And then, Scout and Willow suddenly accelerated, sprinting off to the side through the undergrowth. For a despairing moment I thought they must have gone after a squirrel, but then we heard several joyous barks, followed by more barks in return.

Barks that made me ignore the stitch in my chest and run as fast as I could towards the sound, screaming my dog’s name.

Emerging endless seconds later into a tiny clearing, I found Nesbit spinning in a jubilant circle with his rescuers.

While I slipped on his lead, fed him a chunk of cheese and then sat in the dirt squeezing him against my chest while he wriggled about trying to get back to his friends, Sam searched the clearing.

‘There’s no sign of anyone.’

‘Do you think whoever took him changed their mind and let him go? Or did you manage to escape and were on your way home?’ I asked my dog, giving the fur behind his ears a good rub as he looked at me, tongue lolling.

‘Or someone left the gate open and he got out himself,’ Sam said, shrugging. ‘Ebenezer could have seen it open and closed the latch without thinking.’

‘Leon could have left it open,’ I mused. ‘I didn’t think to tell him that the gate needs to be kept closed.’

‘Leon?’

I felt an uncomfortable prickle that was completely unnecessary.

‘The new neighbour. He moved in yesterday.’

‘Oh?’ Sam was staring at me with a strange look on his face.

‘Yep.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘We only had a brief conversation. He’s a teacher at Brooksby Academy. He seemed okay.’

‘Just him? No partner? Kids?’

‘No.’ I stood up, concentrating so hard on brushing the debris from my jeans that I couldn’t possibly answer any more probing questions.

‘Anyway,’ I added, once it felt like the topic had been shelved. ‘I can’t thank you enough for finding Nesbit. It would have completely… well.’ I shrugged, suddenly overcome with emotion as it hit me how close I’d been to losing my housemate. ‘You have dogs – you know.’

‘Just doing my job.’ Sam had gone back to polite ranger mode, before perhaps realising quite how cold he’d sounded. He crouched down to where Nesbit had been tugging at the end of the lead, causing him to immediately flip over for a belly rub. ‘Losing him doesn’t bear thinking about. Whatever happened, I’m very relieved he’s been found so quickly, and that he seems fine.’

Straightening up, he signalled to the collies that it was time to leave. ‘Probably time you got a lock on that gate, though. A bolt at least.’

‘Ebenezer will no doubt have already fitted one by the time we get back.’

‘And have a word with this Leon bloke about shutting gates. Next time it could be a herd of sheep wandering loose.’