‘Will Jones? What the bloody hell are you doing here?’

‘I got kicked out of my lodgings. There was nowhere else to go.’

‘This is private property.’

‘Marnie said it would be OK.’

‘It’s not up to her.’

‘Then I’ll get out.’

‘Too right you will!’

Will’s heart was pounding but he stood his ground. ‘But first, John, will you help me. I found a dog by the estuary… it’s in there. It’s in a bad way.’

He indicated the living-room door and stepped back so John could go in. Will followed. John whistled between his teeth when he saw the animal.

‘Bloody Nora. The state of it!’

‘I pulled it out of the mud but it must have been stuck for a while. It’s very cold. I think it’s Marnie’s. She was looking for it earlier. My phone’s dead so I can’t call her.’

John crouched beside the dog.

‘I didn’t know what to do,’ said Will. ‘I didn’t know where to take it. I don’t have a car or anything. I was trying to warm it up.’

John lifted the dog’s lip with his thumb, then its eyelid.

‘It’s dying.’

‘No!’ Will said. ‘No, it’s not going to die. How do we warm it up? Can we heat enough water for a bath here, or—’

‘Will, it’s beyond help.’

‘I’m not going to let it die.’

John looked up at Will.

‘I mean it,’ Will said. ‘I don’t care what it takes or how much it costs. What can we do to help it? How do we keep it alive? Can we get it to a vet?’

‘It won’t last that long.’

‘What then?’

‘I don’t hold out much hope but—’

‘What do we do?’

‘We’ll take it over the road,’ said John, in his slow, West Country way. ‘We’ll take it to the Big House and put it in warm water. We’ll try and warm some life back into it.’

‘Mr deVillars doesn’t like me. I don’t know if he’ll let me in.’

A question flickered across John’s face but he suppressed it.

‘Don’t you worry about him. I’ll make it right.’

Will really didn’t want to have to face Mr deVillars again, but his determination to save the dog was stronger than his reluctance.

‘Could you first call Marnie, John, to let her know we’ve got the dog?’

‘Don’t have a phone.’

‘Oh. Right.’

Surreptitiously, Will eyed the old man. He was an unlikely ally but he didn’t know that Will had his suspicions about him. And Will needed John if he was to have any chance of getting into the Big House and saving the dog. That was the priority. He’d worry about the role John might have played in Alice’s death later.