Page 46

It turned out that Steph should have been less optimistic with her sense of direction. She did find she remembered certain landmarks and physical features of her surroundings, but unless she was wrong again, they were not quite where she thought they’d be.

The pair continued to walk in near silence. It became awkward after a while. In the end, it was Steph who broke the impasse. She tried to discover more about who Ashley was. Nothing doing. She asked about what went wrong when the cave lion killed that little boy. Ashley stopped talking again at that. It appeared he was fine killing men as part of business transactions, but he drew the line at the death of children being collateral damage.

A sound in the distance made Steph freeze. She held out a hand as a signal to stop. She listened. Her heart was beating faster because of the walk over woodland terrain, and she could hear the blood pumping in her ears. Then she heard the noise again. The howl. Slightly closer than before.

Steph looked around. The trees surrounding them were large Caledonian pines. Some, Steph noticed, had low enough branches to climb. Nothing comfortable for an extended period, but fine for an escape. She began to climb.

“What are you doing?”

Ashley asked.

“Being cautious,”

Steph replied, eying her next foothold.

“What?”

“Didn’t you hear the howl?”

“Well, yeah, but I have a gun…”

“And how do you fire your gun?

“What? By pulling the trigger! How do you think you fire a gun?”

“My point is, unless I am mistaken, that you pull the trigger, then pull back the bolt to load another bullet into the chamber.”

“So?”

“So by the time you shoot one of them, the rest will be on us.”

Ashley snorted.

“They’d be running scared with their tails between their legs… no?”

“No! Not these wolves anyway.”

Another howl sounded through the trees. This time closer. Ashley gave one look over his shoulder and then finally accepted that following Steph’s caution might be the most sensible course of action.

Steph made sure to climb high enough that there was a chance the wolves would miss them completely if they came through the trees to where they were. She needn’t have worried, however; the nearest wolf she saw was still some distance off. They were, quite concerningly, moving through in the same direction that Steph believed they needed to go in, but it was unclear whether they had picked up a scent or were merely heading in that direction for reasons of their own. The wolf’s leisurely padding stopped as it paused to gnaw its leg, suggesting it was in no real hurry.

To be safe Steph insisted they wait ten minutes before coming down to give the wolves a head start. Steph noted that Ashley had his rifle from his back and in his hands as soon as his feet touched the ground. Steph patted him on the back and gestured in the direction of Roger’s cabin – or at least where she thought it lay.

“Those wolves,”

Ashley began as they walked, his voice notably quiet.

“Yes?”

“They’re… well… they’re rather on the large size, aren’t they? Or was I just tricked by the distance and the one we saw was closer than it looked?”

Steph scratched behind her ear as she walked.

“No, they’re big. I assume Martina’s doing.”

Ashley nodded, mouthing Martina’s name under his breath and shaking his head. Steph wondered how well-known Martina really was in the circle of genetics and how she was regarded. She had clearly achieved something monumental. However, who really knew about it? Was she seen as some sort of inspiration by her peers or a criminal maverick sailing too close to ethical winds?

It was not too long after having descended from the tree that they came across the beavers. They were out of the lodge and busy working on repairing their dam. Steph watched as they worked, gently carving through the water with large logs held by strong jaws. She also noted how another couple of trees had been felled since she had last passed by. The beaver’s ability to shape its environment never ceased to amaze her. More interesting was how everything could be going on around the beavers, yet their little world seemed relatively unaffected. The beavers were focused on themselves. Everything else could do as they pleased.

Sounds from the trees made the last few hundred yards a nervous walk. Every so often Steph would find herself looking around, not for danger, but for any potential escape route. Fortunately, Roger’s cabin soon loomed into view before Steph had any need of a desperate escape route.

Steph puffed out her cheeks as she approached Roger’s cabin… again. Circles. The last few days were nothing but circles. No. A downward spiral was more apt. It was as if she had revisited places over and over again but each time at a lower ebb in her life. Even so, she couldn’t deny that the cabin made a welcome sight despite her desire to be far away from where she was, so she could put everything behind her. Far behind her. So far they couldn’t even catch up with her on the sofa of some psychiatrist she was sure she’d have to end up paying in the aftermath of the whole ordeal.

Perhaps publishing the book would be therapy enough – whatever she was able to publish. Better to have commercial therapy and be paid than to pay someone else and have them judge you.

