforts. The day after that they might even start to argue over something trivial, and by the end of the week they would be getting on one another's nerves. This wasn't always the case, but many zoological expeditions in the past had turned out that way.

He lapsed into meditation, only stirring from his thoughts when the fire burned low. With a start he leaned forward and picked up some dead fir branches, flung them on to the glowing embers. The dry wood caught immediately, crackling, flaring up in a shower of sparks, driving back the encroaching shadows.

It was then that he saw the caracal, standing some fifteen yards to his left, watching him with an expression of curiosity rather than hate, the firelight seeming to enlarge its yellow-green eyes.

For some seconds man and beast stared at each other, Rutter aware of his heartbeat speeding up, his pulses racing, his mouth suddenly dry. The gun lay on the ground only a couple of feet away: so easy - in a few seconds the events of the past few weeks could be brought to a conclusion.

His fingers slowly stretched out towards the weapon. It was loaded, an SSG in either chamber, the hammers still resting on half-cock. Take it steady. Full cock, up to the shoulder, a bead on those eyes, squeeze; a second shot just to be certain. Slow down, take your time.

His hand closed over the gun and he lifted it quietly, still watching the cat. Any second it might sense what he was doing and spring back into the safety of the protecting darkness. But it was just watching. Puzzled, maybe trying to work out whether or not he was alone.

Now he had the gun in both hands, easing the hammers back, his breathing barely perceptible. Up to the shoulder, even slower; staring down the barrels, seeing those glowing orbs like cardboard cats' eyes at a fairground shooting gallery.

The barrels trembled slightly. He took a deep breath, held it, steadied the gun. The first trigger pressure and a silent garbled prayer. Now!

A stab of orange flame, the stock kicking against his shoulder. A moment of mingled jubilation and panic, temporarily blinded by the flash. Then a second shot, the crashing report blending with the first, trapped by the surrounding tall trees. He stared hard into the darkness, as afraid to go and look as he had been the time he'd shot his first rabbit, blasting into long grass at a pair of protruding grey ears.

‘What's happening?’ Wes Lansdale burst from the tent with Wendy close behind, both struggling to shake off the mental confusion of exhausted slumber.

‘Caracal!’ Rutter pointed with the smoking barrels of the shotgun. ‘I got him … I think so, anyway.’

Lansdale ran across the clearing, while Wendy found herself clinging to Rutter's hand.

‘Shine your torch, Colin,’ Wes called out. ‘Over here. Can't see a damned thing.’

A few seconds' delay while the zoologist found his torch in the pocket of his jacket and flicked it on. Harsh white artificial light moving in a circle like a prison guard's searchlight over trees, rocky ground, grass withering under the onslaught of autumn. Nothing else?

‘Oh, God, I didn't get him!’

‘Over here again.’

‘What is it?’

All three stared fixedly into the circle of light thrown by the torch, saw the dark stain against the straw colour of dead grass.

‘It's blood!’ Wes Lansdale was on his knees, examining the ground. 'Fresh and warm. You hit him all right, Colin, but it didn't stop him.’

‘Christ!’ Rutter joined the younger man on the ground, running his fingers through the grass, and staring at the stain it left on them. ‘That's one of the drawbacks of using heavy buckshot,’ he spoke slowly, ‘you get penetration but no pattern, no concentration. You can fire at an oil drum at forty yards and maybe only put three pellets out of ten in it. I've been too out of touch with shooting, I should have used number fours, put more shot in the pattern. It would have stopped him then.’

‘Well, it's too late now,’ Lansdale straightened, glancing around as though expecting the wounded caracal to return. But nothing moved, the peace of the night was undisturbed.

‘Maybe …’ Wendy's voice trembled, ‘maybe it'll go off somewhere and die.’ She hated herself for saying it, visualising the agony-stricken cat crawling through the undergrowth, blood oozing from a wound in its side, whimpering softly to itself. ‘Or maybe it's already dead.’ An unconvincing sop to her conscience.

‘Maybe,’ the professor turned back towards the fire. ‘And maybe not. Depends where I hit it. Anyway, we can't make a proper search until daylight. You two get your sleep while I finish my watch. We mustn't take any risks.’

‘I don't think there's much chance of it returning after that,’ Lansdale pulled the trembling girl close to him.

‘We just don't know,’ Rutter seated himself on the ground, the weariness of the last few days now apparent. ‘One can never be sure what a wounded animal will do. Some just take off and die. Others …’ he hesitated, ‘others go kill-crazy without a vestige of fear left in them. Their instinct is for revenge, and they'll attack anyone or anything they come across. That's what worries me, the injured beast may be far more dangerous than the killer caracal we've been hunting for weeks!’

Bertie the billy goat was not impressed with his new home. He could demolish a flimsy structure in a very short time, even if it meant spending the night exposed to the elements, but this one was sound enough to stand a series of onslaughts from his powerful horns. Oblong in shape, a three-sided construction of corrugated iron sheets reinforced with disused railway sleepers, it had no door. From his tethered position inside he had an almost unrestricted view of the house, a maddening sight.

