It was the day before I met Nick, the day he phoned. It must have been back in May. I’d taken the Tribe out in the morning, as usual, and loaded them into the back of the van at the end of our run. They were exhausted after racing around up on Whiddon Scrubs, and there was much heavy panting and scratching going on.

I’d parked the van on the brow of the hill, the last place before the road drops down towards Ashburton, the last place I could be sure to pick up a phone signal. Down in the town it’s patchy to say the least, and where I live it’s non-existent. I slid behind the steering wheel and dropped the silent dog whistle into my shoulder bag. Somewhere in that cavernous void lurked my mobile phone and I rooted around until I found it. There were no messages. I glanced in the rear-view mirror. Behind the wire grille that separated us, Nookie the Huskie gazed at me with eyes of Arctic blue before she yawned, turned around a couple of times, and lay down with the others.

As I started up the engine, I lingered a moment over the view. It was still early, the sky pale and soft, dove grey above distant trees, where the tower of St Andrew’s pierced the mist that floated in a veil over the valley. I turned the ignition, the radio blurted into life and Vivaldi spilt out all over the Devon countryside.

He interests me, Vivaldi. They used to call him The Red Priest. Perhaps other red-haired people just catch my attention. Anyway, all that strident strumming of violins was a bit intense for such an early hour, and I turned the radio off.

The old Astra rattled down the hill. We were among fields now. The whistling winds and gorse of the moor were far behind us, tatty sheep and shaggy ponies left nibbling by the roadside. In the wing mirror the sign recommending travellers to Drive with Moor Care disappeared as we rounded a bend. Our road dipped, vanishing between dense hedgerows frothy with white cow parsley, tiny pink stars of campion sparkling among dark ferns. This is one of the back roads into Ashburton, where trees mesh overhead in a tunnel of flickering green. It’s pretty enough, but dwindles to a narrow twisting lane with few passing places, and as everyone who lives locally seems to drive a tractor or a four-by-four, and is either incapable of backing, or unprepared to give an inch on grounds of vehicular superiority, it can be a two-wheels-forward, four-wheels-back sort of journey.

That morning I was lucky, forced to pull in only once, stopping by a farm gate to let a tractor trundle by, and delivered the members of the Tribe to their respective homes without much delay. Sally, the arthritic Labrador was joyfully received by her equally arthritic owner, but Nookie had to be let into an empty house and fed. At least, after her run, she would sleep away the morning, and her lonely wait for her family to return would not be too long.

Ashburton is a nook-and-cranny sort of place, a solid stannary town of narrow streets and even narrower pavements, ‘nestling’ as the guidebooks like to say, among hills on Dartmoor’s doorstep. In distance the town is a mere slip road away from the A38; in time, a century or more: a place where old cottages and ancient pubs stand wedged between elegant Edwardian town houses, a place of quaint corners, secret courtyards and long walled walks. It’s a honeytrap for tourists and day trippers coming off the Expressway, the last place for a comfort stop before they head on up to the moor, the perfect setting for a cream tea or a pint of local ale, a leisurely browse among shops selling expensive gifts and artisan foods, shops selling nothing which is not rustic, artistic or picturesque. There are no fewer than sixteen antique shops, and that’s not counting the flea market and the auctioneers, and most of these are packed within the framework of streets surrounding the broad junction where East Street becomes West Street, and North Street becomes St Lawrence’s Lane.

The old town looks lovely, but it’s a nightmare for the poor working woman trying to go about her business, getting stuck behind coaches in streets that were never intended for anything wider than a horse and cart, or trying to avoid knocking over knots of trippers, who stand about like waiting skittles in the middle of the road as they gawp at the delights around them. By the time I turned off North Street, my temper was not so much frayed as shredded. After walking the Tribe, I’d done two hours’ house-cleaning for the odious Verbena Clarke, it was way past my lunchtime and I was starving hungry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry.

