II

Rebecca lit an oil lamp, turned it up bright and looked around. A red guestbook and a wire tray of leaflets stood upon the high counter. Spare keys hung from a rack behind the desk. A menagerie of snakes, chameleons, butterflies, tortoises, birds and lemurs stared back at her from framed photographs on the walls. The intruders had left damp footprints on the floor. She followed them to the door of her father’s study, looked inside. It was much as she remembered, save for the laptop upon his desk. The camp-bed was still in the far corner, for those occasions when Eden had been overrun by volunteers; and his shotgun was still in the glass cabinet behind the desk. She quickly checked his shelves of books and CDs, but there were no obvious gaps from which something might have been taken.

She went back through reception. The front door had blown ajar, revealing that the downpour outside had grown incredibly fierce, so that the ground was half covered in shallow lakes, and great serpents of dark water were slithering away on the slight camber of the site. Daniel had his back to her, rainwater running down his back before splitting like a delta at his buttocks. His shoulder was ploughed by the distinctive ridges of burn scars, with more upon his back, but there was little else wrong with him that she could see.

He squeezed a stubby caterpillar of toothpaste on to his brush, held it out into the rain, threw back his head to let water drum into his mouth. Lightning lit him up like Christmas, glinting off the silver chain around his neck, illuminating the tattoo of a star on his right biceps, reflecting in twin yellow points from the tapeta-rich eyes of night creatures around the clearing. Thunder cracked; raindrops hammered like furious dwarves at the earth, throwing up tiny coronets with each impact. Daniel didn’t even flinch. She suffered, then, something like premonition; a certainty that there was more to this man than met the eye, that somehow he’d have a part to play in her life.

The door blew closed again. She shook her head at herself, went through to the main room, a large, openplan mix of cafeteria, games room, lecture-hall, library and dormitory. She’d sleep in here herself tonight, put Daniel in her father’s office. The kitchens next, then the restrooms, storeroom and clinic. Nothing seemed out of place, though she’d been away too long to be sure. Daniel was in the lounge when she went back through, wearing an olive T-shirt and baggy blue shorts, holding an oil lamp of his own that made his skin glow. ‘This may sound crazy,’ he said. ‘But don’t I know you from somewhere?’

She gave him an appraising look. Men often tried to pretend they didn’t recognise her; it seemed to make them feel better about themselves for some reason. But if this one was lying, he was good. ‘You may have seen me on TV,’ she told him.

His eyes narrowed, then he snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘You’re Rebecca someone. Rebecca Kirkpatrick. You do wildlife programmes.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed.

‘Cool.’ He sat down on one of a pair of armchairs hunched around a low table. ‘So what are you doing out here? Are you on a shoot, or something?’

‘Not exactly, no,’ she said, sitting opposite. ‘This is where I was brought up. My father and my sister …’ She stopped short, surprised by a pang of emotion.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ she assured him. Outside, the rain was easing. It would be daybreak in a few hours; she should get some sleep. Yet, more than anything, she felt the need to talk. ‘It’s my father and my sister,’ she told him. ‘They’ve gone missing.’