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do.’
    ‘George is very good about discounts,’ explained Megan. ‘Deep down he’s a softie.’
    ‘No, I’m not,’ George corrected her. ‘About this trim . . .’
    Rachel let her gaze drift down the pens, where she could make out a brindled Staffie, and a couple of fat chocolate Labradors, a perky Jack Russell bouncing off the walls, and several Heinz 57, terrier-ish looking dogs with fresh eagerness in their brown eyes and a ‘pick me!’ wag in their tails. Other pens seemed empty, and she didn’t want to look, in case their occupants were lurking miserably at the back like Lulu, unable to dredge up the spirit to hope.
    How could you choose just one? Her throat tightened as if she’d swallowed cotton wool. How could you walk out, knowing you were leaving fourteen disappointed creatures to wonder what was wrong with them? When their owners would come back for them?
    She looked down, and blinked in surprise. Gem had appeared silently, out of nowhere, to lie in front of her, his narrow paws placed neatly together while he waited for something to do.
    ‘I’m not Dot,’ she whispered, so Megan wouldn’t hear her. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
    Rachel, she thought, for God’s sake don’t start talking to the dogs. Get a grip.
    ‘Megan?’ Her voice cracked, despite her efforts to sound light. ‘I’m going to have a bath. What’s the routine for, you know, locking up?’
    ‘No need,’ Megan replied cheerfully. ‘I’ve been living in? Part of the deal as kennel manager. Hope you don’t mind – Dot let me have the whole of the second floor? It’s got its own self-contained bathroom and sitting room. I won’t be in your way.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Rachel. ‘Right.’
    So she had a lodger as well. Great. Actually, maybe that was great.
    ‘Shall I sort you out some supper?’ asked Megan. ‘Freda’s brought a casserole for you, and there’s loads in the cupboards.’
    ‘No, I . . .’ Rachel didn’t want to say, ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone’, not when Megan was being so kind, but she really didn’t. ‘I’ve got some work to do,’ she said instead. It was a catch-all excuse that had worked for so much in the past. Ironically, of course, she didn’t have any work to do, unless you counted the letters to write to her ex-clients, explaining that she’d now resigned.
    ‘No problem!’ said Megan. ‘I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about sleeping in Dot’s bed, so I’ve made up the spare room next to hers? There’s towels on the heated rail in the bathroom.’
    Rachel forced out a smile. ‘Um . . . thanks. Thanks for everything you’ve done.’
    Megan’s smile increased. ‘Really, my pleasure. Have a nice bath!’
    ‘Good evening!’ said George Fenwick, tipping his head in a deliberately old-fashioned manner. ‘And let me give you the number of my dry cleaner!’
    ‘You have a dry cleaner?’ Rachel pulled an incredulous face.
    He smiled. ‘Touché.’
    But Rachel was too weary to enjoy scoring points off him. Instead she sloped off to Dot’s roll-topped bath to soak away some of the weariness in her bones.

3
    Johnny Hodge put his empty pint glass down between the empty crisp packet and the dish of pistachio shells and checked his watch.
    Quarter past eight. Bill had been at the bar for twenty-four minutes, which was a record even for the Fox and Hounds, where service depended on whether Ray’s darts injury was playing up or not.
    Johnny knew he should have gone himself. Even when Ray was in the pint-pulling zone, Dr Bill’s drink-buying always took twice as long as everyone else’s on account of the locals treating it as a chance for some unofficial medical attention in the comfort of their own pub. That was the price you paid for being a doctor. Very few people, on the other hand, bothered to button-hole Johnny to ask about the GCSE History syllabus.
    He glanced across at Natalie, but she was staring vacantly into the distance, an unfamiliar expression for her, and his