By evening the rest of her money was almost gone. Becky had bought a couple of apples, two bread rolls, some cheese and a blanket from a market stall, but all the while she was wondering how you go about finding a place to spend the night in the city when you haven’t got enough money to pay for it.

As evening came on she was wandering the streets still looking for a quiet place to shelter, and this was when she discovered she wasn’t the only one out there on the streets with nowhere to go. So many of the best places that were under cover and out of the wind – shop doorways, arcades, underpasses – were already occupied by the people of the street.

Some were playing a flute or an accordion. Some were sitting there begging and others were already asleep in sleeping bags or under cardboard boxes. Many had dogs as well, who would bare their teeth and growl at Brighteyes as they passed by, or even lunge at him, snarling and snapping.

There were old men glaring at her with eyes like those of hungry, angry wolves, young men and girls no older than she was, lost in their sadness, looking but hardly seeing, their faces pale, their eyes sunken. There was one man standing on a corner begging. He was dressed in a kilt with bare legs and bare feet, banging away on a drum, chanting out his sad and angry mantra, “I’m homeless. I’m hopeless. You don’t care, and I don’t care. I’m homeless. I’m hopeless…”

She felt sorry for them, but was frightened of them too. More than once she was tempted to seek out the company of the younger ones, to try to share their bit of sheltered territory, but she was wary of approaching them. She knew instinctively that if she sat down with them she would sooner or later become one of them, become like them, and that was enough to keep her walking. Her legs ached, her feet ached. The wind was getting up all the time and with the darkness had come the cold. She had to find shelter, and soon.

She determined to keep clear of the street people, so she kept walking till she had left the lights and noise of the city centre behind her and found herself in quiet, tree-lined streets where there were small gardens at the front of the houses, and she could see lights on in the windows and people at home, people like her. These streets may have been darker, but she felt safer here somehow. There were just the two of them again now, so she could talk to Brighteyes freely. She knew he needed that, that he felt frightened and insecure in this strange world, just as she was.

“We’ll find somewhere, Brighteyes,” she told him. “Don’t you worry, but it’s got to be somewhere where there’s no people, and no dogs either. We can have supper then. Bread and cheese. You don’t like apples much, do you?” He padded along beside her, looking up at her whenever she spoke. “Better than being in that kennel, right? And better than being where Alfie is, that’s for sure. We’ll find somewhere. Soon, I promise.” It helped Becky to talk, kept her spirits up when she needed it most, kept her hopes up when she felt at her most helpless.