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Steph was relieved to see the same woman behind the bar as before. She also noted that Jock’s friend was by the fire again as Jock leant against the bar ordering a couple of ales.

“Cheers, Jackie,” Steph heard Jock say as he grabbed his drinks and returned to his companion.

Steph sat at the bar and looked around as she waited for Jackie to finish serving a woman. The woman kept turning around to her table to double-checkthat she had got the order right. Steph rolled her eyes.

A few couples were talking quietly over glasses of wine. Like Jock and his friend, other small groups were enjoying some local ales. In the corner, however, two men seemed slightly apart from everyone else. They had positioned themselves so that they could see the whole room rather than having their backs to people. One of the men looked somewhat weathered but otherwise jovial; a large grin decorated his face as he talked. The other looked surly beneath his heavy black locks that were flecked with the greys a tired life brings. The surly-looking one flicked his eyes up. For a moment, Steph was caught in his gaze until he looked back down into his half-drunk pint.

“Oh, my goodness!”

Steph spun around to see Jackie, the bar lady, staring at her.

“You look as if you’ve been deep-sea diving!”

“Ah, well, I did get caught a bit in the rain,” Steph replied, taking off her sodden jacket and hanging it on a hook under the bar.

“Here!” Jackie thrust a clean tea towel at Steph.

“Thanks,” Steph replied, running the towel over her long black hair.

Having given the now-soaked towel back to her host and been given a whiskey – Jackie assured Steph that it would warm her more than gin – Steph began to open up her line of questioning once more.

“I’d heard someone say they thought there were two fences,” Jackie replied after serving a man who kept looking at his watch, then the window and then his watch again. “But I didn’t really pay much attention to it. Just seems like one of those things that isn’t really true. Why would someone need two fences?”

That was what Steph wanted to know.

“And it is electrified on the inside. Do people know why or…?”

“I can’t sayIdo. I’m not really one for rambling too far off the beaten track if you get my meaning.”

Steph sighed as Jackie set about making more drinks.

A moment later, Jackie put a tray on the bar with two ales and a whiskey. Steph looked puzzled.

“Take this over to Jock and Harry; they enjoy a ramble.”

“But there are three drinks?”

“The whiskey is for you; you still look blue, and I’d rather not have you coming down with pneumonia.”

Steph smiled. She was not a whiskey drinker. She’d forced the first one down. Even so, she was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. She carried the tray over to Jock and Harry, who proceeded to fuss over pulling up another chair and seating her between the two of them.

Jock was all too delighted to divulge everything heknewabout the fencing and the land within. Some of it was first-hand information, but much was second-hand blended with his and Harry’s conjecture. Even so, it gave Steph something to chew over.

It appeared there had been a small handful who had braved getting past the fence – Jock seemed unsure on whether the second fence existed, and Steph decided to keep her own knowledge to herself – but the outcome was mixed. One was never seen again. Another two claimed there was nothing really in there but some wildlife project and a man wanting a bit of privacy.

“There must be housing inside, as there are a few people who work there,” Harry said. “Also things get delivered there. I’ve seen the trucks.”

“Work there?” Steph frowned.

“Of course!” Jock snorted. “It’s a bloody great piece of land. It will need tending to in some way, especially if some rich bugger lives there. They always need people looking after them.”

Steph nodded thoughtfully.

“Do you personally know anyone who works there?”

Jock shook his head.

“Not on a personal level. But I recognise the faces. Like those two in the corner for example.”