But there was another reason why she always wanted the dogs to win. It had taken a while for her to grasp what was really going on. If ever a dog began to lose too often, she knew that sooner or later it would happen. The battered grey Land Rover would come rattling down the farm track into the yard. Whenever it came Becky did her best to stay out of the way. She dreaded it every time. If she asked about it or objected to it, it would send Craig into one of his rages. So, filled with guilt, she’d keep quiet, go to her room and watch from her window.

Craig would usually talk with the driver for a minute or two. Becky hadn’t ever really seen his face properly. Most of it was hidden by a flat cap. He wore dirty blue overalls, and shuffled rather than walked over to the kennels. Every time the chosen dog was hauled out of his kennel, Becky could see that he understood what was going to happen to him, because he’d fight against it, pulling on his chain, desperately trying to break free. The other dogs seemed to sense it too. They’d set up a plaintive chorus of yelping and whining that lasted long after the Land Rover had disappeared up the track.

Becky asked her mother again and again where the dogs were being taken to, and who the man in the dirty blue overalls was. Her mother couldn’t say much about it, and that was what was so worrying for Becky. All her mother would tell her was that once a greyhound’s racing days were over, he was taken off to an animal rescue centre, and from there they went to good homes where they’d be well looked after. But then often she’d add something that Becky had never been able to believe. “Craig’s very generous,” she’d tell her. “He gives the rescue centre a big donation every time they take a dog away. He’s good like that – you just don’t see that side of him, you never have. You mustn’t worry so much.” But Becky did worry, because she was quite sure by now that Craig didn’t have a generous bone in his body, that her mother seemed completely blind to how Craig really was, how he felt about his dogs, and how ruthless he was with them.

To Becky, who had spent so much time with the greyhounds, it was all utterly heartless and cruel, an outrage. Every time she had to watch them being dragged away like that, just because they could not longer win races, made her hate Craig even more. He never warned her when it was going to happen, nor which of them was going to be taken off next in the battered grey Land Rover, never to be seen again. So she never had the chance to say goodbye properly. She dreaded that one day Alfie might stop winning, might just get too old for it, might injure himself, and then he’d be taken away too. She knew that one day it was going to happen. It was just a question of time. Brighteyes was younger of course. Maybe he had a longer future, but their futures always ended the same way.