BOOK 4

'You see.' In the howl-filled dimness outside the front door, Paul had to shout close to Amy's ear. 'It's only a dog.'

'Are you sure?' She peered down the garden, making what she could of the shadow by the gate. 'It looks more like a wolf.'

The creature had quieted, she supposed at the sound of their voices. Its blackness merged with the rustling, twig-fretted dark so that she could see little of its size or shape, but the odd glimmer here and there showed it sitting on its haunches, its great wolf-head silhouetted against the pallor of the inn car park and weirdly framed by the wrought-iron patterns of the gate. It must know they were there; it seemed to be turning towards them.

'I suppose,' Amy observed from her knowledge of the Moor Fell dogs, 'it sees in the dark far better than we do.'

'I should think so.' Paul didn't sound at all disturbed at the idea.

'So it can see us better than we can see it.'

'Smell us, too, of course, given what a keen sense of smell dogs . . .'

'I know ab