Then as the giraffe raced away, giving him an excuse to rest for a moment to catch his breath, he looked across to where a tall, lean, grey-haired woman his own age was struggling with the latch to a large, steel cage, and suddenly he remembered why he was doing it.

*      *      *

Unlike her husband, Livie McTaggart never doubted for a second the sanity of what they did with their evenings.   Eight years earlier her life had seemed utterly pointless.   She had been a bored society housewife, nothing but a shadow to her husband, a hostess for his business dinners.   Then a friend in the Animal Liberation Agency had recruited them, and ever since she had felt that she was a worthwhile person, able to make an important contribution to the world.

Seeing her husband looking across toward her, Livie smiled a reassuring smile, realising that this was much harder for Drew than it was for her.

Hearing a rifle shot close behind her Livie started, then smiled at Drew again to show that she was all right.   She knew from past experience that no one would actually be shot, the gunfire was only meant to scare away the animal-libbers.

As a second shot rang out, throwing up a puff of dirt only a metre away from her, Livie looked back over her left shoulder and shouted, “Do your worst, you bastard!” startling herself as much as the gunman.

*      *      *

Standing twenty metres or so behind the grey-haired woman, Gaston Anyos’ face flushed with rage at the insult.   Head of the circus’ small security force (originally formed to protect the nightly takings from robbers, then later as the circus became increasingly controversial, to battle animal-welfare groups), Gaston was used to inspiring respect, even fear in the people he dealt with.

Lining up the back of the woman’s head in his rifle sight, Gaston half wondered whether he could get away with claiming an accidental shooting.   In this light, the darkness broken only by a smattering of low-wattage, coloured bulbs hung around the tents, no one could ever prove otherwise.   But then realising which cage the grey-haired woman was about to open, Gaston smirked with pleasure, thinking that she was about to do his job for him.