Five.

So here he was, two months into the job and, although the excitement was noticeable by its absence, he was in lust and it showed no sign of abating or, for that matter, being reciprocated. The amount of effort and dedication he put into breaking through with her was more than doubled by Alison in the pursuit of her subject. She was involved in studying the recent expansion, in the last decade or so, of domestic animals surviving in the wild. This had happened, she said, for a number of reasons including abandonment, unsuitability and cruelty. Whatever the reason they were out here, on the periphery of urban civilisation, attacks by them on household pets as well as familiar wildlife had been increasing steadily; possibly through an increase in their numbers through breeding or the increasing poverty in some neighbourhoods causing owners to dump extra mouths. The ecosystem of the largely industrialized and urbanized environment would not hold up to an increasing influx of predators near the top of the food chain hence the animals in question would have to venture further into the danger zones of the suburbs and find what they could. After a couple of successful sorties, their fear would recede until, as Alison saw, they were about to enter a very scary situation where people could expect to be terrorized by packs of feral cats or dogs in their back yards.

This was the only area where she had asked Ray to show a little responsibility in his reporting, `I do realise that to you, this is probably the only newsworthy aspect of the assignment’. She had gazed at him earnestly, full voltage flowing from her eyes,` However, if you print anything about these fears before we collate the material properly and make rational decisions based only on that, you’ll be amazed how quickly the public will become alarmed. This will cause the mayor to have a knee-jerk solution instigated and he would come down heavily on your boss for scare mongering, in which case, you’ll be out of a job - and so, incidentally will I.’ He was still stunned by how quickly he had ripped up his journalistic principles and agreed to run everything by her.

Things had become more interesting anyway. Through following up information from the police about pet killings called in, they had noticed over the last two weeks that more of the deaths were not the usual cats and small dogs but anything from Alsations and Rottweilers to goats and cows. Not that there were a lot of them around due to the general lack of smallholdings but there was now a burial of a house trained llama scheduled for today. Ray knew that Alison was puzzled by this and her air of preoccupation made him think that she was keeping a lot of her semi-conclusions to herself. He could figure some of it himself though and he was wondering, as he followed her hand-span waist through into the clearing at the top of Gibbet Point, how much leeway he should give her before forcing her to give him a reason not to print at least some of the de facto conclusions he had reached.

`From here we can see the three most recent cases’ she was saying as he arrived beside her, `the Swannman’s over there,’ she pointed `the Braccis and the Lessings, down there and by that pylon.’ She picked out each in turn. The addresses formed a rough triangle around the northern edge of the park. `This doesn’t actually tell us much, as we have as many from the other sides as well but it does support our basic theory that the animals carrying out the attacks may be coming from the park.’ Ray followed her gaze over the enormous area covered by trees not destroyed by the army’s vehicle testing days - `Is this good or bad news?’ he asked in a dubious tone. `Neither,’ she replied ` but considering I’m meant to be studying the effects of a wild habitat on previously domestic animals, it might make it easier to find them if they remain in one area rather than travelling all the time, singly, or in groups.’ She turned to face him. `On the other hand, if what I’m sure you want to print was to be published I could very quickly see the subject or subjects of my doctorate being erased. Knowing roughly where it was would make a decision to remove the problem very easy don’t you think?’ Her eyes widened to the point where he thought they may fall out of their sockets.

‘Oh no you don’t’ thought Ray ‘this time I’m at least going to fight for my side.’