She gave him the tin and he left. Marnie looked around. The room was warm; there was a small electric heater in the corner. Beside it, a waterproof coat hung from a peg by its hood and beneath that was a pair of lace-up leather boots. She’d never seen Gabriel out of his work clothes. There was a towel and some bottles on the shelf. She unscrewed the lid to the body wash, sniffed, and replaced the lid. On the desk was a photograph of Gabriel, in sunglasses and a T-shirt, with his arm looped round the shoulders of a woman with a small, neat face and laughing eyes. She looked friendly. The kind of person with whom you could be easy.

Marnie took off her hat and jacket and her fingerless gloves and sat down on Gabriel’s chair, swinging herself to the right and then to the left, feeding Mister small treats while she waited.

Gabriel returned soon enough with the tin now in two pieces. He had sliced the top completely off. He passed it back to her. Her heart quickened.

‘Mind your fingers, the edges are sharp. Listen, I, er, I was about to make a drink. Will you join me?’

Marnie nodded.

‘Coffee OK?’

She smiled.

As Gabriel busied himself at the sink, Marnie lifted the lid from the tin. For the first time in almost a quarter of a century, daylight fell onto what was inside.

59

Will’s back was aching and he hardly had any strength left in his legs by the time he reached the caretaker’s cottage. He staggered inside and laid the dog gently on the settee in the living room. It remained in the same position, curled with its legs beneath it, barely having the strength to keep its eyes open. Will crouched beside it, stroked the top of its head with his fingertips. He could feel the shape of the skull beneath the fur. The very bones were cold. It worried him that the dog was no longer shivering. He’d read somewhere that in cases of hypothermia, not shivering was a bad sign.

The ashes in the grate still held some residual warmth. He screwed up some of the free newspapers and sales leaflets that had been shoved through the letter box and lit a new fire on the remains of the old one. He tipped everything out of his rucksack and used the T-shirt he slept in and his pyjama bottoms to wipe as much dirt as he could from the dog and then he wrapped his fleece around it. The fire burned brightly but it wasn’t giving off enough heat to make a significant difference to the temperature of the room. Will sat beside the dog, sharing his own body heat.

‘Don’t give up, buddy,’ he said. ‘Hang on in there.’