Just half an hour to go now, I thought. I could imagine Marina and Saskia sitting side by side on the aircraft, and I just hoped they were both as excited about the prospect of being reunited with me as I was with them.

Chico and I hadn’t arrived back at Aynsford to collect Rosie until after eight o’clock on Thursday evening due to heavy traffic around Leeds on the M1, by which time Charles had clearly had quite enough of dog-sitting. He hadn’t even invited us in for a whisky, merely handing over his charge, with her bed, at the front door.

‘I wouldn’t mind if she just lay down and slept. It’s all this going outside and then immediately wanting to come back in again that I can’t stand.’

‘You won’t have to look after her again,’ I’d promised. ‘At least, not for a while.’

‘I was worried when I received that call yesterday from the police that I might be keeping your dog for good.’ He had laughed nervously. ‘So, is everything now sorted?’

‘Yes, all sorted. The bad guys have been neutralised and racing is saved.’ I laughed, perhaps at the release of tension I felt. ‘Maybe I’ll tell you all about it over the weekend, but I must get back home now and tidy up. Marina is coming back tomorrow.’

‘Yes, I know. She called me this morning when she couldn’t get hold of you last night.’

‘What did you tell her?’ I’d asked with concern.

Charles had just moved his thumb and forefinger across his lips as if zipping them shut. Then he’d gone back into his house and closed the door, no doubt to pour himself a stiff single malt.

Perhaps I would have liked one too.

At twenty to six, the airport arrivals board suddenly changed to EXPECTED 17.57, so instead of getting here three minutes early, the Amsterdam flight was now due to arrive two minutes late.

Quite unreasonably, I felt cheated out of five minutes of my life.

Chico and I had spent the night in Nutwell, this time with Chico sleeping soundly, properly tucked up in a comfy bed rather than sitting on guard in the kitchen with Charles’s shotgun.

I, meanwhile, had spent much of a second consecutive night lying awake. Somehow, the shock of being shot at, and hit, had driven up my adrenaline level to such a peak that sleep wouldn’t come no matter how many sheep I tried to count. And the continued throbbing in my right hand didn’t help either.