“Only a show?” asked Jim incredulous.   He started to tell the ringmaster just what sort of show he thought it was, but before he got the chance, a rifle shot rang out from behind the circus tent.

At the sound of the shot all Hell broke loose as the large crowd panicked and fled for the nearest exits, preventing Jim and Paul from leaving the tent.

A second gunshot rang out, followed by the sound of frightened animals lowing.   Both policemen had the same thought, however, it was Paul Bell who said, “The ALA!   It has to be the bloody ALA!”

The ALA was the Animal Liberation Agency, an Australia-wide organisation of hundreds of dedicated animal-welfare people.   They had been trailing the Circus of the Grotesque ever since it had somehow been given clearance to start an eight-month tour of the Australian continent, three months earlier.

Like most people Jim Kane usually regarded protest groups as loonies, but looking down at the plastic bucket containing the bloody chicken head, Jim couldn’t help sympathising with the animal-libbers.   Specialising in abuses of all kinds against live animals, the French-based circus had been picketed right across Europe for years before a loophole in Australian law had allowed the circus into the country.

*      *      *

Around near the animal pens behind the large tent in Hautman’s Paddock (actually a hundred-hectare allotment) chaos reigned supreme.   Circus staff wrestled with ALA members, trying to prevent them from freeing caged animals.   While those that had already been freed ran hither and thither squawking, squealing, and lowing from a mixture of panic and relief at being released from their tiny prisons.

Sweating furiously despite the frigid night air, Andrew McTaggart raced across to a wooden cage to help two teenage girls free a haggard-looking ancient giraffe.   A short, portly, middle-aged man, who looked every bit the Certified Practising Accountant that by day he was, after eight years Drew still had trouble believing that he was crazy enough to give up the comfort of his warm bed to take part in these late-night raids in the middle of the near-Antarctic Victorian winter.

Not that Drew felt the cold, burning up as he was with the heat of his exertions.   Running a hand down his prominent belly, he thought, ‘I’m not built for this kind of thing!   I must be crazy!   Why do I do it?’