The shelter was just a few minutes from my house, on the outskirts of the town, in the shadow of the mountain. Every day I felt lucky that I’d fetched up here, in the Lake District, where I had no connections and had only been once before. It could not have been more different from where I’d lived for years, the dry and dusty heat of the desert. Here the air was always a little damp, water all around and seeping into me. It helped me feel calm, to know that I’d never be so dry and parched again, I’d never have to worry about passing out under a merciless sun.

Approaching the shelter along the lake path, a blast of sunlight cut through the drizzle. I felt calmer as I walked towards the low and, to be honest, ugly breeze-block building with a small car park attached. I could already hear the dogs barking and yelping. Feeding time. I usually brought Brandy along, since it wasn’t fair to leave her alone all day, but I felt a little bad about it. It didn’t seem right that she was allowed to sit with me under my desk and leave at the end of the day, while the other dogs had to stay in their pens, behind bars. Like the guards, the way they’d sometimes seemed like our friends, but they weren’t, because they had keys and we didn’t.

Marilyn was behind her desk in our little office, checking paperwork. She wore the same dog-haired gilet and trousers as the day before. She looked up, and I could read the concern on her face, despite her own loss. ‘Are you all right? Hello, Brandy, sweetheart.’

‘Yes, fine.’

In fact, I had barely slept – paranoid about another knock at the door – but I was determined to put on a brave face. I had simply done something silly, nothing actually wrong. This was the UK, not America. Our justice system, I hoped, actually functioned. The police would see I had just panicked, that Anna’s death was nothing to do with me. Maybe, if forced to, I would even tell them why I’d run. They were the police, they’d have to keep it a secret, wouldn’t they?

I had never told Marilyn about me and Alex, reasoning that it was early days, our relationship still new and insecure. I would surely have told her at some point, that I was seeing – or was it just sleeping with? – the estranged husband of her old friend. But now that friend was dead.

‘How are you?’ I said, trying to remember this was not about me.