She sat for a moment before leaning forwards to switch on the radio, quickly swapping a dreary conversation about cricket for a music station where the final strains of a Madonna track were replaced by Queen: ‘Under Pressure’.

She took a deep breath of late-evening air, watched the tail lights of two other cars pass, their tyres swishing on the wet tarmac, four red glows spidering as they moved lazily across the rain-spattered screen, slowing for a bend.

Hunger stabbed at her.

She was only ten minutes from home, but she knew that even freezer food would be too much effort once she got within stumbling distance of a pillow. She had just decided to make the short detour to the local chippy and pulled back on to the road when her phone rang, the call routing itself through the Giulietta’s Bluetooth system. The number came up on the dash.

Mike.

She swore. She’d intended to make contact earlier in the day. For a second she considered not picking up, but it was too late to regain the initiative now.

She hit answer. ‘Hi.’

‘Hey.’ He sounded annoyed. ‘You OK?’

‘Coping. You?’

‘Yeah. Crazy day, nothin’ new.’ There was a pause. He was waiting for her to speak.

She couldn’t help herself. ‘Is there a problem?’

He gave a short laugh. ‘A problem. I tried to call you today, Toni. Twice.’

‘I …’ Her mind flashed back to the two voicemails, one left while she was interviewing the watcher, the other as she’d sprinted down Oxford Street, talking to Chris. She’d seen both after leaving West End station, meant to get her head straight and ring him back.

Mentally she spooled back through her afternoon. The chase: narrowly managing to avoid getting flattened by a taxi, only to pick up what now felt like a couple of loose teeth. Stuff they usually dealt with together. Except at the moment, thanks to her actions, Mike’s move on to the new team meant they saw each other barely long enough to exchange highlights. And since recent events had culminated in arrest and interview, she’d returned to her office, hovered over the phone for an update from Chris, got caught up in paperwork.

Not thought about Mike at all.

‘Sorry,’ she began, unable to keep frustration from her voice. ‘You won’t believe the day I—’

‘Oh yeah,’ Mike jumped in. ‘And I had my Timberlands up on the desk all afternoon, huh?’

She sighed. ‘Obviously not. I didn’t mean—’

‘You’re damn right, but I found … no, I made time to call.’ He must have heard her try to cut in, but he kept going. ‘That’s your problem, right there. Work first, everything else second, relationship if you got time after that. Same shit with the wedding. I can’t be like that, Toni. I don’t get how you can.’