A sharp horn blast from behind made her jump.

‘Hold your sodding horses.’ She squeezed most of the Giulietta into a tiny gap between two parked cars and held her breath as the battered Peugeot barged past, perilously close to her bumper.

She reversed slowly back on to the main street and tried the last turning on the unlabelled crescent, negotiating more badly parked vehicles, craning her neck to read building numbers on flats fifteen feet from the road in the crowded cul-de-sac.

Partly her frustration was due to having overslept, a term which didn’t seem appropriate considering the series of jerked awakenings she had endured in the night, or the restless dozing she’d achieved in between. The alarm had woken her after four snooze functions, none of which she remembered activating, just in time for her to call Frank and ask him to take the morning brief in her absence.

She still wasn’t sure if he believed she was following up the lead on the SOCO’s ex on her way in, rather than speaking to him from under a duvet with sleep in her eyes. The part about going to find the ex was true, of course, but his knowledge of London’s geography was probably sufficient to know this place wasn’t remotely on her way in.

The rest of her impatience was probably born out of mild desperation, the constant underlying desire to call Mike; to sate the panic that had continually tweaked her back into consciousness through the night. And the question that inevitably followed:

Had she damaged things beyond repair?

Adages about not knowing what you have till it’s gone flashed periodically through her mind, but most of all, the emotion Hawkins kept coming back to was regret. At having caused him pain.

She gave a relieved huff as she caught sight of the sign attached to the second squat sixties block in the row: Numbers 12–18.

She parked up and wandered thirty yards back from the nearest available space to stand looking up at the slab-faced edifice, plain brick interrupted only by the occasional metal-framed window. Outside, the grass verges were well tended enough to denote either exaggerated maintenance charges or council ownership.

She wandered up to the entrance, relieved to coincide with a spike-haired thirty-something, who was descending the stairs with a slice of toast in his mouth and a tie slack at his collar. He made a token attempt to flick the security door open for Hawkins as he bowled past, heading for a tired Audi coupé out on the road.

She grabbed the door before it swung shut, and stepped inside. The compact lobby was predictably bleak, suggesting a lack of community spirit. Number 18 was on the first floor.