Whales and a Watery Grave Read online

  “Come on, Madi. It’s like you just said… this will all blow over in no time! Stephen King is super famous but he’s not in the papers every week. You could be like that… but with comics!” Auryn lovingly pushed a chunk of my hair back from my forehead.

  It flopped right back down.

  “I don’t want you to lose your passion! That’s actually part of the reason why we’re here.” For the briefest of moments guilt flashed across Auryn’s face.

  “What are you not telling me?”

  “It’s nothing really…” Auryn began as we walked out through arrivals. He didn’t get to finish his sentence because we walked out through the double doors into the meet-up zone and someone started shouting my name at the top of their voice. For one horrible moment, I feared I’d somehow missed some huge disaster or truth-unveiling that would have meant the press had bothered to stalk me all the way to Mallorca.

  The truth was much worse.

  A man dressed in a crumpled linen suit, waving a sign with my name and a printout of the Monday’s Menagerie logo written on it ducked beneath the tape barrier.

  Or, he would have done, but he’d underestimated his own height and somehow managed to catch the tape on his back and drag the bollards with him, causing a giant mess of tape and bollards.

  “Super fan?” Auryn said out of the corner of his mouth.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied, feeling dread strike me as I realised there had been something else on this man’s sign. It was the logo of my new publisher.

  “Whoops, sorry about that,” the sandy-haired man said, getting to his feet and struggling to kick his foot free from the last of the barrier tape. In the end he gave up and let the airport officials work around him, trying to piece their barrier back together whilst tutting loudly in Spanish. He thrust out a hand, and when I gave him mine, he shook it vigorously. I silently gave that as one point in his favour.

  “It’s wonderful to meet you at last, Madi. May I call you Madi? I don’t want to presume anything, of course.”

  “Madi is fine,” I told him, still bemused by this surprise delegation.

  Then we all waited for a moment.

  “Oh! I’m Colin Chambers, your new publicist.”

  “Nice to meet you, Colin,” Auryn said, stepping in with his own handshake. “Did you just happen to be in Mallorca and heard we were coming over?” There was a warning in his voice that I thought no one could miss, but I was mistaken.

  “Heavens, no! I came over on the very early morning flight, so I could be here to meet and greet you. When you called the big bosses yesterday and filled them in, they put me on the first flight they could find out here. I’m going to be at your side helping you all the way!” He grinned broadly.

  I knew my mouth had dropped open a little bit but I couldn’t help it.

  “Why?” Auryn asked, sounding as exasperated as I felt.

  “It’s my job as a publicist to guide you through the challenging landscape of every-day press opportunities. I won’t let a single one go to waste, don’t you worry.” The smile stayed on his face.

  “You do know we’re here on holiday, right? I did explain that to the company.” I was trying to both be reasonable and let Auryn know that Colin the publicist was absolutely nothing to do with me.

  “Of course! A bit of sun, sea, and sand is always excellent. Perhaps we can get some candid shots of you drawing some comics on the beach. I bet that would go down well. I’ll alert the local press that you’re here. I believe your comics have been selling well in the Spanish market.”

  “No!” Auryn and I chorused in unison.

  I shut my eyes for a moment and tried a different tack. “I would love to meet up with you and chat about all the plans for publicity and promotion you might have… when we’re back in England. This is just a fortnight away as a holiday. Everyone needs breaks. I bet even you take holidays, right?” There, I was using my slightly rusty customer service skills.

  “This is my idea of a holiday! We’re on a beautiful island bursting with inspiration. Plus, everyone loves to know what their favourite celebrity is up to during their time off!” Both the man and his smile would not quit.

  I could tell Auryn was focusing on me intently, waiting for me to sort this out. “Okay, great. Could you go out and find out which of the taxis goes close to Santa Ponsa?”

  “Sure! Absolutely! I will be back in a jiffy.” The tall man hurried off, but not without bumping into a woman with a heavily laden luggage trolley and causing her bags to scatter everywhere.

