In the darkness the Land Rover lurched violently around a bend in the narrow track, and the young man in the passenger seat grabbed the door handle to brace himself. His hand was sweating and he noticed that his fingers trembled. He had expected to be calm and determined, but instead his stomach churned at the thought of what he was about to do.

He turned to the older, grey-bearded man at the wheel, who stared hard through the windscreen into the blackness of the night, and fought to push back the panic. What if this whole thing ended in disaster? What if they were caught? There were over twenty years between himself and the driver – the older man had built a career, people respected him, and all that might be lost in the next few hours.

The silence between them over the last few hours had become solid and the young man struggled to break it. ‘We can still turn back if you don’t want to go through with it.’

As soon as he said the words, he knew they were a lie. They had gone too far to turn back now. The older man did not answer, did not even seem to be listening.

The young man spoke again. ‘I don’t think I could do prison.’ That was the truth.

When at last the older man spoke he was calm and determined, his accent revealing his east Scotland roots. ‘All my life I’ve done richt by the rules, waited, been patient.’ Now he turned, passion in his eyes. ‘I want to live to see it, yer ken, and unless we do this I won’t, maybe you won’t. They’ll stop us.’

He wrung his hands on the wheel, as if trying to mould the rage in his head into words. ‘I want to bring a bit of wildness back into the hills. I’m not going to wait. Let them try and stop me.’

They drove on into the night.

At last the Land Rover slowed at the gated entrance to a track and came to a stop, the wire mesh cage in its trailer rattling. The driver leaned forward and switched off the headlights. Night swallowed them and for a moment the only sound was the throbbing of the old diesel engine. When the driver turned the key, the hum of the engine ceased. Now silence flooded out of the blackness.

The younger of the two men, still in his thirties, his body lean and taut, his hair spiked and ginger, scratched his beard and stared into the night. This whole thing had been his idea. It had taken him weeks to convince the older man to do this, yet now they were at the gates, now the moment had come, doubts wracked him. The older man lived by rules, never stepped out of line, always argued for caution. But the young man had been persuasive. Slowly the older man had changed. Now it was him who was full of fire; now it was the younger man who felt the hand of caution on his shoulder.

‘Well?’ he said out loud, but the question was for himself. ‘Well, what now?’

The older man did not reply. The pair sat for a moment and, as their eyes adjusted to the darkness, the outline of the metal farm gate took shape before them.

‘You ken whit to do,’ the older man replied, cutting off the question.

‘OK, OK.’

No going back. The younger man’s heart pounded against his ribcage. Neither man moved.

There is a stillness in some moments when time stands before you, its surface smooth and still. You can stand and see your life reflected in that surface with a pebble in your hand, knowing that the instant you throw it, time will ripple away and you will be changed forever.

The older man reached under the dashboard for a head torch. He turned to the younger man. ‘Go on, then.’

The young man took the torch, hands shaking. An instant later dazzling light filled the Land Rover and cast the shadows of the two men out on to the surface of the track.

The older man all but jumped out of the driving seat. ‘Christ, for God’s sake!’

The younger man was frantically pressing the switch. ‘I had it on moonlight.’ He jabbed at it again and a vivid stroboscopic light caught the occupants of the four-wheel drive in frozen moments like dancers in a bizarre ballet.

The older man pressed his face into his hands. ‘Why don’t yer phone the press while yer at it, man?’

To the relief of both the light faded to a subdued glow and they were left breathing heavily, staring out into the darkness for a sign that someone was coming.

The young man began to see indeterminate shapes as his eyes struggled to adjust to the faint light.

‘Someone’s out there, look!’ the younger man said in a hoarse whisper.

The older man turned and followed his gaze. He held his breath, reached out and took hold of the ignition key. They both froze. Moments later a sheep trotted past the Land Rover, pausing only to sniff the scent of the men before vanishing once more.

‘Christ.’ The young man fell back into his seat, sighing with relief and tugging nervously at his beard. ‘I thought—’

The driver shook his head in frustration. ‘Get on with it.’

The young man grunted, bent over and produced a pair of heavy bolt cutters from beneath the passenger seat. In the dim glow of the head torch the two men exchanged glances. They both knew they were about to hurl the pebble.

Out of the confines of the Land Rover the air was cold and the young man’s breath misted in the beam of his head lamp as he fixed the teeth of the bolt cutter to the chrome of the lock’s hasp. An image flashed through his mind of a fox with its jaws around the neck of a swan. He shrugged, shook the vision from his mind and squeezed the bolt cutter’s handles together. For a moment the lock resisted; his arms and shoulders trembled with the force. There was a sudden crack and the lock hit the gravel of the track, defeated. The young man glanced around, fearing the sound might have attracted attention, but only the blackness stared back at him. The galvanised steel of the gate shrieked as it swung open, and somewhere, not too far away, a dog barked. The young man felt a tremor creep up his spine at the sound.

The Land Rover’s engine burst into life and the older man leaned out of the window. ‘Come on, for fuck’s sake.’

The young man leapt into the rattling vehicle and they set off along the track using only the meagre torch beam to guide them. As they passed through the gate the pebble arced through the air and began to spin as it made its descent. It hit the surface and time rippled out, its stillness broken forever.

In the pale beam of the head torch, trees lurched in and out of view and fence posts appeared with alarming speed.

‘Turn left,’ the young man urged.

The older man struggled with the gear lever. ‘I cannae see.’

‘I know where we are – turn left.’

The Land Rover swung round, a tree appeared and the driver turned the wheel and braked. He was quick but the tree was quicker and managed to catch a wing. The car shuddered; glass tinkled on to the driveway.

‘What? Oh Christ!’ The older man rammed the gears into reverse.

‘Bugger, I thought we were further on.’

‘You couldnae find your way doon a garden path. Point the bloody torch oot there. I can’t drive in the damn dark.’

A gate appeared on the left in the glow of the head torch, and the young man exclaimed in triumph. ‘See, see, there it is. I do know where we are going.’

‘You ken where we were going when you told me to turn left and we hit that bloody tree?’

‘There’s no need to be all sarcastic. We can turn around now if you like.’

Out in the blackness a pair of eyes caught in the glow shone back at them. Then another pair appeared, quickly followed by a third and then a fourth.

The young man whispered, ‘Deer, that’s all they are – deer.’

The older man hissed as if he were a tyre and someone had just let all his air out. ‘Sure of that, are yer? Mind where we are. They got bears here.’ Then he added, as an afterthought, ‘And tigers too.’

The risks of breaking in to an animal park were not lost on the younger man. ‘Just drive.’

The car swung away and the eyes followed. At last the torch beam highlighted the chain links of a high wire-mesh enclosure, white against the darkness. The two men struggled with the coupling of the trailer for a few seconds before freeing it from the Land Rover and turning the cage so that its rear door faced the gate of the enclosure. They pushed the trailer up the embankment that led to the enclosure door, tyres sinking in to the soft ground. Both men were panting with the effort by the time the door of the trailer met the mesh of the enclosure wall. The two doors clashed and the mesh shuddered with a metallic scream for a few seconds after the impact.

‘Shit,’ the older man gasped, sucking in air after the effort of pushing the trailer.

As if in answer, the primeval howl of a wolf filled the air around them. Another wolf then another followed. The howls reached down into the bodies of both men and tightened the walls of their stomachs. Darkness and wolves are brothers and both bring a chill to the hearts of human beings from a time our minds have forgotten but our bodies know well – a time not so long ago, when to stray from...