I copied the number into my phone and stared at it. What was I going to say? Hi, fancy spitting on me again? Yeah, maybe not.

I gathered Tyger’s cheeks in my palms. ‘Wanna see your knight in shining armour?’

One generous mouthful of dog.

He came in useful sometimes. The next day, after reading forums about freak Scottish climate-events, I pimped him out to get me a ride, holding him in my arms and looking lost and forlorn. He got extra biscuits for that, and a couple more to tempt him up and down the track. Today the view came courtesy of a drunk watercolour painter. The hills were the texture of damp flannel.

There was no answer when I knocked. I ambled round to the side of the house, dragging Tyger, wondering if I could make him a Crufts-style assault course out of the planks of wood and other detritus, train him up into a prize-winning mutt, get him a rosette the size of his head. There was a soft click of the door. I let the lead go and Tyger ran back, standing on his hind legs to lean on Jim’s calves. He’d always win the trophy for Most Sappy Dog.

‘Hey, me and Tyger thought we’d come and see if you were massacring any fluffy—’ My voice dwindled.

Jim looked haunted, darker lines than before etched in charcoal on his forehead and under his eyes. I could see him make a tired attempt to dispel them but they held firm, like his skin was being tugged from the inside. He bent down and lifted Tyger off him.

Something wasn’t right. The cheeriness I’d felt sauntering down the track fizzed away. I hiked my thumb over my shoulder. ‘I was just—’

‘It’s not … I’m not up to it right now. Sorry.’ One hand was in a fist, held a bit like Finn’s littler one, tucked in by his thigh.

‘Yeah, no, of course. It’s cool.’ I turned to go. ‘I’ll see you, then.’

‘Polly.’ I stopped and faced him. ‘Another time. Just …’ There was a long pause, as if the rest of the sentence had drifted out to sea. ‘Not today.’ As he put his hands in his pockets, I glimpsed a flash of colour. Dark red, on his knuckles.

‘OK,’ I said, quietly enough that he might not have heard it, and began the slow tramp back, Tyger moping alongside me, hoping that I looked breezy and super fit and perfectly stoked about having to walk straight back up that fucking hill.

I nicked a glance over my shoulder after quarter of a mile. He’d gone inside. Smoke wound up from the chimney, a question mark. I was so not going back there again. Talk about a slap in the face.

Killer-thorns brushed my shin. Everything was so prickly here – gorse, thistles, baby holly at ankle-height. All waiting to get you.

It started to rain.

Your look always darkened, rain on stone, when you spoke of your mother. She never liked me. I knew it even from afar, by the way your voice sounded like it was caught on barbed wire.