The wound in his neck was almost healed but it still throbbed at night when the temperature dropped. He hated the cold but it was not in his nature to humble himself by lying meekly on the bed of straw in the corner. He paced restlessly round in a circle, the chain which tethered him clinking as a reminder of his imprisonment. He had long given up attempting to snap the steel links.

Suddenly he stopped, head up, stiffening, smelling the air until he got the scent: the sour rancid smell of cat mixed with the cloying iron smell of blood.

Bertie experienced fear, terror that had him backing into the far corner until the chain was taut on the collar around his neck, pulling desperately, unable to take his eyes off the entrance. Then the caracal slunk into view, low on its stomach in the typical hunting posture. Dried blood matted its fur, and its eyes glowed with the lust for slaughter.

The goat snickered softly, tugged again, and then stood his ground.

The caracal advanced slowly, barely rustling the straw bedding, almost silent. It tensed, gathering up its waning strength, then in one perfectly coordinated movement launched itself into the air. For one second the goat was perfectly placed for a downward sweep of the horns, followed immediately by an upward lunge that would impale his adversary like a skewered joint of meat. But it never happened. There was only frustration, and the return of his previous terror as the taut chain prevented him from moving his head!

King, the caracal, struck upwards in an attack with fang and claw, hanging on to the shaggy coat, teeth going deep into the unprotected throat, tearing open the jugular vein and spurting warm crimson blood on to the coarse hair.

For the billy goat it was over in seconds, threshing yet prevented from falling on to his attacker by the tether. The caracal felt the life go out of the animal to which it clung so frenziedly, then dropped to the ground, looking up at the sagging head and harmless horns, blood still pouring from the torn throat.

The cat turned and limped back into the open. A short distance away the other goats were moving restlessly in the big hut. The night air was heavy with the stench of blood and death. They knew it and were afraid, but the pain-stricken creature had no intention of slaughtering them. Perhaps it sensed that time was running out, a feeling that its suffering would be eased before long.

The pain in its shoulder had subsided to a dull throbbing as it lay looking towards the house, hating the humans within, wanting to kill but aware that for the moment they were safe. Again it saw that circle of firelight towards which it had been attracted a short time before - it had sensed danger almost too late, instinctively springing away as the twin flames had stabbed leaden death.

The caracal had not feasted on the slain goat. It did not need to. Food was no longer a priority, only revenge.

The sky was becoming lighter as night made way for morning. The animal sniffed the air, ears erect, aware that it was time to move. Behind it lay the wooded mountains where death lurked in ambush amongst the trees. Ahead the still sleeping town, its occupants unwary, unarmed.

Decision made, the caracal headed towards Knighton.

Chapter 11

Glenda Johnson had taught the school infants' class for the past five years. At forty, she had no ambition to progress any further in her profession. The death of her husband within a few months of their marriage had left her with a deep love of the children who would never bless her own household. Dark-haired and attractive, she still grieved; advances from men, both married and unmarried, were politely but firmly repelled. Nothing, she determined, would come between herself and these children.

9.10 a.m. She checked the classroom register, glancing up every so often as she ticked each name. Sheila had a bad cold, they were unlikely to see her this week. Marilyn … she hadn't looked well yesterday, which probably explained her absence this morning. Billy? His parents usually kept him away for a few days every fortnight or so: they were hypochondriacs and it was fast rubbing off on the boy. Patricia … it was odd that the red-haired, freckle-faced eight-year-old was not here today. She loved school so much that her mother was only able to keep her at home when she was really ill.

Glenda pondered, pencil poised. The headmaster had stressed the importance of checking on all absentees, although she would have done so anyway. With a wild animal at large in the vicinity one could not take chances.

‘Has anybody seen Patricia this morning?’ she smiled at the dozen or so children seated at their desks in front of her.

They began chattering amongst themselves.

‘Children, quiet! Have any of you seen Patricia?’

‘Yes, Mrs Johnson.’ Johnny Holmes, a plump fair-haired seven-year-old stood up, hand raised.

‘Yes, Johnny?’ A wish briefly crossed her mind that his parents would start … no, not exactly dieting him, just giving him the right sort of food. ‘And where did you see Patricia?’

‘There she is, Mrs Johnson. Out there.’

Glenda followed the direction of the boy's pointing finger, out through the large window of the new classroom extension into the walled playground. She saw the small figure clad in a blue and white anorak, hood pulled up, plastic satchel trailing on the ground. It was Patricia, all right. Relief surged through the schoolmistress, but it was only temporary. Even as she watched the girl heading towards the main entrance horror struck her like a physical blow.

Her first thought had been that a stray dog must have followed the child through the gates, the way it slunk at her heels, sniffing, head hidden behind her body. As she realised the truth, so did the children. A gasp of terror came from Johnny, somebody else screamed and the others took it up. Glenda clutched at her throat as she rose to her feet suddenly aware just how helpless she was.

Patricia, however, was totally oblivious of danger. Seeing her classmates through the window, she started to wave. Their arms were windmilling wildly, pointing at her, but she just grinned.

Glenda Johnson was calling at the top of her voice, ‘Patricia. Run! Run inside quickly. Shut the door!’

The child stopped as something brushed against her anorak, made her turn round to face the caracal, the creature almost as tall as the child.

