Marnie put Tessy and Mister into her car and then drove the sea road as far as the junction with the lane that led down to the point. It was an unassuming track, for many years closed off to the public by the military, who had owned the land, but now the tall fences were broken and the wire had been cut and torn down in places. The sign with the skull and crossbones, which said, ‘Danger! Keep Out!’ was still there, battered, banging in the wind, but the gates had been taken, sold for scrap.

Marnie had never driven on to the point although she’d seen the pillbox from the beach. The track went on for longer than she expected, winding between sparse shrub-land and waterlogged grass, a lonely place where people had dumped mattresses and torched cars. The post-storm sun was shining so brightly on the estuary that the glare hurt her eyes. The tide was out and the mudflats rippled in the light. A flock of white seabirds described spirals above the water, and the islands of Flat Holm and Steep Holm were distant silhouettes. A rabbit scuttered in front of the car, its white tail bobbing. Marnie pulled down the sunshade and scanned the area for any sign of Luna.

At its end, the track opened into a wide, potholed area, where the travellers parked their vans and lorries when they came. Marnie parked the car and let out the dogs. Tessy ran free, but Marnie kept Mister on the long lead. He stood beside her, squat, the wind lifting his damaged ears, staring about him, sniffing the air.

Marnie could see for miles from here. She scanned the area but there was no sign of Luna.

She walked towards the pillbox at the far end of the point crossing stony, puddled ground: worm-casts, and the first signs of greening in the squat little blackthorn bushes; a family of great tits calling and fluttering.

Everything about the pillbox, from its ugly concrete exterior to the slits that served as windows, was grim.

Marnie shortened Mister’s lead and ducked to enter beneath the door jamb. The interior was pitch black and smelled of smoke and ammonia. Marnie waited for her eyes to adjust and then she saw there were no new paw prints, no new excrement, nothing to indicate Luna had been back.

She came out again, into the clean daylight, the sky washed blue, and gazed across the estuary. It was a beautiful morning and she could look along the coast line, back towards the caretaker’s cottage. Her phone pinged. It was a message from Gabriel.

I saw you drive past. Is everything OK?

She replied:

Searching for lost dog.

and then put the phone back in her pocket.

53

Will was walking aimlessly when a car pulled up alongside him. Marnie Morahan wound down the window.

‘Hi,’ said Will: ‘Are you OK?’

She showed him her phone.

Searching for lost dog.