Pepelito was lying in the living room with his head on an old bean bag when there was a knock on Rita's door. One of his horns had pierced the bean bag and a small number of polystyrene balls had spilled onto the floor. Out of curiosity, he started pushing some of them around with his nose to see if they moved on their own. He hauled himself unsteadily to his feet as Rita shut the door to the living room. 'My partner's coming to pick me up. Can you be good and stay here, I'll let you out in a bit?'

He missed the space on the farm, the fresh grass underneath his feet. The floor was  hard to walk on and he often skidded around. Being in a small room alone or with only humans for company was frightening too. He missed his friends.

What happened to them?

'Morning, Jesus, you're here early,' Rita said. Pepelito smelt that it was raining outside as heavy footsteps walked into the house. This place was a sort of nest for Rita, she ate and even slept here. Knowing this made him less afraid of her, but her visitors were a different story.

'What's all this straw on the ground, you keeping rabbits or something, Rita?' Jesus Dominguez chuckled with a deep voice. Pepelito was nervous of men; almost every time he saw one he was trying to hurt him. Cigarette smoke drifted into the room, bringing back terrible memories. He walked over to the bucket of water by the TV and lapped at it, hoping Dominguez wouldn't come in.

'Oh dear, yeah sorry, looking after my neighbour's giant rabbit for a week,' Rita laughed from behind the door. 'I'd show you, but he's a rescue and frightened of people.'

'You sure it's just a rabbit there? Nothing bigger, like that bull that's gone walkabout? Me and Flavia were saying, if anyone at work was going to hide it, it would be you.' Dominguez said, laughing.

'A bull? Shut up, I'm not that daft. Do you think I could fit a bull in a flat as small as this?' Rita laughed. Pepelito walked over to the door and scratched at it, tried to push down the handle with his horn like he did before but frustratingly it didn't open. It scared him. Were they going to take him somewhere else?

'What's that stain on the wall? Did you finally murder your brother in law?' He heard Rita's shoes spinning round. She gasped in shock.

'No. I hurt myself quite badly a while back on some broken glass, when I dropped that old laptop a few months ago, the glass shattered and I slipped, then I grabbed onto the wall. I cleaned it up but couldn't entirely get the stain out.'

'I don't remember that. If you say so.'

'Well -' Rita's voice had a note of desperation in it.

'I'm joking. Sounds painful, you OK?' Dominguez said, slurping his coffee loudly.

'Oh yeah, I'm fine.'

'Come, let's find this Raquel or whatever her name is. Whoa, what have you got in there, must be a big rabbit.'

'He's pretty big,' Rita laughed.

Their voices became indistinct as the front door closed. Then, from the street, Rita said, ‘Wait there. I need to check I turned the stove off.’  

Pepelito heard her sprinting back to the house and twisting a key to unlock the living room door.

'Be good, toro.' Then she darted out again, slamming the front door firmly behind her.

*****

'You're awfully quiet, Rita.' Jesus Dominguez rolled the window of his car down and lit a cigarette. A large cross hung in his car window, saying 'What would Jesus Do?', a souvenir from a trip to America.

Rita leant back in the car seat. 'My sister called me last night. After not being in contact for about 10 years.'

Dominguez snorted. 'I bet that went as well as could be expected. I couldn't get her arsehole husband off the phone yesterday.'

'I told her I had murders to solve and wasn't going to help him find animals to kill, especially not in my spare time,' Rita said, more forcefully than she intended. As she looked down she realised a bit of manure was stuck to her shoe. Panic rose in her. Could you teach a cow to use a litter tray? Was this possible? Maybe Alfonso would know.

'Sometimes I ask myself, why on earth did you become a cop, Rita?' Dominguez laughed. 'Why didn't you work for, I don't know, a donkey sanctuary?'

'I failed the application to get into vet school,' Rita said as they turned a corner, narrowly missing a red light.

'Know what I could do with right now?' Dominguez said darkly. 'A cold beer and a huge piece of steak.'

'It's 8 in the morning, Jesus,' Rita said in mock reproach, but the edge to his voice told her it was more than his usual banter.

'Don't care. I haven't eaten since yesterday. Got home last night to find Luis had changed all the locks and thrown my stuff outside,' Dominguez said, a bitter tone to his voice.

'Don't say anything. It's fine. Think missing our anniversary meal out to interrogate the scum who did Juan Stefano in was the last straw for him.' Dominguez sighed deeply and pressed his foot down on the accelerator, heading for the town of Villafrechos. Rita felt stunned and not a little guilty. Dominguez was both her mentor and the reliable 'gay best friend'. He had put her up during her divorce from her ex when she had nowhere else to go; long before he had moved in with Luis, she had spent several weeks on his sofa. What if he needed her to repay the favour? Her stomach lurched.

'I'm only dating blue on blue from now on,' he growled, as they turned off down a dirt track outside the town, towards what looked like a small farmhouse. 

*

After about 10 minutes of knocking, Raquel Carlos answered the door. She was wearing a dressing gown and a bath towel on her head. When she opened the door, three large dogs and one small one came pelting out.

'Are you here about adopting Arabela, you're early, it's not even 8.30, I thought you were coming at 10?' she said. Rita flashed her warrant card.

'Raquel Carlos?' Rita said, watching the woman's eyes go wide with shock. 'Rita Silvera, Policia Nacional.'

'What...do you want,' she mumbled. Rita noticed that there were several marijuana plants growing outside, and a few more were visible in pots in the upstairs window.

