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“So why do you have other bears here?” Steph asked.

“To try and create a more realistic dynamic,” Daniel replied.

Steph scoffed. She saw Daniel roll his eyes as he started the buggy once more.

They drove for maybe another couple of miles; it was hard to tell. There was little that Steph could see in the distance. Everything was up close. They passed a herd of deer who skittered off as the buggy went by. She would have liked to have stayed with the herd. With so many predators about they were surely due an unfortunate amount of attention.

Eventually, Daniel stopped the buggy in the middle of a field scattered with rocks, heather and other plant life that broke up the monotony of the open space. Daniel then pointed to a clump of rocks.

“There!” he whispered.

Steph strained her eyes in the direction Daniel was pointing. She was not quite sure what she was looking at.

“He blends in well,” Daniel said when he saw the confusion on Steph’s face.

It was at this point that Michael handed Steph his rifle used for tranquillizing animals. Steph took the gun but looked bemused until Michael pointed to the scope at the top and moved Steph’s finger away from the trigger. Steph nodded slowly, closed her left eye and raised the scope to her right.

It did little better for her than the naked eye, but at least now she could make out the outline of fur lying on the rock even if she could not yet distinguish the features properly. There seemed to be a patch of fur missing in one place or, at least, the fur seemedthinner.

“Has the lion been fighting?” Steph asked.

“Quite likely,” Daniel replied. “It sometimes clashes with the bears. Not the cave bear – I don’t think – but the others. None of them have come out on top yet, but they give each other a good bashing.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, I dare say that’s for you to tell us,” Daniel smiled.

Steph considered this for a while. She supposed it was her job. She would be paid well enough from what the contract said; double what she would have normally earned. She assumed her salary would also be scalable as the work progressed. Then there was the matter of the death of the boy. It would be easy to get distracted by this new job which would be the envy of many of her peers. Yet even as she thought of it all, her gut groaned.

“Well, we can’t stay here all day,” Daniel replied, not taking his eyes from the rocks. “Davey will likely be back soon with your things from the hotel, and I have no doubt you will want to settle into your room.”

“I’m still not really sure how I feel about that,” Steph said, also not taking her eyes off the rocks. “It feels a little invasive.”

Daniel grimaced.

“Kelvin sometimes can be a little like that. Time is very much an entity to him. I guess he assumes the quicker he can get you on-site, the sooner you can get to work.”

“But what if I don’t want to live on-site?”

“I suppose you could take that up with him; he wouldn’t be able to stop you. He would likely just give you incentives to stay. Besides, it’s actually pretty good in the house and grounds. I doubt you saw the pool or the other rooms with the gym stuff yet, and… well, I don’t use the gym but I’m wicked at table tennis.”

“Don’t worry,” Michael put in, scanning the land around them, “you can still head off to the pub for some alone time. You justaren’t allowed to disclose what goes on here. The locals know the drill well enough by now. Gives you an air of mystery. I love it.”

“You would!” Daniel said.

Michael laughed and slapped Daniel on the back. Shaking his head with a slight curl to his lip, Daniel started the engine again. The lion raised its head for a moment and then lay back down.

TWELVE

As they headed through a clump of trees, Steph noticed the ground to the side of the track was churned up. There were a number of prints in the muddy pits but one in particular caught her eye.

“You have boar here?” she asked.

Michael leant forward.

“Yep, more than was anticipated from what I can gather. By that I mean, I have been tasked with culling them as the predators aren’t keeping their numbers down enough. They seem to find them too much of a pain in the arse to hunt. Make for great pulled pork though.”

It was difficult for Steph to get a grasp of everything. If she were to do her job properly, she would need to know more precise numbers of animals, the size of the land where each animal tended to be found and where certain natural resources were.