“Most of it, at a guess,” she said, waiting for the shower to show willing and produce a hint of steam before she stripped off. The full-length mirror caught her naked body in profile, and she turned slowly to face the glass. She knew she’d never be rake-thin, and in truth she was quite fond of her curves. Her breasts were chipper enough, she didn’t have bingo wings, and while her tummy definitely wasn’t a six-pack, it hadn’t reached the level of keg.

Using one hand to clear the mirror of mist, she gave her bedhead the evil eye and tugged on one of its tufts. Though she might be at home with her body, her hair was another matter entirely. It was stringy, mud brown, and best displayed beneath a cap, and she had always hated it. With no solutions of her own apart from shaving it all off, she kept the same style to appease her hairdresser, a myopic sixty-year-old who still thought basin fringes and backcombing were the height of fashion.

“Balls to it,” she said, and stepped beneath the spray.

Reconvening with Ferg on the driveway, she abandoned her attempts to kirby-grip her fringe into submission and greeted the frantic menagerie of mutts Ferg had collected.

“Hallo, pups,” she said, squatting to hand out treats. She untangled three of the leads, dividing the load equally between her and Fergus, and clicked her tongue. “Right-o, best foot forward.”

The rain had cleared as she slept, leaving puddles on the pavements, and the smell of fresh grass in Abbey Vale. Stretching across several miles of wetland, fields, and woodland, the nature reserve was high and open enough in places to give views of the Pennines and the monument atop Stanny Pike in one direction, and the city skyscrapers in the other. Jem had spent hours exploring its trails, and she walked the dogs more for pleasure and exercise than financial gain. Children were shrieking on the main playground, lured outside by the first clear weather in days, and two no-fixed-abodes had hung their sleeping bags to dry from nearby trees. They raised their lager cans in greeting as Jem steered her dogs by.

“Seen rats in ’ere bigger than them,” one said. “Best watch out if you go near the lake. The seagulls will have ’em.”

She ignored him, and Ferg’s amused snort.

“Sod off, I can’t help it,” she said, once they’d rounded the corner. Nothing over knee height, that was her rule, and that meant her knees, not Ferg’s. She’d pushed the limits of her comfort zone by accepting a marginal beagle from an elderly gent with a bad hip, but she’d firmly drawn the line at the Murphys’ boxer.