‘Pussy!’ Patricia stabbed a finger at it. She had heard all about the ‘Black Beast of Radnor’, even seen photographs of it, but this creature staring into her face was so friendly, purring just like their cat at home. And it was hurt, too. She saw the matted blood, the way it was having difficulty in standing on all fours, and tears began to fill her eyes. ‘Poor pussy! You're hurt. Come on, I'll take you in to Mrs Johnson. She's nice. She'll …’

‘Patricia!’ The white-faced, trembling teacher stood now on the steps at the main entrance, forcing herself to speak calmly, quietly. Neither child nor caracal must be suddenly alarmed. 'Patricia, listen to me. Do exactly as I tell you. Walk slowly towards me, and when you get to the door run inside and I'll slam it.’

‘But Mrs Johnson,’ the child stood with hand outstretched towards the creature, ‘this pussy's hurt. It's been …’

‘Pat! Do … exactly as I … tell you. Come here. Leave … the … cat. It's … not hurt … it's probably been rubbing up against … some wet red paint.’ Liar! The girl's expression was defiant now. ‘Pat, come here at once!’

‘Oh, all right.’ Patricia clicked her tongue in annoyance. As she swung her satchel up on to her shoulder, the bag caught the caracal a glancing blow and in that instant its lethargy vanished. It hissed and spat, as a blinding, jerking pain ripped up its side. ‘Pat … run!’

As Glenda Johnson ran down the steps towards the child, the caracal sprang, hitting Patricia in the back with its two front paws, throwing her to the ground and leaping upon her.

‘Get off, you brute!’ The schoolteacher reached the animal in a couple of strides, saw a vicious claw shredding anorak, clothing and flesh in one stroke. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she kicked out, felt her shoe going hard into the dark flank, splitting open a jagged partially-healed wound. Blood spattered the flagstones as the caracal gave a loud feline scream and rolled off its victim, eyes glazing over for a second before glowing with fury again. It crouched, tensed, and would have sprung into the attack again but for another searing pain. It paused, watching, breathing heavily.

Running footsteps which Glenda heard, but her horrified gaze rested on the little girl writhing on the ground, her back a mass of lacerations, blood streaming out and forming a scarlet puddle.

‘Oh, my God! Patricia, my little darling.’ Glenda was on her knees by the child, weeping, trying to remove the tattered garments to get at the wounds. ‘Lie still, little one, help is coming.’

Dimly she was aware of running figures, heard the shouts. Someone found a stone which bounced on the concrete and narrowly missed the big cat.

‘Get away, you devil! Clear off!’ That was the headmaster's voice.

As Glenda's frenzied fingers pulled Patricia's clothing aside, she saw the wounds, felt her senses starting to reel and then blacked out.

The caracal was backing away, some instinct screaming at it to flee. Its hatred of people was greater than ever before, but the strength was draining from its body. Even felling the child had been an effort.

It turned and limped through the school entrance into the roadway. People were shouting, screaming, throwing stones.

Confused, the creature stood at bay, snarling and spitting, before calling upon its last reserves, forcing its protesting muscles to drag its body along as it broke into a shambling trot, heading uphill, scarlet droplets on the pavement marking its passage. People were scattering before it, clambering over garden walls, panicking.

The big cat's lungs were labouring to take in air, and every few yards it had to pause. A terrifying, deafening screeching noise that grew louder with every second, had it cringing, pressing itself back into a roadside privet hedge. An ambulance with flashing blue light drew level but made no attempt to stop. As it disappeared over the brow of the hill the sound died away, the caracal emerged from its hiding place and dragged itself on down the road.

Flight was now uppermost in its confused brain; the need to find somewhere dark and safe where there were no humans. A place to die in peace.

Dim jumbled recollections of a dark roof-like place where it was hot and stuffy, but there were no enemies. Only a friend … Suddenly it remembered the brown-skinned youth, heard his comforting words, not understanding but knowing that it was safe. The caracal wanted to go back there, where its friend would protect it.

The animal came to a standstill where the road topped the summit of a hill. Behind came a crowd of shouting angry people, ahead a red and white car was pulled across the main carriageway; a blue light on the roof started to flash and that deafening wailing sound began again.

The caracal turned off, squeezed through a gap in the straggling hedgerow and emerged on to some sloping grass fields that stretched towards the forest some distance away. Panpunton Hill, home territory but suddenly hostile.

Something white glinted in the morning sunlight amidst a copse down to the left. A house. The creature's memory struggled with vague, fogged recollections … the room in the roof … darkness … comforting words … a vision of the dark-skinned man but it went again. He'd still be there surely, a protector.

Hope gave the caracal renewed strength, and with sirens wailing in the distance, it broke into a run, only slowing when it reached the overgrown drive. After a long absence it had returned home to Pentre.

Lester Hoyle was alone in the commune. The others had gone out somewhere - he didn't know where, nor did he care. Jon and Trix were dead; good riddance to that fat whore! That's what she was, a harlot. She screwed for drugs or money and wasn't even very good at it; not too bad if you were desperate but it was cheaper to toss yourself off. Sod her! Wendy was a bitch but she couldn't be bought. At one time he would have given her everything he possessed, but he didn't know which of them he hated most - Wendy or that bastard Lansdale. For Christ's sake, stop acting like a fucking jilted adolescent! He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, seeing again the hastily ripped-open envelope, the short typewritten letter.

