Natural History by Neil Cross Page A

all die.’
    Harriet, the Head Keeper, gave him a worried look, which he ignored. But she kept squinting at him so he said, ‘Well, honestly.’
    And he saw it on her face: nobody liked the Bachelors.
    She said, ‘What can I say? They’re here, because they’re here, because they’re here.’
    A week later, Charlie noticed Uncle Joe, face down by the water under the shade of a chestnut tree.
    He and Harriet, who carried a tranquillizer pistol at her hip, entered the compound like thieves, scattering dried mangoes and hazelnuts; unusual morsels to distract the fretful Bachelors.
    Many of Uncle Joe’s bones were broken. His testicles had been bitten off. While he lay bleeding and helpless, the Bachelors had stamped on him, bitten him, punched him. They had ripped out his fingernails and torn out his throat.
    The remaining Bachelors watched Charlie and Harriet from their silent gallery. They were wary, embarrassed, curious.
    Mindful of their gaze, Charlie said: ‘Who did it?’
    Harriet licked a dry lower lip.
    â€˜All of them.’
    They delayed opening Monkeyland to get Uncle Joe to surgery. But he was dead anyway.
    Charlie had Uncle Joe’s blood on his clothes and face, and Uncle Joe’s blood in his hair and it was beginning to smell.
    He went to shower.
    Patrick chaired that morning’s meeting. Punters were already milling around outside—a little girl eating a 99, her face smeared in chocolate.
    Patrick said, ‘Be honest, none of us is going to miss that old bastard. So tough shit—he’s dead. If I could give the rest of them a containable virus and free up the compound for something more cuddly, I’d do it. But here’s the thing: we’ve already had a high-profile death. And yeah, Rue was a sweetheart. And yeah, the publicity brought in the punters, so God bless her. So—dead Rue means good for business. Dead Uncle Joe? It’s looking like Inspector fucking Morse.’
    Harriet said, ‘You can’t compare it.’
    â€˜You can if you’re an idiot with a newspaper to fill in the silly season. What happened to Uncle Joe doesn’t leave this office.’
    They nodded. Patrick shuffled random papers.
    He said, ‘I hate doing this, but if we want to keep food on the table, if we want to keep this place running, we’ve got no choice.’
    The distrustful keepers reminded him of the Bachelor Group. Everyone agreed, and nobody looked him in the eye. He thanked them, dismissed them, and they shuffled out.
    They got rid of the body that evening, and Patrick composed a death notice: Uncle Joe was one of Monkeyland’s great characters and no one who worked with him will ever forget him.
    He had the obituary copied and laminated and put on the information boards outside the Bachelor Compound. They didn’t have a photograph of Uncle Joe; instead, they used the new Monkeyland logo.
    But Uncle Joe had left no clear successor, and peace didn’t settle upon the Bachelors. There were more urgent confabulations, more conspiratorial huddles, more ambitious princes and artful politicians. And there were more deafening displays to amuse and disturb Monkeyland’s paying customers.
    But the violence wasn’t comical. It was explosive and riotous, and the screeches and howls dipped and swooped around the compound like bats.
    Women covered the eyes of their baffled children. Men looked on, fascinated and aroused. And they bared their teeth and pointed while, beneath them, in the compound, chimps broke out in rage and hate and anxiety and blood.
    And at night Patrick turned over, troubled even in his dreams by the war brewing in the Bachelor Compound.
    He was watching the capuchins—longing to see them tackle a full-sized duck—when a junior keeper approached, carrying a handwritten message from Mrs de Frietas. The message told Patrick that
    1) he had a visitor and
    2) he’d left his mobile phone in the