Her audacity proved contagious, prompting Jem to strip off her trousers without fretting about the shape of her arse or how untoned her thighs were. She handed the trousers over and unbuttoned her shirt, folding it inward and placing it in the bag Rosie held ready.

“That’s all they’ll need,” Rosie told her. “You get to keep the rest.”

“How very generous of you.”

“I am magnanimous to a fault.” Rosie gave Jem a third bag. “Could you do the honours?”

“Certainly.” Jem opened the bag wide, scrutinising the lockers behind Rosie’s head as Rosie wrestled her legs from trousers that—judging by the amount of swearing—were clinging to her damp skin. Jem counted seven lockers in the first row, each decorated with an average of four photos, with pets outnumbering babies by three to one.

“Fer fuck’s—Jem?”

Jem tore her gaze from a picture of a hamster perched in a shoe and followed the appeal downward, to find Rosie sitting on the floor, one leg free and the other trapped by a concertina of material at the shin.

“How on earth have you managed that?” she said.

Rosie hoisted her ensnared ankle. “It took a fair amount of skill.”

Jem crouched in front of Rosie and felt her ears go hot. Rosie had already taken off her shirt, giving Jem a full-on view of a pastel blue bra and a well-defined torso. She tried to avert her eyes, only to end up gawping at a pair of red cotton briefs.

“Told you they clashed,” Rosie said, sounding more amused than abashed.

“Yep.” Jem was back to studying the lockers.

“Jem?”

“What?”

“You’re mostly naked as well.”

“I know that,” Jem said. She still had her T-shirt on, though.

“I don’t think we can do this if you’re determined to stare at that hamster.”

“How the hell did you—?” Jem gave up; she knew she’d been rumbled. She let her shoulders sag. “It is a very cute hamster.”

“Are you really going to leave me to the mercy of that forensics bloke?” Rosie asked, sotto voce, the intimacy enough to make Jem’s ears tingle again.

“Uh, no.” Jem licked her lips and tried for something more emphatic. “Definitely not. Point your toes like a ballet dancer.”

The trousers capitulated without much of a fight, and Jem tucked them into the bag, as Rosie stood and performed a neat pirouette en route to collect a pile of spare clothing.

“Gift from the custody suite,” she said.

Jem took the grey outfit the tech had supplied. “He seems to have overlooked my top half,” she said, displaying a single pair of jogging bottoms.

“More fool him,” Rosie murmured, and then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, fuck, I didn’t mean…Well, obviously I did mean—but I didn’t. Fuck. I’m just going to stop talking.”