  Amidst the apologies and shouting Northerner, Auryn turned to me. “We’re not staying in Santa Ponsa. And we’ve hired a car.”

  “I know. Let’s go,” I said, pulling on his arm as we slipped through the crowd and away from the publicist from hell.

  “Do you think we were mean for losing Colin like that? He seemed nice. Just a bit…”

  “…nuts?” Auryn finished, loading up on the dauphinoise potatoes with bacon we’d managed to throw together using the tiny gas hob and microwave that were present in the villa. We’d intended to go out for our first night, but meeting Colin had shaken us both more than I knew we were admitting. Coming to Mallorca hadn’t felt like a big deal until now. I’d thought that taking a holiday would be no problem at all. I really wasn’t that famous…

  “I’m sure he’s just doing his job, but does he really have to do it whilst we’re on holiday?” I continued.

  Auryn shook his head. “You took me through your new contract. There was nothing about you being assigned a hyperactive, accident prone promoter.”

  “Maybe they think they’re being helpful.” I frowned. “It is over the top though, right? I’m not being selfish or anything, am I?”

  “No, it’s completely crazy. You said you didn’t have any interviews or anything in your schedule for the next two weeks because the new company was sorting things out and they said it would take time. That was part of the reason why I said now was such a great time for a getaway.”

  “You’re right,” I said, shaking my head. “Anyway, no one knows exactly where we are apart from the firm you booked this villa with. We should just forget it and I’m sure it can all be sorted out when we’re back.”

  “Exactly,” Auryn said, lifting his glass of made-up holiday cocktail and clinking it against mine. “We have a microwaved feast, a really strange fruit-and-weird-foreign-liquor cocktail, and enough snacks to feed the entire zoo’s staff. It’s the perfect start to our holiday!”

  “I will drink to that,” I said, right before I choked on the fumes from my drink. “ Adding that Siriracha-chacha, or whatever it was called, might have been a mistake.”

  Auryn took a sip of his own drink and then nodded. “Come to think of it, it might have been on the food sauces side of things rather than the alcohol.”

  “Why would anyone put those two things so close together? Especially in a town that, frankly, caters to silly English tourists.”

  Auryn gave me a look.

  “Okay, that’s exactly why they do it,” I allowed.

  “Drink up! There’s more where that came from,” Auryn said with a grin, taking another gulp of his cocktail. “You know, it grows on you…”

  I waited.

  “No, it doesn’t. This is so awful. How about we start again? There are off licences still open this late, right?”

  “Let’s see… it’s a tourist town that caters to British holidaymakers with the sole aim of selling them things.”

  “That would be a ‘yes’ then,” Auryn concluded. “Hooray for the British!”

  “Said no local ever,” I finished with a guilty smile. “Let’s go buy some more weird looking spirits and liquors. I bet I can find the weirdest one.”

  “I’ll take that bet because I’m going to find the weirdest one.”

  We both got to our feet. For once, neither of us were thinking about the zoo, or publishing careers. We were just two best friends on holiday together, ready to let loos
e before returning to the real world.

  “This is so great,” I said to Auryn as we walked out of the villa in t-shirts and shorts before shivering a little in the evening chill. Even in Mallorca, it wasn’t summer yet. But being English tourists, we would never ever admit that.

  I winced when Auryn cracked open the curtains the next morning.

  “Ah, would you look at that? Another beautiful sunny day. Do you think they ever get bored of this?” he said, gesturing to the harbour view and the mountainside beyond.

  I moved the duvet back over my head. “Probably.”

  “Oh no… did your green sparkly drink come back to haunt you? My blue one hasn’t done anything at all.” He rubbed a hand through his blonde hair. “Come to think of it… I’m not convinced it wasn’t some kind of alcoholic rehydration drink. Something of a contradiction, but hey… seems to have done the trick. I feel fine! Or maybe it’s just because…” He turned to look at me guiltily.