‘Dear Wesley …’

Hoyle didn't want to see it but felt compelled to read on.

‘I am pleased to tell you that we have now had an offer for Pawns of Time …’

(Somebody chucking good money away. They ought to have learned their lesson from what happened to Whispers. This same SF cult again: write a book that nobody understands, not even the author, let alone the publisher, and they think it's bloody great. Can't wait to herald it as a classic - scared that it might be something good that they're too thick to understand, so they publish it and hope for the best. Everybody's scared to pull it to pieces and get left out on a limb in case they might just be wrong. One big con: conned by an author who probably can't remember what he's written once he's sent the typescript off.)

‘… an advance of £3,000 against 7½% royalties …’

The fingers holding the letter trembled. Conned out of three grand by the likes of Wes Lansdale, a dropout whose way-out ideas were hallucinations conceived on heroin trips … and they were actually going to buy it, pay hard cash for it!

Rage filtered through Lester Hoyle's amazement. The bastard had gone and done it, pissed off up to that professor's place so that he could write this crap in solitude, protected from the criticism of someone who had lectured in English at leading universities. Lansdale couldn't construct a grammatically correct sentence if he tried. And now this …

His fingers tightened on the letter, eyes narrowed. Why not rip it up, burn it? Lansdale might conclude that his agent had discreetly dropped the typescript in the waste-paper basket and the least said about it the better.

Hoyle stared at the letter again, the typed words seeming to jeer. As he began to tear the sheet of paper, there was a sudden sound downstairs in the hall. He stiffened, guilty at the prospect of being discovered.

The letter fell from his hands and he tiptoed out on to the landing, going to the head of the stairs and looking down.

Nothing!

He licked his lips. Probably the wind under the front door rustling the dead leaves in the hall - nobody had swept up for ages. A sigh of relief, checked before it finished when the noise came again, this time from the kitchen, a kind of scratching sound.

His mouth was very dry. Probably rats or mice, maybe both. Vermin moved into places like this once autumn came, and there were always leftovers lying about in … Something fell on to the kitchen floor and smashed - a cup or jam jar, he heard the broken fragments scattering.

Lester Hoyle was undecided. After all, he had every right to be up here. Not only were there sleeping quarters on this floor, but also a loo. No reason why he shouldn't have been using that. Go and pull the chain, then go downstairs.

A stealthy walk into the lavatory, wrinkling his nose at the chipped and stained pan which hadn't seen disinfectant for months, tugging at the rusted chain, the cistern gurgling and belching. It took at least half-a-dozen pulls to make it work, gushing noisily like a waterfall.

As he stepped back out on to the landing he heard noises coming up the stairs: running, leaping, scratching sounds on the bare boards. Puzzlement, then terror as he saw it emerge at the top of the stairs with pointed ears twitching, sleek and powerful in spite of the wound in its side, scenting him, seeing him in the doorway of the loo.

The caracal!

‘Oh, God, no!’

He backed into the cramped enclosure, dragging the door shut as he did so. Terror gripped him as he recalled that the warped wood did not close properly and the bolt had been missing for months.

‘He's in there all right,’ the sallow-faced sergeant at the wheel of the patrol car blocking the road nodded towards the house standing amidst the trees below. ‘Saw him go up the drive myself.’

The Chief Constable stroked his moustache. The strain of the past few weeks had left its mark on him. ‘That's fine … provided nobody else is in there!’

‘Couldn't say, sir.’

‘Well, we'll soon find out.’

Some twenty or thirty men were gathered around a line of parked vehicles, mostly Land-Rovers and vans. Uniformed police were already driving back the curious. Suddenly Pentre had emerged from obscurity to become the focal point of Radnor.

‘Right, men,’ the Chief Constable turned to address his force: police marksmen, Forestry Commission Rangers and those landowners who had a vested interest in the destruction of the caracal. ‘This time we have it trapped, and on no account must it be allowed to escape. A tight cordon must be thrown around the house and the grounds. The moment the animal shows itself - shoot to kill! Meantime we shall endeavour to find out whether or not the house is occupied. If it is, the occupants are in grave danger! Now, take up your positions as quickly and as quietly as you can. We must account for that beast before darkness falls.’

Lester Hoyle could hear the caracal breathing on the other side of the door as he attempted to close it by exerting his full two-hundred-pounds weight against it. Sweat trickled down his face and his shirt and jeans clung damply to him. The woodwork was too warped - no way was he going to be able to shut the animal out.

A claw raked the scratched and peeling paintwork as the caracal snarled a throaty rasp, spitting its frustration. It smelled the man's fear, and nothing else mattered except revenge.

The throbbing in its side was turning to agony once more, and the animal's fury bubbled up to boiling point. Again it sensed that time was running out and its enemy must be eliminated quickly. For half a minute it paused, renewing its strength.

Then it launched itself at the door with all its force, felt the impact as the wood moved, heard the man on the other side curse. The caracal fell back and the door was pushed to again. This wasn't the way.

