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PROLOGUE

Out of the Rain

YOUNG MASTER ROURKE SAT UPRIGHT in his armchair, startled awake by a sudden noise Despite his name, he was actually an old hty-fifth birthday He was known as ‘Young Master Rourke’ because his father had been the one and only ‘Mister Rourke’ in the area for many, many years Old Mister Rourke had built Rourke Castle and had bought up all the railways, shipping lines and whaling stations forso, he’d become one of the richest and most influential men of his time

Most of the riches were now gone, but Young Master Rourke still owned Rourke Castle A vast, ra palace that extended across two sides of a hill, it had towers, stables, three ballrooms, a Greek teyptian pyrah (The pyramid looked like stone on the outside but was in fact hollow, made of concrete slabs over a steel skeleton)

Rourke Castle was so big that it was spread across tns Half ithin the bounds of a s town When the castle had still had staff, they’d used to joke about going to Portland or going to Dogton when crossing from one side of the castle to the other

Over the years more and more of the castle had been locked up and left, as it was too expensive to e rooms to smaller ones as his needs shrank Finally he left the e near the front gates, past the lake that had once boasted real icebergs and penguins, even in suuins had been sent to a proper zoo The lake was just a dark expanse of water, choked by rotten lilies

The lodge and the land around it were half a ht this iotten that someone had once told him he should take care to stay on the Portland side of the boundary at all times

The sound that had woken hi Master Rourke tilted his head back as he tried to work out what it was The grandfather clock in the corner of the room ticked slowly and melancholically, but that wasn’t it The tiht and the clock far fro

The night was quiet for a few seconds Then the noise came a third time – a quick rush of beats that swept across the roof and were gone

‘Is thatrain?’the sleep from his eyes

He took off his half-ilded barorandfather clock

The baro at FAIR

‘Stupid thing,’ Young Master Rourke mumbled

He struggled out of his deep leather armchair and crossed the room to tap the face of the barometer firmly The needle quivered, thenthe weather should be fair

Another round of what sounded like heavy raindrops crossed the roof Rourke went to theand looked out There were still a few la on the broad avenue that led up towards the castle, alongside the lake Above, the sky was cloudy and utterly empty of stars, but Rourke couldn’t see any actual rain

‘Just a shower, you daft old fool,’ he told himself

‘Forget about it and go to bed’

He bent down and picked up the book he’d been reading, hisinstantly Rourke had read Gorillas vs The Fist before, but it was one ofpulpy old detective stories was one of his two acy of his father’s that he actually treasured: the anierie

In his father’s tiers and other kinds of exotic ani, three lemurs, a zebra, a jackal, tolves and a macaw named Cornelia, as at least a hundred years old and ed to an actual pirate

In old Mister Rourke’s day all the animals had been housed in a co of the castle But that area was a weedy wasteland now The rees and enclosures built on the old polo field, right next to the lodge where Young Master Rourke lived It was nowhere near as ierie had been, but it was closer and much easier to deal with

The new cages were also outside Portland’s boundary

Rattling rain fell on the roof again as Rourke shuffled out of his study into the lodge’s main corridor This time, when the heavy beat of the drops ceased, a sudden loud bang i the roof

‘That’s not rain’ whispered Rourke, looking up to follow the sound as it travelled towards th

e back of the lodge His heart was suddenly thuood for him ‘That’s footsteps’

The sound stopped Rourke’s head snapped back down as a lassto the left of the back door

There was someone out there – someone who had apparently come doith the rain

It was only then that Rourke re inside the Portland town liht happen if he didn’t

The book was still in his hand He raised it, his gnarled old fingers ht expect, and flipped it open to the back page, where there was a simple white sticker with a phone number and address of a business in Portland

Rourke stumbled to the ancient phone that sat on a seventeenth-century chestnut table in the corridor and put one shaking finger into the rotary dial

At that moment he heard Cornelia the erie but most often slept in a custoe Cornelia norirl?’ and ‘Nellie wants a nut’ Now she started shrieking

‘To the boats! Abandon ship!’

The other ani noises that Rourke had never heard, not in all his long lifeti, barking and biting, shaking their cages and filling the night with unnatural terror

Frantically, Rourke dialled the number

As the dial whirred in its final rotation, the noise of the animals suddenly stopped, as if a conductor had snapped down his arms for a sudden finish

Rourke held the phone to his ear, hardly hearing the sound of ringing at the other end All his senses were focused towards the back door and the erie beyond

The anies were swinging open, one by one These sounds were familiar to Rourke, who opened them every day There was the screech of the chi to oil for weeks There was the scrape of steel on concrete, the bent door in the fence that surrounded the wolves’ enclosure

The phone kept ringing, and now Rourke could hear anih he still heard the soft pads of the jackal, the hooves of the zebra, and the shuffling gait of the warthog The wolves, he assu with their characteristic silence

‘What?’ asked a tired voice on the phone Awoken up so late

Rourke’s et any air into his lungs The uncaged aniainst the stained glass

‘No!’ he tried to say, the word e as little more than a croak ‘No!’

The handle of the back door slowly turned The door edged open

‘Who is this?’ asked the voice on the phone

The back door swung open Aa hat and a trench coat just like the one on the cover of Rourke’s book, except both were thoroughly wet Water dripped from the brim of the hat that shadowed this man’s face

The anier, silent coh the doorway