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Their back gate opened onto a trail that led through a forest. In the middle of the night it would have been impossible to follow anyone.

‘Who was it?’ Mary said.

‘I don’t know,’ Ryan said. ‘It was a man, I’m sure of that. He came at me, but I managed to throw him against the kitchen counter.’

That must have been the thud she heard.

‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Fine. But there’s something else.’

The knot in her stomach tightened.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s Wally,’ he said. ‘The intruder silenced him.’

Silenced him? She did not want to ask the question. She did not want to know the answer.

Although she already did.

‘What did they do?’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

‘He’s dead,’ Ryan said. ‘They killed Wally.’

Wally

Ryan had told her it was shocking, but nothing could have prepared Mary for what she saw in the kitchen.

Wally was lying on his side, his head twisted into an unnatural angle so he was facing over his shoulder. Blood leaked from his nostrils, pooling around his snout.

There was no doubt how he had died.

How he had been murdered.

Tears welled up in her eyes and she fought back a violent sob. Wally, that bounding, goofy, joyous bundle of fun and excitement and unconditional canine love and affection, was lying on the kitchen floor, his lips curled up to expose his teeth in a look – and she knew she was projecting human emotions onto an animal, but she didn’t care at all – of shock and terror at the sudden cruelty of the universe.

Mary knelt beside him and stroked his soft head. His eyes, wide and lifeless, stared back at her.

‘What kind of person would do this?’ she said.

‘I don’t know,’ Ryan replied. ‘But this whole situation is completely out of hand.’

‘What happened?’ Mary said. ‘When you came downstairs?’

‘The guy was heading for the stairs,’ Ryan said. ‘When he saw me, he turned and ran. I chased him and hit him on the shoulder with the baseball bat. That knocked him a bit sideways, then I grabbed him and threw him against the counter. I was going to hit him again, but he ran to the back door.’

He closed his eyes.

‘And that was when I saw what he had done to Wally.’

‘He was heading for the stairs?’ she said. ‘He was coming to kill us, wasn’t he?’

Ryan nodded. ‘It seems that way. Good job Wally barked and woke me up.’

Mary stroked Wally’s head again. ‘You saved us. If you hadn’t barked, who knows what would have happened to us.’

She bent over and kissed Wally’s head.