Page 7

The quad bikes, much to Steph’s annoyance, made their way to a secure-looking gate in the outer fence. An electric fob unlocked it, and they were soon on their way skirting around the outside fence. They continued to cover ground that Steph had yet to explore and – after what must have been fifteen minutes – arrived in a small clearing near the fence. There, Davey took his fob out again and pressed a button. To Steph’s astonishment, the ground seemed to open ahead of them.

Steph couldn’t help but be impressed. The opening had been so well camouflaged and the dirt, plants and dead leaves seemed to move with the door as if they were part of it. The men drove their quad bikes straight into the hole in the ground to reveal a well-lit tunnel. Steph looked over her shoulder and the daylight disappeared on her, behind its iron curtains.

They were not in the tunnel long before daylight at the other end began to make itself apparent. Davey slowed his bike at this point but left enough power running through the wheels to zip up the slope leading back into the world before stopping. Michael stopped behind him. A small square area of fencing surrounded the opening with a gate at one end. Davey pressed his fob again and the gate opened.

From there the small convoy followed a barely visible track through the trees. It was unclear where they were going until a large building loomed into sight. From what Steph could see, the building was a modern-looking house. A mansion really. It had tall glass windows fronting it and the type of timber cladding one would expect to see in one of those property shows where a couple with too much money tried to carve out whatever design was in their head.

It was odd. The place didn’t seem right. It didn’t fit with what was going on around it. The place looked, from the outside, like it should be a large family home in some equally large open space for some even larger-headed investment banker. Instead, it was surrounded by trees and ringed by another electrified fence. Once more Davey pressed a fob and they were inside the ‘compound’ as Michael would later call it.

If the location of the building seemed out of place to Steph, the inside did little to alleviate the oddness of it all. Steph walked into what she expected to be a grand hallway leading perhaps to one of those sweeping staircases that she used to see in the films her mother would watch incessantly. Instead, what she walked into was open plan, awash with the colour white and dotted with numerous green palms in large black pots. There was something clinical about it all, only broken by the varnished wooden pine that was spattered around the place like an afterthought.

In one direction, Steph could see a small cluster of computers, but nobody working on them. In another, she could see what looked like a large lounge area with an oversized television. There was a staircase, but it lacked the grandeur Steph had anticipated, its glass sides leading to a floor that wasn’t visible from the ground level. Behind the staircase were two grand pine doors fitted with large glass windows. It was through one of those doors that Davey and Michael led her.

“What is this place exactly?”

Steph asked.

Davey sighed.

“No doubt you’ll find out; he always enjoys showing off.”

“Understandable,”

Michael shrugged, nodding to a young-looking man holding a turquoise book with a golden sabre-toothed tiger on it.

“Who’s he?”

Steph asked, trying to look through the window of another door.

Davey ignored her. So did Michael. At least he didn’t scowl about it.

The corridor ended by the doors to a small elevator. Michael leant forward and pressed a glowing blue button. The glass doors to the elevator opened and Davey ushered Steph inside. It was a cramped space and Steph noticed for the first time the mild body odour coming from the two men. She wasn’t subtle in wrinkling her nose which caught the attention of Michael, who sniffed his armpit and winced slightly. Davey shook his head and muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

The door pinged open almost no sooner than the machine had started moving. Steph followed the two men down a well-lit concrete corridor. The concrete had been polished – it was on the floor and walls. It was different from the upstairs yet still retained that clinical feeling.

The walk stopped outside a heavy-looking wooden door with a large chrome handle. Davey took a deep breath before opening it. Steph found this odd but noticed that Michael found it mildly amusing, a smile cracking across his face. Everything seemed to amuse him. The door opened.

“Mr Handle!”

Davey said, grabbing Steph by the wrist and walking into the room.

“Your latest trespasser!”

Steph wrenched her wrist free and walked into a well-lit room. The walls were of the same polished concrete as the hallway, but there were bits of varnished pine furniture dotted around as well as a large desk at the end of the room under a giant skylight, which had soil scattered around the edges. Behind the desk, a man with a slightly receding hairline looked up. He frowned at first, his blue eyes analysing what was before him. Without warning, his frown lines vanished as he finished his analysis and settled on a course of action with which to proceed. He smiled. There was something off about the smile. Steph could not quite put her finger on it, but it was almost as if someone had told him when someone might smile and what it might look like, but he had never felt a genuine need to smile himself. That was Steph’s take on it.

