But, clambering out, Pax hurled the phone into an industrial wheelie bin on the edge of a village.

Cut hand wrapped in her bra, she reclaimed her seat and fumed quietly beside him. ‘That was my father-in-law you were speaking to. I’ll thank you not to interfere again.’

‘Willingly.’

‘You should have let me get the AA.’

‘You certainly need their namesake.’

‘I’ve quit drinking.’

‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’

‘You won’t be sticking around long enough.’

‘I’m staying for six months.’

‘So you’ve signed a contract?’ She was fishing again, with a harpoon this time.

‘Watertight.’ He rolled his eyes sarcastically. Verbal was fine by him. He knew Ronnie was as good as her word.

‘The trust hasn’t approved it.’

It was snowing thickly now, billowing into the wind-screen.

‘Pax, can we just make friends?’ he sighed.

‘Not right now.’

‘At least give the dog a name.’

‘I already did,’ she said stubbornly. ‘He’s called Knott.’

He laughed, exasperated, watching her face and still looking for Ronnie in it.

‘It’s a mountain in the Lake District,’ she explained. ‘Mummy lived in a cottage overlooking it when I was little.’

‘Must be a favourite spot.’

She turned on the radio again. The station was still playing New Year tracks, Taylor Swift imploring them to hold on to the memories, making Pax settle back into her seat and close her eyes. ‘I never saw it.’

6

The snow, flurrying across from Wales, had turned north before the Cotswolds. Instead, bright sunlight was burning off the frost, warming the scent trail laid for the Fosse and Wolds hounds.

Lester lifted his nose appreciatively as he came out from grooming the liver-chestnut cob, now polished like cherrywood. There were no Percy hunters, ponies or second horses to be readied these days, Lester serving as the singular ambassador for a family who had followed Wolds Hounds for fifteen generations, an honour he took seriously, a way of life he refused to acknowledge was under threat by social change or budget. He would never dream of telling anybody, least of all Ronnie, that he’d paid this season’s subscription from his own savings, sparing the diesel whenever he could. He would hack to this meet – it was half an hour across the fields at a good clip.

He went inside to change, Stubbs at his heels.

He’d given the Turner girl the last ten pounds from the petty cash for her trouble. She was a hard worker, if unskilled and unkempt, and whilst prone to littering her possessions about – she’d left her glittery purse in the tack room, her bobble hat by the hay bale and a set of keys on the feed room desk – she was impressively good at tidying up around the yard at speed, not a loose blade of hay in sight. It looked very shipshape when Ronnie’s silver sports car powered up the driveway.

Lester, at the dressing-table mirror in his bedroom, tying his stock, looked down from his low casement to watch her park at a rakish angle, the engine roar cutting to dog barks. He almost thrust the pin straight into his windpipe when he spotted she had company, recognising the pelt of peppery black hair emerging from the passenger’s side, long denim legs unfolding and battered country boots hitting the cobbles at the same time as a tangle of paws, dogs spilling from all sides.