Danny sought her out after the meeting and handed her a printout of some slides. ‘Rose, take a look at this for me, will you? Just some ideas.’ He gave her that careful look again. ‘Your opinion matters to me. Always has.’

Was he testing her? She nodded. She understood that they had reached a tacit agreement: they would not disclose to others that they already knew each other, but alone they could be candid, in the manner of old friends. She gathered this was what he wanted, and it was what she wanted too. This private understanding, this secret, gave her a peculiar electric charge. It made her feel sneaky, as if she and Danny had once been in the secret service, except that neither of them was really that way inclined. Their interests lay elsewhere, it was fair to say.

She had no reason to doubt that he cared about what she thought. Over the years they had kept their distance, but he’d once liked a tweet in which she was mentioned. It was when a journal article she’d written, ‘What is it like to be a chicken?’, was garnering a lot of attention – or a lot of attention relatively speaking, within the particular circles of animal behaviour studies. It represented a fashionable new way of thinking about welfare, with an insistence on the recognition of animals’ subjective conscious states. For chickens, this meant giving importance to perching, pecking and dust-bathing behaviours. At the time, she was startled to see Danny’s handle among those who liked the tweet. She trawled his profile and feed, feeling oddly exposed and fearful.

In the weeks that followed the staff meeting, Danny’s plans went live. Another broadcast email went out. Danny took the opportunity to announce an exciting new phase in the centre’s work. ‘It’s a natural extension. Firms already look to CASAW for leading research and advisory services. Now they can access trusted auditing services under the one roof.’

It was the talk of the faculty and made ripples elsewhere. In coming days, there was more detail. A planning paper went out about the launch of a multi-step program for animal welfare in supply chains. From farm to fork, as the tagline went. Rose was heartened to read Step 3, Natural Behaviour, which stated that animals should be raised in environments that promote natural behaviour.

Step 6 was Accountability. This meant establishing third party audits to ensure supplier farms complied with the comprehensive standards. ‘That’s where we come in,’ said Danny. Accountability was his niche.