  “If you say ‘because I’m old’, I will be forced to do something terrible to you,” I warned him.

  “Because you’re small! I was going to say ‘small’.” He walked over and pulled the duvet off of me before bending down to kiss me. “Ew, you smell like a table in a bar that’s covered with a sticky mix of all kinds of drinks.” He kissed me anyway. “Better get up and at ‘em! I arranged a meeting with Nile for ten, which is like… nine British time. I didn’t really think of that when we stayed up so late drinking and watching films last night.” He shrugged. “Can’t be helped. Let’s go make a great first impression!”

  I glared at him.

  “An average first impression!” he amended.

  “A challenge. I like that,” I sniped, crawling off of the bed and walking to the bathroom.

  “Ten minutes before we leave!” Auryn called after me. I decided to assume he was joking.

  The Big Blue Marine Park was a lot nicer than I must have unknowingly expected. Perhaps it was snobby of me to have such preconceived notions of rundown and outdated water worlds, filled with overstuffed aquariums and performing animal shows. Instead, The Big Blue had notices everywhere informing visitors that they were mostly run as an animal sanctuary and that all animals they did house, who hadn’t been rescued, were bred in captivity. I’d also known that a lot of aquariums had reputations for taking from the wild. It was reassuring to see that this place was different.

  When we walked through the nicely paved and well-landscaped park, I silently chided myself for having formed an opinion before we’d arrived. I was supposed to be an animal welfare consultant, judging on a case by case basis.

  “Pretty impressive, right?” Auryn said, gesturing to a couple of sea turtles, visible through the glass of a spacious land and water enclosure.

  “It all looks great,” I confessed, feeling distinctly mollified. I’d let social media slating and damning documentaries like Blackfish get inside my head. While I would never argue that there wasn’t cruelty in certain aquatic parks - much like cruelty still existed in zoos - I also now thought that it was only fair to judge places on a case by case basis. On the surface at least, The Big Blue looked like a poster child for what a marine park should be.

  “How come no one else is around?” I asked, suddenly noticing the absence of visitors.

  “Uh, the park is actually closed on Mondays. Nile was pretty insistent that we come in today, hence us walking in through that concealed staff only entrance.”

  “I just thought you were fare dodging.”

  “Hilarious,” Auryn said, nudging me in the ribs. “However, while we’re still alone, I will say that it is a bit odd. I guess I thought that Nile picked today so we could have our meeting and have a look around, but… I don’t know. Now we’re here, something feels off.”

  He didn’t get a chance to explain any further because, the next moment, a man with olive skin and hair in a stylish side parting walked around the corner of the turtle enclosure.

  “Auryn! It’s been too long,” he said, greeting my fiancé with a hug. “Look at us! We’re both responsible adults with zoos and parks to run. Who would have thought it?”

  “Certainly not our course instructor,” Auryn replied with a grin.

  “And you, of course, are Madi. I love your comic book,” he greeted me with his perfect English that had just the slightest of American twangs to it.

  “Thank you,” I said, still finding it surprising when people greeted me that way.

  “Did Auryn brief you on our little problem?” Nile asked, suddenly turning serious.

  I shot a sideways glance at Auryn. Last night, when we’d been well into our weird drinks, he’d finally spat out what he’d been about to tell me at the airport right before Colin had interrupted. “He mentioned that you wanted me to take a look around and share my thoughts… as an animal welfare consultant.” I wanted to get that straight. This was not going to be some weird celebrity endorsement - although I knew Auryn would never have knowingly signed me up for such a thing.

  “I wasn’t sure on the details. I think you’d better recap now we’re here,” Auryn said, surprising me - and not in a good way.

  It didn’t escape my notice when Nile glanced around before beckoning us to follow him. Only when we were actually in the turtle enclosure, stood on the nicely thought-out faux beach area, did he speak. “I’m glad Auryn didn’t try to explain too much because it really is a complicated situation we’re in here. I know you guys are together, but please don’t think badly of him for not trying to explain.”