The animal moved close to the door, wedged itself against the lintel and pushed hard, taking its time, the door post a lever for its muscular body. The door moved inwards an inch or so, the odour of sweaty terror became greater,

Hoyle had one foot against the pan, the other braced on the door. His eyes bulged, staring at the dark fur which was visible in the slowly widening gap.

‘Get out!’ desperation and futility in his shout ‘Go away, you bastard, or I'll kill you!’

The door gave another inch, now he could see an eye that burned like a live ember, red hot with hate and madness. Lester was only too well aware that he was losing this trial of strength, and had no chance of keeping the creature at bay.

Desperately he looked about him for a weapon of some kind, but there was nothing except an almost bald lavatory brush. Then he noticed the window, a two-foot-square opening - the woodwork rotted, the sash loose. As he pushed at it there was a cracking sound and the screws came away. It yawned open, hanging by a single hinge.

Oh, God! He didn't need to look, knew what lay below: a drop of twenty feet, possibly more. With luck he would land on the outhouse roof, which was probably rotten but at least would break his fall. Otherwise he would hit the rocky ground. But any injuries were preferable to being mauled to death!

He closed his eyes. This couldn't be happening, but a throaty snarl told him it was real enough. The door was slowly being forced back. Outside someone was talking loudly - a megaphone or loudhailer, distorted words. They couldn't help him,

‘THIS IS … POLICE … IS ANYBODY … REPEAT, ANYBODY … A DANGEROUS ANIMAL IS …’

Oh, shut your fucking mouth! The caracal's here …

‘Help … help me!’

Shouting wildly but his voice only came out as a croak, a rusty tremor in his wide throat.

He sized up his only escape route. He was bulky and would have a struggle to get out through the window. That meant relinquishing his hold on the door, and the caracal would be in at once, clawing at the lower half of his body. Another thing, he would have to dive out head-first; the thought brought on a sense of giddiness, vertigo. Suppose he landed on his head?

He was aware that his bowels had released their load but he didn't care. The caracal's head was visible now; two eyes glaring with a terrible malevolence. He got one foot on the split wooden seat, gripped the window frame and thrust upwards. Head and shoulders through - struggling, trying not to look down. Take your time, close your eyes. Shit, you couldn't help looking down. The shed roof below looked so tiny, the ground around it more rock than soil. No going back now, though. Lansdale ought to have been here. Instead he'd run out when the going got tough. Jesus, the bastard will probably write a book about it that nobody can understand, and somebody will pay a fortune for it. He should've been here seeing for himself instead of laughing his fucking eyes out …

Hoyle screamed as the claws slashed the backs of his legs, deep bloody gouges right to the tops of his plimsolls. Struggling, screaming with pain and fear, he was wedged in the small opening with no way forward or backward. He shrieked hysterically as fangs bit and tore, pulling the flesh from the lower part of his body in strips and lumps. The caracal swallowed some of the bloody human meat whole. Time was short, too short to get at its victim to kill, so it ate living flesh, a repast that tasted sweeter than any before.

The commune leader realised only too well that he would never make that death-defying dive. Death was claiming him in a far more terrible way. He heard the cracking of a bone, suffered the crazed agony of amputation, as blood poured and splashed on to the linoleum floor. The caracal tore at the jeans between his thighs, bared the flesh, and then bit savagely …

He jerked upright, almost made it out of the window, then sagged forward, his head hitting the outside wall with a dull thud. For Lester it was all over. He did not hear the running, pounding feet of armed men as they charged through the hall and up the stairs.

The caracal fell back from its bloody feast, fur crimson with blood, and turned snarling to the door. It slunk, half-dragging itself, out on to the landing, the shot wounds now beginning to sap its strength.

At the top of the stairs it halted, at bay. Men were coming up, stopping suddenly as they saw it, surprise and fear on their faces. It saw the guns, knew what they were, and shrank back.

‘There he is, Joe!’ someone yelled.

The police marksman steadied his aim, left fingers gripping the right wrist of his gun hand. The shot when it came was deafening, the vibration bringing down a shower of loose plaster from the ceiling above.

‘You got him, Joe! By God, you got him!’

Thick dust and gunsmoke obscured their vision, momentarily hiding the scene on the landing above.

And then the caracal sprang, coming at them like a black avenging angel.

Chapter 12

‘Well, it got away all right.’ Colin Rutter said, a note of resignation and despair in his voice.

The other two nodded without speaking. Daylight was barely an hour old and between them they had already searched the area within a hundred yards' radius of the clearing. There was no sign of the caracal except a few traces of blood. It had been wounded and, as the zoologist had said, was now infinitely more dangerous.

They wandered about aimlessly, kicking the undergrowth. The morning was clear and bright, the sun starting to peep above the range of hills over Bucknell. They had not breakfasted - food was the last thing they wanted right now.

‘We're just wasting our time,’ Rutter said at length, leaning up against a tree. ‘It isn't here, and that's that. We aren't going to find it. We're kidding ourselves. Our expedition's been a failure and it's all my fault.’

‘Don't blame yourself,’ Wes felt both embarrassed and sorry for the older man. ‘Maybe we should give it another day or two?’

‘Let's stop kidding ourselves,’ there was bitterness in Colin Rutter's tone. ‘The caracal isn't going to venture near any more campfires. If he isn't fatally wounded - and it seems I just gave him a flesh wound - then he's going to change his tactics drastically. He'll strike just where he's least expected, and only a lucky shot will put paid to him.’