The lane in which I live is quieter than the main thoroughfare and a lot less picturesque. No Georgian houses in sugar-almond colours here, no thatches and hollyhocks, just a narrow cobbled street with what used to be a bookshop, now sadly boarded up, halfway down. The only other building of interest is Sunflowers, the vegetarian cafe owned by my landlords, Adam and Kate, set in what was once an old stable.

Beyond this, the pavement narrows to nothing, the cobbles peter out and the road degrades into a rough track pocked with potholes and gives up entirely in a dead-end patch of ground edged with a tangle of dusty bramble bushes and dominated by an old Victorian lamp post. Some people regard this as an excellent place to abandon shopping trolleys, tip old mattresses, dispose of defunct microwaves and the like. I use it to park the van. Not that anyone is likely to be mad enough to want to steal it, but parked there I can see it from the house, if I peer out of the window on the landing.

Adam and Kate inherited a cavernous Victorian property, which they have never had enough money to renovate. It’s gloomy and damp, with creaking floorboards and rotten window frames, but there’s little rental accommodation in Ashburton, the rent is cheap, and beggars can’t be choosers. They’re happy to have a tenant living above them who doesn’t complain about the mouldy wall in her kitchen, the windows rattling, or the draught screaming like a banshee under the living-room door. To be fair, they’ve made several attempts to improve the place, but always run out of funds before these improvements can be completed. Sunflowers is not in a prime trading position and doesn’t do as well as its excellent menu deserves.

When I got back that morning my landlords were still at the cafe, dealing with lunches, and the house was empty. I trotted up the steps from the garden gate, making a mental note that it was time I gave the shrubs in the front garden a good haircut.

I was on a promise to look after them that I hadn’t honoured for some time.

I let myself in and went upstairs. Although the first floor is technically mine, I don’t have a door that blocks it off entirely. The landing is shared territory because of access to the airing cupboard and the loft. I could see Kate had been upstairs today. A plastic box had been left on the table outside my living-room door, an offering from Sunflowers. ‘Aubergine and Potato Curry’ was scrawled on the label, the writing blurred by partial defrosting. I picked it up with a smile. Having landlords who own a cafe means there are always plenty of leftovers, and I’m not proud.

My flat consists of a living room, a small kitchen, one bedroom with a brass bedstead and tiny original fireplace, and a bathroom with a dodgy boiler.

I unlocked the living room. Bill was sitting on the windowsill pretending to be a vase, his tail curled neatly round his feet. He likes the view from my living-room window, looking down into the mad tangle of the oddly shaped garden beneath, across to a crooked line of rooftops, and the green hills beyond. I stroked the short, black velvet between his ears and he started a deep, rasping purr, turning his head to gaze at me adoringly from one blazing, emerald eye. He’d lost the other as a kitten, in an encounter with an outraged chicken and his beautiful black nose was raked by long scratches. Bill’s not my cat, you understand; he belongs to Adam and Kate downstairs. Whenever I leave my place I make sure he’s locked out; and whenever I come home, he’s back inside. Like a magician, it seems he can enter and exit at will; none of us can work out how he does it.

I made myself a mug of coffee, a peanut butter and banana sandwich and settled down in the armchair, kicking off my shoes and heaving my socked feet up on to the coffee table. I raked my fingers through the tangled mess of my curls and gave my head a rub.

Bill stretched his long body on the windowsill and wandered over to join me, leaping on my lap and flexing his claws into my thighs in appreciation. ‘It’s no good settling down,’ I told him through a mouthful of sandwich, ‘I don’t expect I’ll be here long.’ I could see the red light flashing on the answerphone and reached over him awkwardly to press play.

I didn’t recognise the voice. It was foreign and heavily accented, hesitant, awkward at talking to a machine. I want speak to Miss Browne … er … Juno. This is Mr Nickolai … Nickolai Antiques. I want her come work for me. He left a number. I dislodged a disgruntled Bill so I could reach for a pen to jot it down, and then...