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really bothered with school at all. “But you know what that means,” he added brightly. She looked at him quizzically. “It means,” he said, “we’re having steak for dinner.”
    The soft lowing now replacing the skyscraper as their beacon, they headed towards the farm. When they reached it Chester realised why he’d managed to live, and by some definitions work, in the city without knowing it was there. It wasn’t a farm, not really, and not by his standards. Rural scenes depicting animals in pastures, fields of wheat, birds, bees, and trees had been painted on a long wall broken only by a wide sheet-metal gate. He’d walked past it often enough, but had always assumed it was just another abattoir for the Smithfield meat market. And he’d taken the little signs on each section of wall denoting which school group had been responsible for painting that part of the mural as nothing more than a futile exercise in discouraging graffiti.
    “The gates are closed,” Chester said, giving them a push and a shove. “Closed tight. We’ll have to climb it. Ladies first,” he added.
    McInery raised an eyebrow.
    “Oh no,” Chester said with a grin. “If you want meat for dinner, we’ve got to get in.” He cupped his hands.
    “Fine,” she said, as she braced herself, “but I can’t see the kind of people who’d run this type of place as the sort who’d leave the animals to starve.” She pulled herself up over the gate, and dropped down into the yard beyond. Chester took a leap and pulled himself up and over. As his feet hit concrete, he found she was right. They hadn’t left the animals alone.
    They were in a courtyard that had been scrubbed to a near clinical level of cleanliness. Behind, he could make out a stretch of fenced grass that, in an area of seven-figure rents, would have given a property developer an aneurysm. In front was a one-storey ‘U’ shaped building with a two-storey extension built over the arm nearest them. Underneath the extension was a set of doors painted to look like wood-brown planks. Above it was a sign that read ‘Welcome Centre’, and in front of it stood two men and a woman. Each held a very long knife in their hands, and wore a determined expression on their faces.
    Chester’s empty palms itched. He’d left the sledgehammer propped against the wall outside. He had the revolver, of course, and it was still loaded, but it was in his pocket. There were twenty paces between him and the nearest of the knives. He could probably draw and fire in time. Probably.
    The double doors opened, and another woman came out. Unlike the others, she wasn’t armed, but that wasn’t reassuring. The disposable all-in-one suit she was wearing over her clothing was coated in blood and worse.
    “Afternoon,” Chester said.
    “What do you want?” asked the closest of the men, a man nearly as broad-shouldered and wide-armed as Chester.
    “We heard the cows,” Chester said, keeping his tone light, forcing a smile onto his lips.
    “Cows?” It was the woman in the blood-covered clothing who answered, and she sounded confused. As if on cue there was a soft keening from inside the building.
    “Like that one. That’s a cow, right?” Chester asked, looking from face to face. Their expressions changed to one of bemusement, except on that of the man who’d spoken.
    “Cows? If you’re hearing cows, you’ve got very good hearing indeed,” the woman said. “Must be good enough to hear all the way to the coast.”
    Now it was Chester’s turn to look bemused. He glanced at McInery. She’d adopted that slightly hunched, squinting stance when she wanted to give the impression of harmlessness.
    “That’s a pig,” the second of the two men said. “A sow. She’s in labour.”
    “Sounds like a cow,” Chester muttered.
    The woman laughed. The second of the two men gave a rueful shake of his head. The other two didn’t move, they just kept their eyes on Chester.
    “We’ve nothing to sell,”