The puppy is sitting on his bottom in the darkness of the high-sided box. His stubby legs are white, his body patched with black and brown. His face is black except for ginger eyebrows and a white muzzle. As I watch, his head droops as if he can barely hold it up under the weight of his sumptuous, velvety ears. These ears are the only abundant thing about him. The rest of him is diminutive, skimpy, his ribs staring: he takes up far less room than his food supplies, two pints of milk and a biscuit tin with BABY RUSK scrawled on the lid, which are packed in beside him.

“Dad and me, we thought you might as well have a look at him. He’s called Bailey.”

Miss Horne’s speaking voice is flat, piped. I think she might be asthmatic. I look up at her. “So you brought two weeks’ food, just in case.”

“I’ve asked and asked,” she says. “But there isn’t a soul in Upton or Barrow End who’ll have him. Lady Brock, she said—”

“She said, ‘Try the vicar. He’s a soft touch.’ ” I can’t help smiling.

“You’re my last hope, Mr. Acton.”

She states it flatly. She doesn’t ingratiate herself in any way. There’s an almost flinty look about her, the directness of her dark eyes. I’d call this blackmail if she were a more importunate person. But I sense that importuning has never been her style. I sense that Lucy Horne’s aim in life is to make a good fist of things, and if that means, as in this case, finding a home for a dog she’ll otherwise have to put down, she will go to great lengths.

“Miss Horne—”

“He’s had all his jabs. No fleas or worms. And you can call me Lucy, Vicar.”

“Lucy. I was going to ask if you’d like to come in.”

—

Once in the kitchen Lucy takes off her battered jerkin, looking even smaller without the bulky garment. She could wear the clothes of an eleven-year-old child. She lifts the puppy out of the box and he hangs from her hands, swaddled in empty folds of skin, his mouth drawing back to show small needles of white teeth.

“His mum had no interest in him,” she says. “She had her work cut out feeding the other six, and the big ones squeezed him out like a pip. He never got a look-in. Would you please heat some of this milk for me, Vicar?”

I do as she says, firing up a ring of my gas camping stove. It’s a bit like having a baby to visit. Except this particular baby has been foisted on me forever after.

“How old is Bailey, Lucy?”