They returned to the clearing and began packing everything into their haversacks. Lansdale took the gun; it seemed that the professor had suddenly lost all interest in it.

‘Let's head back,’ Rutter led the way down a narrow overgrown ride. ‘Now we'll go and confess what a group of failures we've been.’

‘We don't have to say anything,’ Wes said. ‘Nobody's to know we even set eyes on the caracal.’

‘They'll have the full story,’ Rutter's mouth was a tight bloodless line. ‘Every detail. I was prepared to take the credit if I got the caracal. Likewise I'm prepared to take the blame for what I've done. That's the way I want it.’ Wes nodded, understanding.

Slowly, the small procession followed the twisting downhill paths, the pine woods sweet and fresh at the start of a new day, wood pigeons clattering noisily out of the trees. A mile or so further on they began to hear the everyday sounds of civilization: cars; a siren, which could have been a police car, ambulance or fire engine. Eventually it died away.

It was shortly after ten o'clock when they heard the shot, a report that seemed strangely magnified like a November-the-fifth banger detonated in a biscuit tin. The echo hung in the still atmosphere as though unwilling to disperse.

‘A shot.’ However obvious, Lansdale had to say something; any excuse to break the uneasy silence which had lasted since they broke camp.

‘Yes.’ Rutter stopped and turned. ‘Small-bore, either rifle or pistol, and from the magnification of the report I'd say it was fired inside a building. I have a strange feeling that somebody has done our job for us, more efficiently than we could have done. I may be wrong, but I reckon that's the end of the caracal. Bang, all over! One shot. An anticlimax.’ Wes Lansdale did not reply. As they walked on he experienced a feeling of sadness - like the time he'd found a stray kitten, kept it for a week even though it scratched him every time he picked it up. Then one morning it had wandered outside and been hit by a passing car on the road. He'd sobbed uncontrollably as he'd picked up the squashed remains and laid them reverently on the grass verge. He felt the same now, and it was all he could do to hold back the tears that misted his eyes.

The caracal had learned a great deal about guns: sticks that exploded deafeningly and brought terrible pain. The creature's tortured body cried out for rest, but instincts and reflexes overruled the pleas of tired and injured muscles. It saw the gun as the policeman held it straight, picking his mark, and was taking off as he started to squeeze the trigger, jumping the only way left to go - down the stairs!

It heard the crashing report and felt the rush of the bullet clipping the hairs of its belly, narrowly missing a back leg. But for pain and fatigue, it would have landed in the hall below, but the injured leg and shotgun wounds hampered its take-off. It was going to land on the man who had fired the shot, and extended its claws in readiness.

Men were screaming, panicking, falling in an ungainly heap down the stairs. As the policeman saw the beast hurtling towards him he threw up an arm to defend himself, but was too late and staggered back under the impact of the spitting fury. His gun dropped from his fingers and clattered down the wooden stairs. One fleeting glimpse, then everything went … scarlet. The caracal was gone on its way, wreaking havoc as it tore through the hall towards the open door.

The marksman knelt on the stairs, clutching at the rail, screaming ‘My fucking eyes! The bastard's torn my eyes out!’

Others looked in his direction and turned their heads away as sickness rose in their throats. He spoke the truth, his eyes were dangling down on bloody sinewy threads as he babbled incoherently, trying to push them back. Oh, Jesus Christ!

The caracal bounded out into the bright morning sunlight, saw more people in the drive and turned back towards the rear of the house. The wilderness of dying weeds seemed to offer a refuge: more vague memories.

Run, and keep running - the law of the hunted. The cat had finally tired of killing and just wanted to find somewhere quiet to lie down and rest; or maybe to die.

The atmosphere was filled with the scent of enemies, all around, in the fields and the hills and mountains beyond. But that did not matter any more. The creature saw the old poultry house and jumbled memories churned in its confused brain - memories of a time when this had been home.

As it sniffed around, a rat scurried out and darted off into the depths of some blackberry bushes. The caracal stepped into the run through a hole in the rotted wire netting, poked its head inside the wooden compartment which smelled stale and unused. It hesitated, then squeezed inside. More noises were filling the air - wailing sounds, vehicles coming and going, voices. The caracal lay down in the musty darkness and began to clean its wounds, tongue working gently and expertly. Every nerve in its body throbbed, and the dull pain increased.

The Chief Constable was visibly shaken. His nausea had begun with the sight of a hysterical detective, eyes dangling loosely from their sockets, being loaded into the ambulance. The scene upstairs in the toilet had made him vomit, leaning across the bloody floor and holding on to the cistern, retching into the pan until his guts were empty and trembling.

He'd seen some sights in his time but nothing to match this: the victim had been mauled and eaten right up to his testicles.

Now, standing in the overgrown drive with the bright autumn sunlight filtering down through the tall trees, he took a deep breath and forced himself to light a cigarette, something he rarely did on duty. He glanced around at his men - badly unnerved, and nobody could blame them. But they had to be brought back into the action, which meant he had to take a grip on himself first. He drew heavily on the cigarette and let the smoke filter slowly out of his nostrils.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘we'd better get cracking. This place is surrounded and there's no way the cat could have left unobserved in broad daylight. It must be killed before dark. So we search systematically, keeping close together, shooting on sight. Let's start with the garden.’

