Helen Bailey's dog killed to make Northumberland author's disappearance believable

The love and devotion Helen Bailey showed to Boris, her miniature dachshund, ended up costing him his life.

His demise was a callous footnote to the deadly plot hatched by his owner's fiance, as he sought to craft a feasible explanation for her disappearance.

The author's tiny, brown-coated companion was the chief character in her life, as anyone who received her greeting card might have guessed.

Her killer knew it was inconceivable that Ms Bailey would have vanished without her beloved pet trotting beside her.

Boris was bought with her first husband, John Sinfield, and gave her a reason to go on after he drowned while on holiday in 2011.

She wrote that "in many ways, Boris saved me".

Ms Bailey got him after the couple's first miniature dachshund, Rufus, who she described as a "child substitute", died.

She wrote in her final book: "We called the pup Boris, after Boris Johnson, because a picture in the London Evening Standard of BJ scowling looked just like our wrinkly-faced, flat-nosed Boris in the newborn photographs the breeder has emailed."

The book, When Bad Things Happen In Good Bikinis, is peppered with mentions of life with Boris: he attacks the balloon she intends to release on her late husband's birthday; he dives into the laundry basket where John's clothes lie, unwashed.

In death, as in life, Boris remained at her side - found in the same undignified burial site where she lay for three months.