“They’ve escaped several times since they arrived, but I think we’ve outfoxed them. They’re vicious buggers, too. Turn your back on them for a second and they’ll bite you. That’s why we always lock them in their shed if we’re cleaning their run, and vice versa. They locked me in, once.”

She laughs and I’m astonished by way it transforms her. Gone is the studious look of concentration that’s been etched on her face since we were introduced. Her laugh’s a snorty chuckle, so infectious I find myself laughing, too.

“You’re kidding?” she says as the laughter dies away.

“I’m not. I was cleaning their shed on my own, the door was closed, and one of them flipped the stable catch over with his nose, locking me in. I had to reach over with a broom and flip it back to get out.”

“You don’t think they did it on purpose?”

“Who knows? I don’t know much about boars and pigs. At least with dogs you can predict how they’re likely to react, most of the time, anyway.”

“If only it was that easy with people.” She gives me a sideways glance. I don’t meet her gaze.

“Quite.” I gesture for her to follow me back down the track. “They’re harder to figure out than the pigs.”

“So?” Sheila asks as I reach into the fridge for my lunch box. “How’s she getting on?”

“Angharad?” I sit down on one of the hard plastic chairs that line the staffroom wall, and pop open a Tupperware lid. The scent of warm cheese and tomato sandwiches drifts, unappealingly, upwards. I should have taken Will up on his offer of a slice of cheesecake for my packed lunch. “She’s okay. She was pretty quiet when she started, but now she’s warmed up there’s no shutting her up. She’s full of questions. Gets on with her work, though. She didn’t complain when she had to clean up Jasper’s sick or spend an hour in the laundry washing blankets and bedding.”

“You think she’ll be back tomorrow?”

“I think so. She did seem keen to get stuck in.”

I take a bite of my sandwich as Sheila taps away at the computer in a corner of the room, but then subtly spit it into a tissue. The bread is soggy from the damp tomato. Not that I’ve got much of an appetite, anyway. Other than a couple of bites of cheesecake, I’ve barely eaten since yesterday morning.

“She was very keen to work with you, you know.”

“Sorry?”

“Angharad,” Sheila says. “When she came to the volunteer night, she specifically requested that she work with you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She asked who worked in the dog compound, and when I listed everyone’s names, she said, ‘I’d like to work with Jane, if I could.’”