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It was agreed that they should check in with Kelvin on the hour every hour unless there was a good reason not to. Kelvin was not to contact them to avoid any noise at an inconvenient time, or so Michael said. In reality, Steph could not see why Kelvin would need to have them check in every hour. It was not as if he could do anything for them if they were in trouble; it was all about control again.

Steph wiped the rain from her face as she followed Michael. Michael walked a few paces ahead using a long, sharpened stick as a staff – he had taken a carving knife from the kitchen to fashion the spear. The knife he kept tied to his waist having tied numerous socks around the blade to prevent accidents. The thing looked bizarre, but Steph understood the precaution. She thought about the knife around her lower leg, still there from when Davey had given it to her.

“You needn’t have come,”

Michael called back over his shoulder, continuing to shine his torch close to the ground.

Steph didn’t answer and they continued walking. The ground was sodden. In places, Steph would find her feet sinking an inch or two into the ground. Why anyone would want to be out in this weather was beyond her. In the beam of Michael’s torch, Steph could see evidence of deer tracks. They really did get about the place; probably constantly shepherded from one potential predator to another.

“So what’s your plan when you get to the house?”

Steph asked after a few minutes, jogging to pull up alongside Michael.

Michael acknowledged her and said.

“Find out what has gone on in the house – check on the whereabouts of Calum, Roger and Martina – go and get the damned lion.”

“By yourself?”

“By myself. It works better that way. Things only seem to go wrong when other people are involved.”

Michael let out a forced laugh. The tone was wrong. Steph couldn’t put her finger on it exactly, but it was not a genuine laugh. It didn’t sound like a genuinely sarcastic laugh, nor a particularly annoyed laugh. It was a masking laugh. But masking what?

“Fair enough,”

Steph replied. She wondered what her own plan was exactly. Go with the flow? It was more of a torrent. She was also aware of how little the police featured in her concerns. It was funny. Twenty-four hours previously, she had been adamant they should be contacted, but now she didn’t care. If anything, they should probably stay away for the time being, but surely after things were brought under control, they would have one hell of a mess to look at. A lot of unforeseen paperwork for some poor bugger. Steph suddenly laughed to herself.

“What’s funny?”

Michael asked.

“Nothing… just that it’s odd, isn’t it? That we always assume we can be in control and that control is just around the corner with the next decision.”

“What do you mean? Why’s that funny?”

“Well, it’s not funny really, just that I caught myself thinking that things would come under control soon because that’s what we are setting out to accomplish.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Well, why should they?”

“Because everything finds balance in the end.”

Steph raised an eyebrow. Michael smiled slightly avoiding her eyes despite the dark.

“I don’t mean in any sort of hippy-trippy sort of way. I just mean that things always find a new status quo, even if it is not the balance that we wanted. In this case, I assume that if left unattended, some of the predators will die, the others will settle territories or at least behaviour patterns and the prey will grow and shrink in numbers accordingly. Or everything dies because the predators eat all the prey and have nothing left to eat… except for the bears I suppose. Being an omnivore has its perks.”

In fairness, Steph assumed a similar thing.

“However,”

Michael continued.

“in this case, that won’t happen as I will take the lion out of the equation. Control of the house will be regained, and we will likely force the balance before it occurs naturally – although I use that term loosely.”

He looked at Steph, holding his torch to illuminate them both. His facial expression held a look of self-satisfaction. Steph lowered the corners of her mouth and nodded in mild recognition of the logic. Even so, deep down despite seeing the reasoning, she held the unease that much was built on assumption and hopeful prediction. If there was one thing that she had learnt over her time looking into strange goings on – indeed, even in her studies at university – it was that people were generally poor at foreseeing anything. People assumed some individuals were great at guessing because their notable successes had such a large spotlight shone on them while ignoring the numerous errors hidden in the background.

They carried on. Every so often a sound would penetrate the wall of noise caused by the rain and Michael would crouch low, signalling for Steph to do the same. Sheet lightning illuminated the landscape every so often, but eventually that passed too. The first hour passed and Kelvin was informed of their progress. The exchange was short and to the point.

As the rain began to seep through the coat she had taken from Thomas’s closet, she began to wonder why she had chosen to come. Her gut had definitely told her it was the right decision, although it was not clear why yet. Or was it the right decision? Maybe she’d just been hungry still.

“When you get the lion – if you get the lion – will you drive the lion to… to wherever this other place is? The breeding facility or whatever Kelvin calls it?”

“Yep,”

Michael replied.

“And do you think we should do the same with the cave bear?”

There was a moment’s hesitation before Michael answered – it was short but it was there.

“It could be the thing to do. I haven’t really thought about it but maybe one animal at a time. The bear hasn’t been the one killing people.”

“Yet.”

“I don’t think it will.”

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t have to! It can take the kill of any animal it wants. It doesn’t even have to ambush its own prey!”

“Yet.”

“What?”

“As you said, things will find a way of balancing out, whether that’s through changing of territories or the death of other animals. At the end of it, the bear might find it needs to change its behaviour to survive.”

“I suppose,”

Michael allowed.

There was a lull in conversation until Steph asked, surprising even herself with the topic.

“How exactly does one navigate the black market?”

“What do you mean?”

Michael asked, stopping momentarily before deciding that it was too wet to stand still.

“I mean, did Kelvin acquire what he needed to start breeding what he has from sources he shouldn’t have touched… in a legal sense? To an outsider, it just seems that the whole thing is a bit niche if you get what I mean. A black market is underground, right? So how the hell would you find it? How would Kelvin know anyone?”

She could see that Michael was not wholly comfortable and was clearly choosing his words carefully before he spoke.

“I suppose, that money talks in all areas,”

he replied thoughtfully.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, that I don’t know for sure, but I suspect he knew people who knew other people who knew of people in a certain area.”

“Right?”

“Essentially, he can cast a bigger net in the hope of finding something than the average man can. He probably didn’t even need to use his name, just numbers. Large numbers attract people and there are a lot of large numbers going around in this game.”

“What game?”

Another small pause.

“This, general… extinct animals game.”

Even through the torrential rain, there was a palpable new atmosphere. It is the atmosphere someone feels when something is said by mistake. Steph was just not sure what it was exactly she had said. But the slight hunch in Michael’s back suggested he had a stronger connection to the statement than he publicly acknowledge.