Steph stepped tiredly onto the decking outside the entrance. She found her right leg almost giving way from exhaustion. She ignored it and knocked on the door. The heavy door eased open.

“Steph, I see you’ve found a friend,”

said Roger, standing in the crack of the door, his face impassive.

Steph didn’t even look over her shoulder. She merely shrugged and pushed past Roger who opened the door a little wider to let Ashley in too.

“This is Ashley,”

Steph said when she got inside and sank onto the sofa. She noted that Calum was no longer on it. He was probably lying in the bedroom making a meal of his bung knee.

Roger looked Ashley up and down.

“And, um, where exactly did this Ashley come from?”

“Hired to take the cave lion,”

Steph replied, deciding to lie on the sofa as sitting was just not cutting it.

“I see,”

Roger said, staring at Ashley who stood awkwardly staring back.

“And he is with you because?”

“Because Kelvin’s an arsehole. So is this guy, to be honest, but really I’m past caring. What was it you were banging on about, Ashley? People getting on with their own business? Well, my business is now just about getting out of this place.”

“Kelvin won’t agree to your leaving your post before your contract is up,”

Roger said, leaving Ashley to go and sit down.

“Possibly, although I suspect he has potentially relieved me of some of the contract, if not all of it already.”

“What do you mean?”

Steph turned to look at Roger. The man looked confused. His mouth was partially open as if it was on the verge of forming its next question despite the current one still awaiting its answer. That was fair enough. Steph had come back with a strange man but with no Kelvin, Martina or Davey. Of course, there would be questions. It was just that Steph found she couldn’t be bothered to answer them.

“Don’t worry about it,”

Steph said.

“Just know that he places little value on any of our lives.

To Steph’s surprise, she heard Roger give a short bark of laughter at this. He still had a grim smile on his face when he sat down.

“Well then, Ashley, is it? You had best make yourself useful and make us all a coffee. You’ll find some in that second cupboard from the right. Milk’s in the fridge obviously.”

Steph raised her head slightly to see how Ashley would react to being ordered about. He rolled his eyes a little but then unslung his rifle, propped it against the wall and went about making the coffees.

“So, Steph, what are your plans now?”

Roger asked.

He was far too jovial for Steph’s liking. She was too tired and angry to have anyone behaving in an upbeat manner around her. She lay back and closed her eyes.

“Well, once I have had a brief rest, I’m getting the hell out of here. Ashley said he would guide me to the fence. Well, I suppose I would lead the way and he would ensure I don’t get eaten.”

“Said he’d help you to the fence?”

Roger parroted.

“And why would he do a thing like that?”

Steph opened one eye and rolled it in Roger’s direction to see him looking over at Ashley, his last question clearly indirectly addressed to him.

“Because I guided him here,”

Steph said, not waiting for Ashley to answer. He had his back turned anyway, too busy measuring heaps of instant coffee.

Roger turned back to Steph briefly before turning around to address Ashley more directly this time.

“Why were you so desperate to come and see us in the cabin?”

“Oh, it was not wanting to see anyone in particular,”

Ashley said, continuing to make the coffee.

“More just that I assume Kelvin will lose focus and turn up here at some point. He will likely secure the lion, perhaps go back to his little control centre and then come here with his public relations face on thinking that I will have tried to escape whilst I can. Essentially coming here means I can sit in a bit of comfort whilst he comes to me.”

“Uh huh,”

replied Roger, his eyebrows raised.

“Well, whatever you say.”

Steph looked at the ceiling. Something didn’t feel right. She could not say what it was exactly, but there was something. Was it the ease Ashley and Roger found themselves whilst in each other’s company? Hard to say. Roger seemed at ease in most people’s company. Ashley… well, he seemed to behave outside the normal laws of social convention too to some extent anyway. Perhaps it was nothing. But did Roger fully appreciate that Ashley was one of the men they had initially set out to stop?

“Well, it all seems to be quite the mess,”

Roger said, sinking back into his chair after accepting a coffee from Ashley.

“I don’t suppose this little experiment of Kelvin’s can really carry on.”

“Not if I can help it,”

Ashley said, quite politely as he tapped Steph on the shoulder and pointed to a mug that he was placing on the floor beside her.

Steph noticed Roger frown at the hot mug being placed on bare wood.

“Do you think Kelvin was actually trying to achieve what he said he was trying to achieve?”

she asked, suddenly thinking about the whole experiment.

