The sight was bad enough, but when I opened the car door and got a hit of the audio track, my blood ran cold. The sound of the animals screaming yanked at some primitive part of my being and I found myself running towards the conflagration as fast as I was able. Fire fighters, police and staff were swarming like ants in seeming disorder. I saw a face I recognised from the previous day’s interviews and grabbed at her arm as she ran past, terrified.

‘Where’s Bennett?’ I yelled.

She tried to pull out of my grasp, before recognition crossed her face and she stopped still, sobbing. ‘Cassie, he’s after Cassie.’

Shit, the elephant. I sprinted around the side of the main area to where she’d been secured when I last saw her. The area was full of roadies, frantically moving the animals away to safety, but I could see no sign of Cassie. The air was rank with the stench of burning plastic, a lung-searing, eye-watering miasma. It must have been the seating in the big top that was fuelling the flames.

I grabbed at another hand and yelled, ‘Bennett, where’s Bennett?’

My eyes followed the pointing arm and I got a glimpse of the manmountain heading away in the opposite direction. I ran after him, weaving through the throng of desperate, wild-eyed people. After colliding with a semi-clad man also at full tilt, I picked myself back up off the ground, the air knocked out of me. The sound of the monkeys’ screeching grated at every nerve ending in my body like a thousand nails scratching blackboards. I tried to ignore that and the pain in my knee and continued on.

‘Terry,’ I yelled out, ‘Terry, wait.’

His head swung around and I saw desolation etched into his face. He grabbed me by the shoulders when I caught up to him.

‘Cassie, she’s gone berserk, you’ve got to help me.’

‘What do you mean she’s gone berserk?’

Tears rolled down his stricken face. ‘A burning chunk of tent canvas landed on her. She’s pulled her chain, she’s hurt and panicked. She’s already trampled someone.’

Shit.

‘What can I do?’ I asked, not having any clue as to how he thought I could deal with a four-tonne rampaging elephant. It was then I noticed that he’d been trying to hide something under his coat. He pulled out a shotgun, a single-shot, 12-gauge shotgun. My eyes dropped to the gun, then raised back to his face.

‘We’ve got to catch up with her.’

‘Which way?’