Persham had the tap running, and waited near the basin with a clean towel ready.

He heard the sound of the tap running, and then the sound of bristles against gum, ivory and lip.

He moved into the little kitchen which led from the sitting-room and soon Nelly could hear the tap running.

The environmental thinker Tim Helweg-Larsen explains the urgency by likening climate change to a bath with the tap running.

With the tap running, he nearly didn't hear the landline phone ringing.

Kelly heard a tap running.

She heard a tap running, no bottles being taken from a secret stash.

A tap running, and the echo of metal as the kettle was filled.

Not a tap running, a radio mumbling, not one of the household machines in operation.

"Unless someone left a tap running," said the Senior Tutor.