While Shane stripped the boy’s sodden gear, Leon grabbed the spare clothes. Naked, the poor kid looked even more vulnerable. Leon helped tug dry clothes onto his frozen body.

‘Get going,’ Shane instructed Fergus, settling in the back seat of the police car beside his son.

Leon said, ‘I’ll take your truck home and tell Wendy.’

Shane looked at him and nodded, the strain showing in his face—a mix of anger and fatherly love and concern. But he mouthed thank you to Leon as the police car pulled away, blue light whirling, the boy lying limp across his father’s lap.

It was almost one in the morning when Leon arrived at the vet clinic. ‘Sorry,’ he said, as Kate opened the door and ushered him inside. ‘I’d better buy a cage here for my dog.’ He laid Bonnie on the table, and Kate began her examination.

‘It’s all right,’ she murmured. ‘These things happen.’

In the bright lights of the clinic, Leon could see his dog properly, and it didn’t look good. Bonnie was a mess. She had crusted blood all over her, and even though Leon had the heater up high all the way here, she was weak and dozy. Kate’s silence worried him. ‘She’s a good dog,’ he said, filling the void with words. He explained that Max had run away with Bonnie, then said, ‘We found them in the excavator at the tip. They kept each other alive, cuddling up.’

Kate inspected Bonnie with competent hands. She opened the dog’s mouth and pointed to a jagged gash on her tongue. ‘That’s where the blood’s coming from. She must have caught her tongue on something sharp. Lucky she didn’t cut it right off.’

‘There’s plenty of sharp stuff at the tip. She might have been licking out tins.’

‘That’s possible. She’s lost a bit of blood, but it looks worse than it is. Her main problem is hypothermia.’

Leon helped Kate set up a drip, then they shifted Bonnie onto a heating pad and placed hot water bottles around her.

After the dog was settled, Kate glanced at Leon. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, just tired.’

‘You look like the walking dead. Let’s have a hot chocolate before you go home.’

‘That would be good,’ Leon admitted. ‘I’m pretty cold.’

Kate directed him to the bathroom. ‘Why don’t you clean up while I heat some milk?’

In the mirror, Leon saw the shocked pallor of his face and the spattered blood on his cheeks, more blood on his jacket. With dampened paper towels he cleaned his face, but he couldn’t do much with his clothes.