‘Who’s Laurence?’ he asked, alarmed, wondering if there was a man lurking in the bushes.

‘Shh. Lester’s fox cub. He’s a bit of a wimp.’ The torch beam swung around the garden. ‘I let him out for a play as usual, only there’s a big dog fox barking in the spinney and he took fright and scarpered somewhere. He’s got to be in here.’ She sounded calm, tired and fed up. Definitely sober, Luca deduced, remembering that her boy was asleep in the cottage.

She’d stomped into the corner illuminated by the yard lights and was peering into a bushy shrub. Wearing her coat and wellies over pyjamas, big mane tucked up in a furry hat and glasses propped on a cold red nose just above the high scarf, she looked strangely androgynous and alien.

The L-shaped garden was enclosed by walls on all sides, two formed by the cottage at right angles to the high yard wall, the others made of well-laid Cotswold drystone capped with vertical topstones at chest height. It was unlikely the young fox could scale those, certainly not if he was terrified of what might be out there.

‘He’s normally close by,’ Pax explained as he helped her hunt through the borders, looking for the reflection of eyes in torchlight. ‘He likes digging in the veg beds. We’ve started to make friends, or so I thought.’

‘You always let this fox out in the middle of the night?’ Luca was incredulous.

‘I wake up every night at one like I’m alarmed. I’d only lie awake, overthinking, if I stayed in bed, and foxes are nocturnal so he’s happier playing at this time. Just twenty minutes or so. I let him out at dusk and dawn most days too when the chooks are in, although I need to be careful around the dogs. Knott loves playing with him, but Stubbs would finish him off in a breath.’

Luca glanced across at the cottage where he’d spotted the bearded head of the fox terrier glaring at them through the cat flap.

‘Laurence is only young,’ Pax was saying, rooting through a clump of scraggy foliage. ‘My guess is Lester will release him back into the wild when he’s old enough, after the season closes.’

The yard’s work lights only lit about a third of the garden, the rest of it monotone in the low gleam of the bulkhead light by the back door, shadows pooled in the corners. There were a multitude of places to hide, old-established herbaceous borders packed tight with shrubs and perennials, a greenhouse, woodstore, compost heap and chicken run as well as the shed.

‘Have you tried bribing him?’ Luca asked, stifling a yawn.

She flashed her torch across the grass lawn to reveal a trail of dogfood kibble and white cubes. ‘Feta. His favourite. There’s some bacon lardons and peanuts in there too. I’m keeping the balsamic glaze as an emergency measure only.’

‘How long have you been out here?’

‘About an hour,’ she checked her watch with a flash of torchlight on drawn back glove, ‘and a bit.’