“Tell them what?” Gavin asked blankly.

“That he and Liz are dead,” she said simply.

He stared at her. Nothing in his experience had prepared him to cope with someone who talked like this. Trying to hide his exasperation he said, “Surely there’ll be no need to tell them.”

Her frown cleared. “You’re right. They’ll know by instinct. I should have remembered that.”

She looked at him with her head on one side, and he realized that she was wondering how he came to understand such a thing. He felt at an impasse. It irritated him to be misinterpreted, but he was touched by the grief so clearly evident on her face.

It was six years since he’d seen her and in that time she’d changed from an urchin into a woman. Her body had rounded out and her face had grown softer. It was pale now, and haggard and suffering, but some men would have found her attractive, he realized.

As he watched her he saw her expression change yet again, and she gave him a rueful look that was almost a smile. “I read you wrong, didn’t I?” she asked. “You didn’t mean that the animals would know. You meant, why bother to tell animals anything?”

Paradoxically he was even more disconcerted now than he’d been a moment ago. “Well,” he said awkwardly, “after all, they are only animals.”

She sighed. “Dad spent his life trying to open the eyes of people who thought like that.”

“I doubt he’d have converted me.”

“No, I don’t suppose he would. But that wouldn’t have stopped him trying. He said you should never give up on anyone, no matter how-” she stopped.

To divert her attention he asked, “If he felt like that, why did he keep a zoo?”

“It’s not a zoo, it’s a sanctuary. Most of the creatures here were brought in because they were sick or ill treated. We try to get-that is, the idea is to get them well enough to return to the wild.”

He felt relieved. He’d been wondering how to break it to her that she must close down the place and leave. Now he saw that it could be done gradually as the animals were released. He had no desire to be brutal.