We Bought a Zoo. Benjamin Mee

before you go any further, you need to get a survey done by a zoo professional who can tell you whether it works or not.’ Suzy shared my concerns about the possibility of a black hole, having read about Dartmoor’s decline through the zoo-community literature. Did she have anyone in mind for this inspection? ‘There’s someone I used to work with at Jersey who could give you a pretty definitive opinion,’ said Suzy. ‘He’s a bit too senior to do that sort of thing now I think, but I’ll see what he thinks.’

      And that’s how we came to meet Nick Lindsay, Head of International Zoo Programs for the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), in the car park of Dartmoor Wildlife Park a few days later. Melissa and myself, who was now about eight months pregnant, shook hands with this tall slightly avuncular man and agreed that we should walk up the drive along the normal visitor access route, to get a feel for how the park works. We had commissioned a report from ZSL and Nick kindly agreed to carry out the inspection himself, as he too had been following the plight of the zoo, and as a local boy had an interest in it. He’d even stayed with his mum down the road so that we didn’t have to pay a hotel bill.

      On the way up the drive we were as candid as we could be. ‘We know nothing about zoos, but if this really is a viable zoo do you think it’s possible for us to do it?’ ‘Oh there’s no reason for you to know about zoos in order to buy one,’ laughed Nick. ‘You’d have to be a bit mad but I assume you’ve got that part covered. Let’s just see if it really is a viable zoo first.’

      Our first stop was Ronnie the tapir, whose enclosure runs parallel to the drive. Nick bent down and called him over, and to my surprise he came. I had never seen a tapir this close before, and was impressed that this large strange-looking animal was so biddable and friendly. Resembling a large pig with a hump on its back and a miniature elephant’s trunk for a nose, the Indonesians say that God made the tapir from the parts left over when all the other animals were finished.

      Nick held his fingers through the mesh, and Ronnie wib-bled his extended proboscis onto it, and then onto our hands, happy to make our acquaintance. With this charming encounter, however, came the first of the things that would need addressing. ‘This fence should have a stand-off barrier,’ said Nick. ‘We have to be sure his house is heated in the winter, and it looks a bit muddy in there for him. He’s an ungulate so his feet are quite delicate.’ I’d been determined to take notes all day to keep track of the kind of expenditure we would be looking at, but already I’d run into an unforeseen problem. Tapir bogey, all over my hand and notepad. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Nick. ‘I’ll put everything in the report.’

      The day went well, and we were halfway around the park when we were intercepted by Robin, a strained-looking man with a long grey ponytail, who introduced himself as a member of staff, clearly prepared to undergo the unpleasantness of seeing us off the park, though not relishing it. Though we had made an appointment to view, we should be escorted at all times for legal and security reasons, he told us, and was our guide for the rest of the outside tour. It soon became clear that there was no question about the park that Robin could not answer. History, attendance figures, animal diets, names of plants, he knew it all. And then something happened which gave him a tricky one. A huge shot boomed out, echoing across the valley. It could only have been a gunshot, and from something big, the kind of sound you generally only hear in films. We stopped in our tracks. ‘Er, bit of trouble with the tigers?’ I asked. Robin paused, looked a bit more strained but now tinged with sadness, and said. ‘No it’s one of the lionesses, actually. She had lung cancer.’ He turned to lead us on and I looked at Nick, utterly agog. I had never been anywhere where they had shot a lion within fifty metres of where I was standing. Was this OK? Are they allowed to do that? Does it sound justified? Is this somehow connected with the black hole? Nick looked slightly taken aback, but seemed to take it in his stride. ‘If she had lung cancer and the vet says it’s time, it’s completely justified,’ he said. And the use of a gun rather than an injection was also quite normal, if the animal was difficult or dangerous to dart. So it was all OK, everything normal, just that a lion had been shot. If the Head of International Zoo Programmes at ZSL said it was alright, it must be, but I confess I found it slightly unsettling.

      So did Rob, the man who pulled the trigger. We met him later in the Jaguar Restaurant, along with Ellis, and Ellis’s sister Maureen. Ellis was also unsettled, by a toothache he said, which is why he was holding a glass of whiskey. There was a difficult, tense atmosphere as the edifice of a once successful family business lay in ruins, creditors circled and emotions were near the surface. But there were questions we and Nick needed to ask Ellis, and he also had questions for us. Rob seemed almost close to tears after his ordeal of shooting the lioness, Peggy, an animal he had known for 13 years, and was reluctant to come to the table at first, but Maureen persuaded him it might be necessary as he now held the licence to keep the collection on site under the DWA. Ellis paced the room, cursing, not quite under his breath.

      Eventually we all sat down and Nick said hello to Ellis as a teacher might greet a former student, expelled but at the reunion, as was only right. They knew each other from various Zoo Federation meetings over the years, and Ellis nodded, acknowledging that here was a man with whom he needed to cooperate. Nick began his line of questions for his report, and everything went well until he mentioned the name of Peter Wearden, the South Hams Environmental Health Officer. ‘Peter Wearden? Peter Wearden? I’ll kill him, I will. I’ll cut his head off with a sword and stick it on a spike at the top of the drive. That’ll show them what I think of him.’ He went on for a while, explaining how he had killed men before in the war – ‘I’m good at killing men’ – as well as every kind of animal on the planet. He wouldn’t make a fuss about shooting a lion, like Rob.

      At this point I interjected, and said I personally didn’t think it was unreasonable for Rob to be upset, but we needed to talk about Peter Wearden. ‘I’d kill him without a thought, just like the lion,’ he said, looking me in the eye. Not sure what to say, I thought I’d try to claw back towards some references to reality. ‘Well, that would at least sort out your accommodation problems for the next few years,’ I said. He weighed this remark, looked at me again and said, ‘I’ve got his coffin ready for him up here before.’ And it was true. A coffin with a picture of Peter Wearden in it had been in the restaurant for a period of about six months, even while the park was open to the public. ‘Now then, Ellis,’ said Nick, moving seamlessly on, ‘what about those stand-off barriers?’

      Ellis was polite but perceptibly preoccupied as he took us on the tour of the house again, even more briskly than last time, and I was surprised to see that it seemed in significantly worse condition than I remembered it. Whether this was cosmetic due to an increase in mess, or me misremembering the fabric of the place it was hard to tell, but the impression was strong enough to cause a new entry in my mental spreadsheet of expenditure.

      The first warning was the increase in the strength of the odour in the kitchen at the front of the house. This was Ellis’s entry point, and obviously one of the key rooms he used, but it stank. Last time it stank badly, but this time the stench was like a fog which you felt was clinging to your clothes. Women in Melissa’s condition are particularly sensitive to smells, and she nearly gagged as she passed through, pressing her hand to her mouth in case she had to forcibly suppress some sick – it is impolite after all, when someone is proudly showing you round their home, to vomit in it.

      The main source of the smell seemed to be a bucket in the corner containing raw mackerel, and dead day-old chicks to be fed in the mornings to the heron and jackdaw population. It was an ancient, yellowed plastic vessel and there had to be some doubt about its structural integrity, as a large, ancient, multicoloured stain rippled outwards from its base like a sulphur bog, but more virulent. Even Ellis was moved to comment; ‘Bit whiffy in here. But you don’t have to keep that there,’ he added, gesturing towards the bucket. ‘You’ll be moving things around, I suppose.’ Somehow I didn’t think that simply repositioning the bucket would expunge this odour. I vowed on that threshold that, if we got the park, no food would ever be prepared in this room again.

      The rest of the house seemed more dishevelled than we remembered it, and we still didn’t have time to get a full picture of how the floor plan worked. Half the house had been used for students, and this section was