‘I think he must be quite an elderly gentleman,’ he went on. ‘He felt he was too far away to render you any assistance and so he called us on his mobile phone. He also mentioned something about a huge black dog.’

I gave what I hoped was a convincing laugh. ‘It wasn’t that big! I think it was a Labrador. It belonged to the two men. I was just over there having a sandwich and the dog came bounding up to me … very friendly. They’d stopped their car you see, to let it out for a walk. They were just running about, playing with it.’

‘And were you running about too?’

‘Oh yes!’ I was aware of just how idiotic I was making myself sound. ‘I love dogs,’ I ended lamely.

‘And you didn’t scream for help?’

‘Well … yes! But it was only a joke …’

‘So, it was all a game, then?’ The officer was eyeing me dubiously. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Well, I can understand that perhaps to someone watching from a distance it might have looked a bit strange …’

‘And this dog didn’t bite anyone?’

‘No, no!’ I assured him, laughing. ‘It was all just a game.’

The police officer favoured me with a long, thoughtful stare and I knew that he didn’t believe a single word that I had said. But there were no mangled corpses lying anywhere, so I don’t suppose he cared. ‘Well, as long as you’re all right, miss,’ he said eventually.

I saw Paul’s van approaching and let out a grateful sigh. ‘Ah, here’s my friend coming to my rescue, come to change my tyre.’

‘Oh really, miss?’ The driver smiled as he slid into the front seat and closed the car door. ‘I thought you said it was the AA you were waiting for.’

‘So, why didn’t you tell them the truth?’ Paul asked.

It was later, much later. We were lying in bed in his caravan, my head on his shoulder, his fingers playing idly with a strand of my hair.

‘I don’t know really,’ I admitted, sighing. ‘I didn’t want it all to rebound on Nick. If I’d told the police, he would have had to answer a lot of questions. I didn’t want to get him into trouble.’ More than that, if I’d told the truth, I knew they would have gone looking for Micky and Duke. The police don’t like dogs that attack people, even people intent on murder.

Paul laughed softly. ‘You didn’t want to get Nick into trouble? Earlier on you said you were going to kill him.’

‘I still might,’ I muttered.