“Please. Just this once.” Becky would not give up. “Please, Craig. I’ll never ask for anything ever again. Let me keep him please.”

Craig drank his tea and said nothing for a while. “All right,” he replied at last, “I’ll think about it.”

Becky’s mother reached out and put her hand on his. “Thank you,” she said, “from both of us.” She looked hard at Becky.

“Yes. Thank you,” Becky mumbled. It was hardly convincing, but it was the best she was prepared to do.

Early the next morning Becky saddled up Red in the yard for their morning ride. She wanted to take Alfie and Brighteyes with her as usual, but she could see that Alfie was still carrying his bad leg, hardly able to limp across the kennel. She knew Brighteyes wouldn’t want to come without him, so she decided to leave them both behind.

She led Red over to their kennel and crouched down beside them. “It’s all right, Alfie,” she told him. “I’ve fixed it with Craig. You’re staying. No one’s going to take you away. And as soon as your leg’s better you can come for a run on the moor. All right?” She smoothed his head and left them. As she rode out of the yard, she turned and saw them both standing there looking after her.

She could tell that Red wasn’t happy without the dogs there. He kept stopping, lifting his head and whinnying for them, so it took her much longer than usual to get up to High Moor. She sat on her rock and told her father everything that had happened, how she’d bring the dogs up to see him again once Alfie was fit. Then, as she was talking, a strange thing happened. A white barn owl came floating out of nowhere, like a passing spirit. She flew away down the valley, harried all the way by a pair of cawing crows. Becky had never before seen a barn owl out in broad daylight like this. A shiver of dread came over her, and she knew it wasn’t the cold. She felt it was an omen of some kind, a warning, even a premonition of evil. She mounted up at once and rode hard all the way home.

As she came down off the hill behind the farmhouse Becky heard an engine starting up in the yard below. She recognised it as the engine of a Land Rover. She feared the worst at once, and knew now for sure what the barn owl had been telling her. She saw the battered Land Rover rattling up the track away from the farmyard, and heard from inside it the unmistakable sound of Alfie barking, of Alfie scrabbling at the door in his terror.

As Becky came riding into the yard Brighteyes was up on his hind legs, frantic to get out, yelping and whining. He was alone in his kennel.

Becky didn’t confront Craig. She knew that it was too late, that there was no point. It gave her some satisfaction to hear from inside the house the sound of her mother at last standing up to Craig, telling him exactly what she thought of him, but for Becky it was no great comfort. It was too little and too late. She didn’t go into the house at all, but spent the rest of the day in the kennel with Brighteyes where she knew she was needed. He was just like he had been when he’d first arrived. He was trembling violently. All day he wouldn’t eat and he wouldn’t drink, but stood with his head through the bars of the kennel, looking for Alfie, waiting for him.