“What do you mean?”

Roger asked.

“Well,”

Steph said, sitting up.

“I mean, do you really think this was/is a whole rewilding experiment?”

“Hard to say.”

“Why?”

“Because of the prehistoric animals running around. What was the purpose of them except for his own vanity? Rewilding in itself I can understand. Bringing in animals that were native to these lands in years gone by is fine. But everything else…”

“So you think he had two motives?”

“Possibly. Who is to say? You’d have to ask him. He’s a clever enough man and I don’t doubt that he genuinely believes there needs to be some rewilding, or that the planet and people would benefit from it to some extent. Whether he is right or not is another matter. Do people need to learn to live with extinct cave bears and cave lions though?”

“But then why would he pay people like you to see whether you could live alongside them?”

Steph looked intently at Roger who took a sip of his coffee, grimacing slightly at the heat of it.

“I have ideas,”

he said.

“That’s all they are, of course. But I have them.”

“And they are?”

“One is that he is and must be a competitive man to have made the riches he has for himself. As such, he wants to be the first to do what so many have talked about but not yet achieved. In short, it is vanity and getting people like me involved gives it some fake face of genuinely trying something for the greater good. Another idea is that he just thinks the whole thing is quite cool. It is, I suppose. It was enough to lure poor Daniel in, away from his fledgling career. However, there is also the possibility that he has done all this because of Martina. That’s the other likelihood.”

“Martina?”

Roger laughed.

“You will often find that, throughout history, men have tended to push themselves when a woman is involved. Whether to impress them or simply prove them wrong out of spite. Either way, they achieve. In fact, some only ever achieve anything when there is someone to impress or beat in some twisted way. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if this whole enterprise was a mixture of my speculations. It also wouldn’t surprise me if he was simply trying to tie in the extinct animals with something he truly believes in.”

Steph picked up her coffee. She let the heat rise against her face as she digested what Roger had just said. Would someone do all this for love? Was love even the right word?

“In short, I don’t really know anything; I doubt he has fully crystalised what he will do long term with the lion and bear,”

Steph heard Roger continue.

“But I’m sure he won’t be far away from settling on something and, whatever it is, it will make him money. Owning Martina’s research will make him money for sure. That’s the key component in all of this really regardless of his motives.”

“But it’s Martina’s research,”

Steph said, continuing to hold the coffee close to her face as she stared out the window.

Roger laughed.

“Kelvin will have her under more contracts than there are lawyers in the world. He may be taken by her, but he is no idiot. People sign prenups all the time; it makes sense that he’d have her sign things even if he is taking her to bed each night without the marriage.”

Steph ignored the image evoked by the last comment. Instead, she found herself despising Kelvin. How could he have allowed all of this to happen for such flimsy reasons? Daniel, Thomas, Davey. Was it worth it? To him she supposed it probably was. The greater question was where his contempt for others came from and how he could hide it so easily day to day.

Although Steph was lost in thought, she started to become dimly aware of a sound outside. She stood up so that she could see out the window and over the porch. Outside was Ashley’s sleek black truck pulling to a stop.

Steph watched Ashley swiftly sweep across the room to stand with his back to the wall next to the door. It was then that Steph became aware of another sound. It was Roger. He was stifling a chuckle.

“What’s funny?”

she asked.

“Nothing,”

Roger smiled.

“Just that it is all about image and smokescreens with Kelvin. It’s not really funny. It’s just… I don’t know; it is just my sense of humour.”

Roger then looked at Ashley and back at Steph. Steph noticed from her peripheral vision that he wasn’t taking his eyes off her. She turned to face him.

“So the question is, are you going to stop Ashley?” he said.

“What?”

“Well, it appears to me that we have somehow arrived at a situation where one more person will die today. If Kelvin comes in, it makes sense that Ashley would kill him. They have gone too far with their game of chess to call a stalemate now.”

“We have?”

Ashley whispered, standing tight to the wall.

“I would suspect so,”

Roger replied, his tone suddenly solemn.

Ashley raised his eyebrows and shrugged. Then both men turned again to look at Steph. Their faces looked more curious than bothered. What to do? After all, Ashley had caused the trouble. Or had he? Was he really any worse than Kelvin? Was Kelvin any better than him? Had either really valued her life? No. The difference was that Ashley had let her go free whilst Kelvin had been resigned to her losing her life as a necessary casualty.

Outside, a door swung shut.