They moved off, Melvyn Hughes walking alongside Joe Simmons, the Forestry Ranger. Both men had shotguns loaded with BB, the safety catches pushed forward.

The dozen or so hunters lined the garden, two or three yards apart, moving slowly and glancing apprehensively at every patch of thick cover. Nerves were stretched almost to breaking point. Terror and death still lurked somewhere close at hand - whose turn would it be next?

The gamekeeper followed a mossy path alongside the vegetable plot. He didn't like this business one little bit. Trapping stoats and weasels, even feral cats, was all part of his job, but now he was quite out of his element. The countryside was full of trigger-happy gunmen all wanting to claim the caracal and make the headlines of every national daily. He only wanted it dead for one reason - because it preyed on his game, his livelihood. It didn't matter who shot it or how it died.

He marvelled at the way it had eluded his network of snares and traps all these weeks. Even the illegal gin traps which had been baited. It was the most cunning enemy he had ever had on the estate, and even now, he felt its death would not be achieved easily.

He heard voices, the hunters calling to one another, detected an undercurrent of nervousness in their tones. Fully armed, and in numbers, they were still scared to hell that at any second the caracal might leap out on them, just as it had savaged the policeman on the stairs. Nausea returned as he tried to push that bloody scene from his memory, and knew that - sleeping or waking - he'd never forget it.

You had to hand it to the big cat, he decided. A terrible beast, a maneater, but removed from its natural environment it could not be expected to react in any other way. All the same, it had to be killed.

When he noticed the caracal it was strangely without a sense of shock, almost as though he had expected to find it sunning itself outside the old poultry house. Its posture was relaxed, just like any normal domestic cat, paws outstretched as it licked an ugly wound in its side. It looked up and saw him, eyes reflecting the sunlight and ears pricked, but it did not move.

Melvyn Hughes stared in surprise. At first he did not even raise his gun in case it sprang at him. It looked so docile, just mildly inquisitive. None of the others would be able to see it, for it was screened from them by some blackberry bushes. He could have shouted to attract their attention but he didn't. This was a private confrontation between the creature and himself.

His gun came up slowly, hesitating, the barrels wavering. Suddenly he recalled a fox he'd snared last spring, a fully-grown vixen, caught around the middle instead of the neck because he'd set the noose too big. She'd been pulling and threshing about, really made a mess of her belly and half-severed a teat. In spite of the fact that some poults had been killed by a fox earlier that week, he wanted to put her out of her misery. He'd used the .22 and fired at her head, but she'd moved at the last minute and the slug had gone through her nose and out under her lower jaw; pouring blood, coughing and choking, gurgling but not dying.

His second shot was meant to go clean between the eyes but instead had penetrated the top of the muzzle simply because his hands were shaking so much. Suffering needlessly inflicted by himself, carelessness and bad shooting, first with the snare and then the gun. It had relegated him to the status of an amateur bungler, let alone a keeper, and somehow he felt the vixen had known that; its eyes turned to hate after the first shot but after the second it was pleading mutely - finish me, quickly! He hardly trusted himself a third time, but somehow the bullet found its mark in the brain and she rolled back down the bank, hideously held upright by the wire around her body.

God, that had really upset him. It had taken him days to get over it. No, that wasn't right - he would never get over it. You killed either for sport or because it was necessary in the interests of that sport to exterminate a predator. Either way you tried to kill quickly, painlessly - that was what it was all about.

He stared at the caracal down the barrels of his gun, tried to steady them. It was looking right at him, the two greeny-yellow orbs seeming to glaze over.

Oh, Jesus Christ, why me! Hundreds of cat hunters and it has to be me! Out in the open with the animal bounding for freedom or leaping in to the attack it might have been different. A split-second decision that you didn't have time to think about, and by the time the sound of the shot had died away it was all over. You hoped.

Hughes half-lowered his gun. Get up and run, you bugger. At least make it respectable for both of us!

‘Skat!’ he spoke sharply. ‘Go on, get going. I'm giving you a chance, you stupid bastard. Run, out there through the hedge, let one of these fancy police marksmen try his luck, see how good he really is.’

The caracal did not move. Just the flick of an ear.

Look, if you don't scarper I'm going to have to blast you right there, both barrels so there'll be nothing left of you when they pick you up. But I don't want to do it. God believe me, I don't bloody well want to do it!

The caracal bent and licked at its wounds. Melvyn Hughes took a fresh sighting. Quick, now, before it stares me in the face again. Not even pleading, neither for freedom nor death.

The gamekeeper squeezed the front trigger, felt the bucking stock before he heard the crashing report; instinctively dropped his finger to the second trigger, knowing that he was shaking too much to fire accurately. Oh, Christ, that vixen, he couldn't shut out the scene.

Shouts from all around.

‘It's the keeper fellow. He's shot at something.’

‘Any luck, Melvyn?’ Hidderley-Walker's voice from over by the far hedge.