  I nodded, finding I wasn’t about to hold a grudge. Nile was earnest, and I appreciated that he was telling the truth.

  “We’ve got an awkward situation at the park. I know you haven’t had a chance to look around properly yet but I should tell you that as part of our work as a sanctuary, we do take in large marine mammals and fish. We’ve got a sea pen, which is where we try to house compatible animals we’re rehabilitating, but sometimes it gets full, or we have animals that have ‘conflicting interests’, shall we say. Then, we have to make the tough decision to bring them in to one of our tanks - for as short a time as possible, of course.” He sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair. It didn’t move an inch. “The problem is, you can write those facts on as many information cards as you like. You can give educational talks and blog about everything you’re doing online, but still someone is going to take offence and claim animal cruelty. We really are trying to do our best for the animals here, but recently, we’ve started to have more and more trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?” I asked, but I already suspected the answer. Despite both Auryn’s and Nile’s collective cover-up excuses, I was starting to have a clue as to why I hadn’t heard that my services would be needed during our ‘holiday’.

  “An animal action group has set up shop outside the entrance of the park. Every day, they harass people who come for a visit. We’ve tried everything with them but nothing works. They say we’re murderers, and so on and so forth.” The words might have sounded flippant but I could read on Nile’s face just how deeply frustrating he found this. Having already been surprised once today by my first impression of The Big Blue I was still reserving my opinion on whether or not the park was everything he claimed it to be, but if it was, I thought he was right to feel that way. If there was animal abuse going on at an institution charged with conservation, as all zoos were, then I fully supported protests designed to draw attention to flaws and eventually shut a place down. What I couldn’t stand was wilful ignorance and jumping on the bandwagon. Time would tell which sort of protesters The Big Blue was dealing with.

  “What else is happening?” I asked, sensing that protesters weren’t the reason for the stress I could now see etched on Auryn’s friend’s face.

  “Well, they’re not just protesting outside of the park. We’ve had break-ins, and one night, someone managed to get into the enclosure we’re in right now, grab one of our smaller loggerhead turtles, and release it into the op
en sea.” His face screwed up for a moment before he continued. “In the summer, that turtle would have had a fair chance of survival, but they did this at the end of February, right after the coldest month we’ve had in a decade. There’s no way that turtle survived with the sea as cold as it was. It just angers me how misguided these do-gooders are! I even told them what they'd done after it happened, but they just flatly denied involvement and continued to look smug, as if they’d achieved some great feat, instead of pointlessly killing an animal that was bred in captivity and part of an education programme.” He hesitated for a moment, taking a couple of very obvious calming breaths. “The point is, we’re all concerned that this group of protesters are planning some bigger stunts, and it’s only going to end in death for the animals. They mostly protest about our larger marine mammals that we try to keep in the sea pen, before releasing those that are ready, but it’s been a season of bad weather. The sea pen is looking pretty full and we’ve had to start using a couple of tanks, which is only making these fanatics worse. Then, just last week, something happened that meant things were really stirred up.”

  He sucked his lips in for a moment. “Open water sharks do not have a history of surviving in captivity. However, their species are diminishing in Mediterranean waters, which is why we made the decision to try to save an animal that certainly wouldn’t have lived without intervention, but admittedly, may not survive with it.”

  “What have you done?” I asked, feeling a whole lot of trepidation.

  “We’ve got an injured great white shark in our largest tank,” Nile confessed.

  I knew my mouth was hanging open, but I couldn’t help it. My interest in animals and their habitats and general welfare had meant I’d put a lot of research in over the years that covered all kinds of animals in captivity. I would never profess to be an expert on aquatic life, but I did know a thing or two about past disasters involving marine animals kept in captivity. Great white sharks were unfortunately one of these great tragedies.