One Saturday morning in late September last year, Ian and Joanne Lamb pulled on their jogging gear and set off from their house in Dartford for one of their short, invigorating runs. Husband and wife made it as far as the end of their road when, as Ian tells it, “Joanne heard something rustling in a hedge.”
“What’s that?” said Joanne.
“It’s a cat,” Ian offered.
“It’s not a cat.” His wife stopped and peered into the hedge. From inside it, a large, as yet unidentifiable four-legged creature stared back at her. Whatever it was, it had a beautiful, luxuriously thick coat — Joanne thought of a Persian cat — but its face was narrow and pointy with black and grey markings that called to