Any luck? He dared not look, felt sick, the smell of burnt powder almost making him vomit. Got to face up to it, though. It'll be all right this time. I was using the rifle on the vixen; this cat couldn't live after a double blast of number fours at ten yards.

But the caracal was still alive!

The keeper stared in disbelief. The first charge had been too low, blown off a paw and caught it in the side. The second had peppered its pointed ears so that you could see daylight through the gaping holes. Lying on its side, head uplifted, it was looking directly at him. The fangs should have been bared, hissing hate, a maneater to the last breath. Instead, the animal pleading, asking for death, looking at him … Oh, Jesus God!

‘Go on, give it another barrel quickly,’ Hidderley-Walker was first on the scene, his Purdey half-raised. ‘Well done, Melvyn, you got him. Now finish him!’

No! I can't. Somebody else do it. Please!

The keeper tried to tear his gaze from the wounded creature but couldn't. There was no vestige of hate or fury, just an acceptance of death.

Hughes saw the other's shot charge hit the caracal before he was aware of the explosion, saw the feline face disintegrate into a crimson morass, the body go limp and roll over.

For the caracal it was ended. For him, it would go on for the rest of his life.

‘Well,’ Wendy sighed with contentment and nestled up to Wes in the warmth and comfort of the three-quarter bed, ‘we've got a house to ourselves for the first time ever.’

‘Only until Colin comes back,’ he reminded her as he kissed her, ‘although God knows when that'll be. This caracal business seems to have really upset him. He said he wouldn't be returning for some time. Like me, he wanted the cat killed but in the end you couldn't help sympathising with it. Everybody was against it, so no wonder it turned into a killer. What an inglorious end, though: running the gauntlet throughout its life, then blown to bits by Hughes and Hidderley-Walker so that it was virtually unrecognisable. With the injuries it already had, it would probably have died within a few hours, anyway. What a pity it didn't head back to the hills and die in peace in some secret place. It was a killer but it deserved a better fate than that. Colin was disgusted, especially when he heard that old Walker was going to take the remains and try to get a taxidermist to do a repair job so that he could have it hung up on the wall of his lounge.’

‘Disgusting!’ she replied. ‘But let's forget the caracal now. And Pentre. With three grand on its way, you can leave commune life behind for good.’

‘And drugs,’ there was a note of triumph in his voice. ‘I haven't had a fix for over a fortnight now.’

She was going to say, ‘We've both got a lot to thank the caracal for,’ but changed her mind. Violent death was something best forgotten - right now she was in the mood for love.

Epilogue

The obituary of Timothy Grayling, OBE, replaced the editorial in the 6 December issue of the Sporting Gazette, the relevant page carrying a narrow black border. The cover picture was, however, as colourful as ever, reproduced from a well-known painting depicting a fox at bay, a pack of hounds bunching for the kill, the scarlet-coated huntsmen topping the distant horizon. The pursued creature gave the impression that it was almost relieved now that the end was insight.

As reported in a previous issue, Mr Timothy Grayling, OBE, a correspondent of this journal for the past fifteen years, was savaged and killed by the ‘Black Beast of Radnor’ during a hunt for this man-eating creature. Tim Grayling, an unselfish campaigner for field sports, was endeavouring to obtain a photograph of the caracal for the Sporting Gazette when the animal attacked him.

We can only pay tribute to his bravery and extend bur sympathy to his widow and family. He will be sadly missed by a great number of friends and readers.

On another page was a photograph of the caracal displaying the talents of an unknown taxidermist. In a crouched position, ready to spring, massive fangs bared, the glass eyes were a mockery of the species.

The caption read: The man-eating caracal which was shot by Mr Keith Hidderley-Walker as it stood at bay after a prolonged hunt. Mr Hidderley-Walker is currently advertising for a single-handed gamekeeper to replace Mr Melvyn Hughes, who has recently retired from the profession.’

The End

Thank you for purchasing this ebook.
I hope you enjoyed the read!.
Guy.

This ebook is the fourteenth book to be published as part of a project to convert Guy's entire back catalogue to ebook format. Beginning July 2010 it is expected to have all books available by the end of 2012.

The list of books so far published is :

1. Werewolf by Moonlight.

2. The Sucking Pit.

3. The Slime Beast.

4. Night of the Crabs.

5. The Truckers 1 - The Black Knights.

6. The Truckers 2 - Hi-Jack!.

7. Return of the Werewolf.

8. Bamboo Guerillas.

9. Killer Crabs.

10. Bats Out of Hell.

11. The Son of the Werewolf.

12. Locusts.

13. The Origin of the Crabs.

14. Caracal.

The next book will be :

15. Thirst.

"Mel Timberley, professional lorry driver, swerves to avoid a hare and crashes into Claerwen Reservoir, polluting the entire water supply of Birmingham with the most deadly weedkiller ever created. Ron Blythe was the chemist who helped to create the spray and now, with thousands of people suffering and dying, his conscience forces him to try to work to find an antidote. Unfortunately, he gets stranded inside Birmingham, now sealed off, and full of anarchists, escape criminals and weedkiller-poisoned sufferers from the Thirst, all of which turn the city into a hell inside England."

To view all ebooks currently available, including the one above, please follow the link below.
View Ebook Catalogue

Best regards,

Guy and all at Black Hill Books.