'Okay, okay. I'm ready to talk about the nature of the bites now.' He finally turned to us and made his pronouncement. 'I understand you're making casts of the bite marks, Walter?'

'Yes, we lifted the marks with fingerprint powder. The casts should be ready in a day or two. We swabbed to gather saliva, of course.'

'Well, good. That's the right approach, I think. I'm ready to state my piece, my educated guess.'

"That's excellent. Alien,'Lee said in a soft, very dignified voice. He wore a white coat with the nickname Dragon stitched on one pocket. He was a tall man, probably six-two, and weighed at least two-fifty. He carried himself with confidence. 'Dr Pang is a friend I have used before,' Lee continued. 'He's a veterinary dental expert from the Animal Medical Center in Berkeley. Alien is one of the best in the world, and we're lucky to have him on this case.'

'Thank you for your time, Dr Pang,' Inspector Hughes said. 'This is terrific of you to help.'

'Thank you.' I joined in with the hallelujah chorus of praise.

'It's perfectly all right,'he said.'I'm not exactly sure where to start, other than to say that these two homicides are most interesting to me. The male was severely bitten, and I'm relatively sure the attacker was, well, it was a tiger. The bites on the female were inflicted by two humans. It's as if the humans and the large cat were running together. Like they were a pack. Extraordinary. And bizarre, to say the least.'

'A tiger?' Jamilla was the one to express the disbelief we were all feeling.'Are you sure? That doesn't seem possible, Dr Pang.'

'Allen,'Walter Lee said.'Explain, please.'