Rounding up the nanny goats was a comparatively simple operation, an idea that Jon Quinn had hit upon whilst they ate a salad lunch. For once Sylvia did not complain about a plateful of sprouted seed salad and some hard goat cheese. A cheese that Jackie had made; on occasions Jon had difficulty in swallowing.

*I want you to help me this afternoon,' he said, putting his plate in the sink, noting at the same time that she had not yet washed up the breakfast dishes.

'How?' She tensed, was already thinking up a feasible reason to refuse.

'Well, our priority is to get the goats down into the shed in the yard so that they can be milked,' he said. The kids will be a lot easier to catch than the goals and where the kids go, their mothers will follow. Get me?'

'I see.' She pursed her lips and a worried frown creased her forehead. 'But suppose that billy . . .'

'I don't think he'll trouble us,' Jon told her. 'I reckon he's gone off into the woods, myself.'

Within the hour all the goats were safely shut in the shed by the house. The young kids had shown no fear of the approaching humans even though their mothers kept their distance, had come skipping towards Jon and Sylvia. They had been grabbed, carried home, the nannies following reluctantly. Just as Jon had said, they would not desert their offspring.

Now he leaned on the stable door studying the animals at close quarters. Certainly they had undergone a change, the white Saanen hair growing long and coarse, restlessly pacing quarters which had once been familiar but now they appeared not to recognise their surroundings. They eyed Jon Quinn with distrust, no spark of memory showing in their eyes. Distrust. Milking them wasn't going to be easy but he consoled himself that he had successfully got them down here. He was anxious about the calves now. Gwyther's dog . . . no, one dog alone could not have killed and eaten Gilbert like that, the billy was strong and vicious, as dangerous as a bull when he was angered. It would take more than one canine predator to do that.

The electricity was gone now so they had to resort to candles for indoor lighting, small flickering flames casting dancing yellow light, creating shadows that hovered in the corners of the rooms and could have hidden anything depending upon how far you let your imagination run riot. 'We may as well go to bed,' Jon said. 'There are some old oil-lamps out in the shed somewhere. I'll hunt them out tomorrow and you can have a go at cleaning them up. Then we'll have to get some paraffin from somewhere.' From the village garage. Tomorrow.

Sleeping in the same bed as Sylvia was becoming a strained affair. Only a few weeks ago, Jon reflected, it had been exciting, erotic. That was because they hadn't gone to bed to sleep, the difference again between wife and mistress. You stripped off, made love, got dressed again and went your own separate ways, back to another way of life. Just a sexual relationship and now it was falling apart because something more was being asked of it.

He tried not to watch her undress because that in itself was a rejection of himself, the way she pulled her nightdress on before she slid her pants off, her back towards him, easier by candlelight than by the harsh glare of an electric bulb. He found his own reactions the same, pulling his pyjama trousers on under the protective shield of his shirt. Strangers, that was what it amounted to. Under the same roof the chemistry didn't mix. They would have to work at it because they didn't have any choice; no marital partners to go back to, no way they could split up. They would have to talk it over but not tonight because they were too tired.

He knew what was on her mind; that prowler. Thank Christ she hadn't set eyes on him. If he was anything like Gwyther she would have had hysterics. Jon couldn't get Gilbert off his mind, found himself visualising the fight to the death, wild shaggy dogs circling warily, snarling and slobbering, then bunching for the final kill.

'I can't stand much more of this,' she whispered out of the darkness, lying facing away from him. 'Every day brings new terrors.'

'I guess it's the same for everybody else maybe the whole world over,' he answered. 'You just have to learn to live with it. We're not doing so bad really. Tomorrow we'll bring those calves home.'

'All you think about is goats and calves and organic food,' she sneered. 'I'm beginning to believe that you want it this way, Jon. That's why Jackie was on the point of walking out on you. I saw a play once on the telly, this guy had kidded his family that there had been a nuclear attack, had kept them living in a shelter for a whole fortnight, even removed the fuses so that they thought the electric was gone.'

'We'll go to the village tomorrow.' Jesus, he hated her for saying that. 'And then you can see for yourself that I'm not conning you.'

A strained silence. He almost considered getting up and going downstairs, sleeping on the sofa in the kitchen. But they needed each other whether they liked it or not. He found himself thinking about Jackie again, a kind of defence mechanism when the going got tough. He almost laughed aloud when he became aware that he had an erection, and it was nothing to do with Sylvia Atkinson. If she had rolled over towards him now he would probably have softened up, turned away.

He recalled the first time it had happened with himself and Jackie, back in their courting days when life was nice and boring. They had been parked up in a field gateway one autumn night, had almost been scared to go the whole way but eventually they had gone too far to back down. Both of them scared, tense, in case they proved to be a disappointment to the other. Let's fuck and get it over with, for Christ's sake.

He always reckoned that she had faked an orgasm that night. He'd nearly had to do just that himself, had to make a concerted physical effort to achieve his climax. Hard work for both of them. That was what marriage was all about, working at everything to make it work. Crazy, but it was no good on your own.

Sylvia was asleep, he could tell by her heavy rhythmic breathing. He started to feel sorry for her. Sooner or later she would find out just what was going on out there and then she'd really need him. It might serve to bring them together.

Suddenly he was aware of something outside the workings of his own grasshopper mind, a noise that infiltrated his fantasies, wilted his erection. A distant baying sound, rising to a wailing pitch, so that it vibrated the night air like an electric storm, brought with it a lowering of the body temperature as your terror began. Dogs, at least Jon supposed they were canine, beasts of the chase running down their prey just as they had pursued Gilbert, pulled him down, torn the flesh from the goat's bones whilst it still lived, its screams growing weaker and weaker until death finally released it from its agonies. Then silence.

A silence that revealed a far more insidious noise, one that was closer than the forest on the skyline, one that chilled his blood almost to freezing point. He stiffened, listened and tried to relate the sounds to those who made them. Padding bare footsteps, a snuffling of breath like a jungle hunting beast trying to scent its prey. A metallic click, following by the creaking of rusted hinges; the shed door opening, another foray amongst the tools on the workbench.

He almost got out of bed, went to the window, tried to see these creatures of the night. No, he didn't want to see! His brain conjured up a vision of old Gwyther, those mad eyes, the killing look. Enough to drive a man right out of his mind because they had no right to exist on this earth.

Lying there, forced to listen, trying to make out how many of them there were. It was impossible to tell, a bunch of them certainly, maybe as many as a dozen. Bestial intruders.