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‘I think that would be for the best.’ Rocco would gladly let the local constable sort it out.

‘You might not think that when you’re doing a five-year stretch for dognapping!’

Dognapping? She was seriously loopy!

‘I don’t have a dog!’ he said, almost laughing with the absurdity of the scenario.

‘One…’

Beside him, Bruno gave a little grumbling noise. Rocco looked down to see Bruno wagging his tail. In fact, his whole body wiggled.

‘Two…’

Jesus! Was the pharmacist Bruno’s owner? But Frankie said she was away.

‘Is that your owner?’ Rocco whispered to Bruno as Bruno continued to wriggle in apparent glee.

‘What’s your name?’ Rocco shouted.

‘What the hell’s that got to do with anything?’

Rocco frantically tried to recall what Frankie had said. Anna… Annalise… Lisa… Alice… Alison – ALISON!

‘It’s Alison, isn’t it?’

There was a pause before she said, ‘Yes. And that’s three!’

‘Hang on! I think there’s been a misunderstanding.’

‘You think?’

A flustered Rocco hurried over and pressed the panel on the side of the wall to open the shutters then ran back to the centre of the door panels. But he’d accidentally selected sequence five on the lights and music ambience panel. The lights dimmed and Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’ played out.

‘No-no-no-no-no!’ Rocco wailed under his breath as he rushed back to the control panel. ‘Now is not a sexy time,’ he hissed. Peering in the dark, he tried to cancel the selection but accidentally hit programme three. Party. LED lights pulsed as Chase & Status pounded out of the speakers.

Shit!

‘Four!’ Rocco heard Alison yell over the drum and bass.

Rocco finally managed to return the open-plan downstairs to the normal everyday lighting sequence and the shutters began to rise with a mechanical whirr.

He’d never noticed how slowly they took to roll up; painfully so. He saw a pair of hiking boots planted squarely on the ground, then jean-clad legs, the edge of a long, dark-green raincoat, hand by her side holding her mobile phone, index finger tapping impatiently on the back… her belt buckle and other hand placed on her waist, her woolly jumper then her shoulder-length brown bob and then her seriously pissed off expression glaring in through the glass.

Alison looked equally terrifying and also quite magnificent as she held her ground, staring in at Rocco.

Bruno took a step forward and began panting as Rocco unlocked the doors and opened the central panel.

Alison immediately dropped to her knees to hug Bruno who was delighted to be reunited with his owner.

‘I can explain.’

Alison ignored him. ‘Come on, Bruno, let’s go.’ She gave a gentle tug on his collar but the dog didn’t budge. ‘Bruno!’

‘Please,’ Rocco tried again. ‘It’s a misunderstanding. Let me explain.’

She looked up at him. ‘You have ten seconds. And I can still call the police, you know.’ She held up her phone in a threatening manner.

‘I thought he was lost.’