“At least this one is better looking,”

the man said, walking out from behind his desk.

“Although is ‘trespasser’ the right word? Shouldn’t we commend curiosity? It is how we develop as a species after all.”

Steph watched Davey give a curt nod. He seemed somewhat more rigid in the presence of his boss, which was interesting as Steph would not have described him as being loose before. Michael still had his relaxed air about him. His hands were in the pockets of his green fleece gilet.

“So,”

Mr Handle said, turning on Steph, his smile lessening if not disappearing.

“What brings you to my attention?”

“Because your goons brought me here,”

Steph shrugged, looking around the room.

Michael burst out laughing.

“I am not sure these two are really goon material,”

Mr Handle laughed.

“What I meant was, what were you doing to make them think I needed to see you?”

Steph thought about it for a moment. There were a number of ways she could reply. Continuing to be obstinate in her replies was probably not likely to get her what she wanted. What exactly she wanted she wasn’t sure. She just needed to know more. She would never be told everything; that was to be expected. She just needed someone to slip enough for her to have a ledge to leap from. She needed to feel she could reach a conclusion at some point. Readers always wanted closure. Often they would interpret their own closure, but that was their business.

“Well, Mr Handle…”

“Call me Kelvin!”

“Well, Kelvin, I suppose it was because I was hovering somewhere between your two fences on land which, according to – I believe he’s called Davey? – I was not meant to be on. Obviously, I realise I climbed a fence – a tree to be precise – to get there, so I knew that I might not be welcome exactly. I just wasn’t sure how unwelcome visitors were.”

“There was an electric fence!”

Davey snorted.

“So very unwelcome!”

Steph ignored him although she could see that Kelvin Handle’s smile had disappeared completely now. Instead, his face was one of pure focus, as if Steph were the only interesting thing in the room.

“However, when I was between the fences, I noticed something that drew my attention.”

“Go on,”

said Kelvin, folding his arms and leaning back to perch on the edge of his desk.

“A herd of deer bounded by your inner fence – clearly spooked – and were chased by something that… well, something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on,”

Steph said, keeping her voice balanced.

“As a field biologist, I…”

“A field biologist?”

Kelvin said, standing up again. Steph nodded but was unsure whether to continue. She sensed a mild change in the atmosphere of the room. Kelvin looked at Davey and Michael. There was an energy about him now despite his lack of movement. He had opened his arms up slightly and his eyes had widened. Steph turned her attention to the other two men, seeing Michael shrug and Davey frown even deeper – if that were possible.

Kelvin then looked mildly exasperated that Davey seemed unable to read his gesture which must have contained a whole dialogue somewhere in its subtly animated depths. He widened his eyes further and flicked his head at Steph and then up to his skylight. It clicked.

“What?”

Davey spat.

“No! Surely not! It’s not ready!”

“Nothing is ever ready!”

Kelvin replied.

“There is never a perfect time for anything in the world. It is not how life works!”

“But there is a less perfect time!”

Although Steph felt she could read the room, she still had no idea what they were going on about. She chose silence as her means of interrogation.

“That’s why I have made a lot of money and you, as much as I respect you, Davey, have not,”

Kelvin smiled.

“Sometimes you can strike when the iron is hot, sometimes you just have to strike, see what happens to the pieces and then adapt as necessary.”

Seemingly satisfied with his own wisdom, Kelvin strode back to the door.

“Shall we?”

he said, pulling the door open.

“Never a dull moment.”

Michael winked at Steph.

Despite herself, Steph was quite enjoying it all. Nothing made sense exactly but then she had never expected it to. That was all right. That made for a better story in the long run. She may have been a field biologist and sought truth, but she was not so disillusioned to think that her money didn’t come directly from an interesting story. A child being ripped apart was her hook. How it happened was the ending. How she discovered how it happened would be the middle. To have Kelvin Handle thrown into the mix was essentially another zero or two on her sales figures… as long as lawyers could do their jobs.