'We're not interested in those,' Dominguez said, waving a hand. The house was huge, and it smelt of dog. Yet another dog, a Labrador, bounded towards them and leapt up onto Rita. She stroked him and took his paws to get him down.

'Yes, yes, you're a good boy,' Rita said as the dog licked her hand. Dominguez looked vaguely horrified. The yellow Labrador proceeded to sniff her all over, but left Dominguez alone. She told herself there was nothing to worry about. Nobody would comment about what he could or couldn’t smell – he was a dog.

'What's this about? Um - can I get changed? I just came out the shower.' Raquel's face was red.

'Sure, take all the time you need. We'll be in here,' Rita said, walking to the kitchen. She and Dominguez sat down at the white plastic table. The kitchen was large and airy. At the opposite end to where they were sitting were 10 or 12 food bowls for all the good boys and girls.

'Are you sure you didn't just bring us here to see some dogs?' Dominguez said under his breath.

'I'm saying nothing,' Rita said. She sat in silence and looked around the room. More weed plants were growing in tubs by the sink. Dominguez was eyeing them, almost tempted.

'That's personal use,' Raquel said hurriedly as she walked back in, dressed in tracksuit bottoms.

'As my colleague mentioned, we're not here about that. We're here about Caroline McKenzie. What can you tell us about her?' Rita said.

'Caroline? What about her?' Raquel said in surprise as a huge staffie pushed past her and started wolfing down food.

'I know you two were friends, or at least online acquaintances. Her body was found last night, she was murdered two days ago.' Raquel's mouth dropped open. She looked terrified; she looked towards the yellow Labrador for comfort. He trotted towards her, wagging his tail.

'I've never known anyone that's been murdered,' she said, looking as though she was going to cry.

'We're trying to put together a picture of what she was like. What did you two talk about?' Rita said gently.

'Talk about? Dogs, mostly, she wanted to adopt one of our rescues, she was going to come here today and meet them all,' Raquel said, blinking back tears, as if the question confused her.

'We know she had friends in Spain, but did she ever mention any exes or anyone she'd been romantically involved with?' Rita said. Dominguez flinched when she asked that question.

'No. I don't know. We didn't talk about that stuff.'

'She had a high flying job and was attending business meetings while in Valladolid, did she ever mention any problems at work, for example someone who'd been passed over for a promotion?' Dominguez said. Raquel took a gulp of a glass of water on the table.

'I don't know about anything like that, she didn't talk about it,' Raquel said, shaking her head, looking distressed. She had gone pale.

'You said you met on Facebook. Sometimes online arguments can get out of control, had she recently had a disagreement with anyone?' Rita thought of what Alfonso had said about knowing Caroline online - asking the question felt almost like a betrayal. At this, Raquel shook her head quickly - a little too quickly.

'No, no. I don't think she ever argued with anyone. She wasn't that type of person. We just talked about animal rescues.' Raquel put the glass of water to her lips and drank most of it. She wiped a tear from her face.

'I know this is difficult, but is there any reason you can think of why someone might have wanted to harm her?' Rita said. Raquel said nothing, she put the glass down heavily and pushed it away, looking as though she was going to be sick.

'She did get in an argument online, but it was like a year ago. I can't even remember it. I think it was about politics.'

'Do you remember who it was with?'

'No, sorry,' Raquel said. 'It wasn't with anyone here, I don't think. There was a scandal about some politician or other in Britain where she's from. I don't read the news, I've got no idea. But I don't think - surely nobody would have followed her here on holiday and killed her just because of that...'

'You'd be surprised,' Dominguez said.

*

'We need to get on the victim's online activities. Raquel’s holding something back,' Rita said as they got back into the car. She would know- so was she. She looked at her phone and saw she had a message from Alfonso, who had also sent her a picture of the goat he had mentioned, a ginger one with a long brown beard.

'How's our patient doing this morning?' the message said.

'He's good,' she quickly replied as Dominguez slumped into the driver's seat. 'Hope you're feeling a bit better.'

'Yeah, just a terrible shock,' he replied. She put her phone away and stared out the window.

'Who's that?' Dominguez snapped.

'Some guy I know,' Rita said. 'Kind of a long story. I'll tell you over a beer some time.'

As an afterthought she added, 'Jesus? Have you got somewhere to crash tonight?'

'Staying in a hostel tonight and tomorrow. After that, I don't know. Maybe I should try and work it out with Luis.' Rita's heart pounded in her chest. Her shoulders froze as she anticipated his next question.

'Hopefully it won't come to that but I might ask if you can put me up for a while.' He’d more than done the same for her, more than once. Surely he'd have her back; he was no stranger to unorthodox policing methods or outright breaking the law to get a result. When they finally did put Castella away, it'd be a great story for Dominguez to dine out on. 'Remember that bull that ran out of Castella’s corrida and disappeared? Rita had him wandering around in her flat! Almost got gored in the arse whenever I took a shower!'

But he was still a cop. They worked together. It was stupid to think telling him was totally risk-free.

Rita took a deep breath. Of course he’d find somewhere to go after the hostel. But they were best mates. She had to offer. 'Sure, you can crash at mine, you know that, Jesus. It's chaotic, though. With the rabbit.'

‘Yeah. That might be good, providing you let me cook real meat in your kitchen.'

AN: Sorry this is a long chapter and had a POV change which I know you are not really supposed to do in a chapter. Hopefully it worked though? What do you think Rita should have said? 🤣