Apple put her hand on Nat’s arm. “No harm done, Nat,” she said gently. “Woody didn’t actually bite anyone. There’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

Nat felt near to tears.

“I know,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “But the story makes Woody out to be a monster; people will want him to be locked up….”

“Do you mean Teddy Davis?” asked Apple.

Among others, thought Nat with dread.

Mick swallowed hard. “Don’t you worry about him,” he said. “I’ll go and have a word with Tom, try to sort things out.”

Nat tried smiling, but his face felt all wrong. “I’m going to take Woody swimming,” he said. “Is it all right if we go on the boat, Granddad?”

Mick fetched the key to the Diamond Lil. “Don’t worry, lad, it’ll be fine. There’s no real harm in Woody.”

Apple watched her grandson and his dog as they walked out of the sunny garden and onto Camellia Lane. Mick picked up the newspaper and studied the photograph of Woody.

“How do you know there’s no harm in him?” asked Apple softly.

“Because,” said Mick grimly, “if Woody was like the others up at Helleborine Halt, Teddy Davis would be dead by now. Dead, or worse!”

Heat radiating upward from the hot pavement gave the deserted lane an eerie, shimmery feel, as though it weren’t quite solid. Nat and Woody walked in the shade, deliberately keeping in the shadows. Woody’s restlessness had morphed into unease, and he stopped frequently, sniffing the air, his ears back, fur stiff, making Nat as jumpy as a box of frogs. He knew they were vulnerable out in the open like this, and he tried to shake off the horrible feeling that someone was watching them.

At Diamond Beach, bobbing in the small marina, Mick’s boat, the Diamond Lil, waited quietly by the quay. Once aboard, Nat felt less worried. He gazed out to sea and tried not to think about the consequences of the newspaper story. Woody stood like a figurehead at the prow of the Diamond Lil, sniffing the still air and growling low.

“What?” asked Nat, his stomach churning. Woody had fixed his gaze on the rocks above the cove, his body quivering slightly. To Nat’s weak human eye, the cliffs seemed deserted. Nat got to his feet and stood next to Woody, shielding his eyes from the sun. It wasn’t until he was almost blinded by a flash of silver caught by the brilliant sunshine that he knew Woody’s instincts were right.

They were under surveillance.

After some time they could both make out the figures on the cliff. There were three of them, moving closer by the minute. One was definitely Davis. The other two, Nat soon realized, were the slack-jawed Spanner Harris and the pudgy kid who never bathed — Nat didn’t know his name. He tried to think.