Images of Mike swam in her head, flashes of the way things had been not that long ago: positive, united, the way she wished they could be again. But recent events – her actions – had killed that. And right now, she had no idea how, indeed if, she could put things right.

Stop it. You’re paranoid.

But another flush of anxiety made her reach for the phone.

She unlocked it and selected recent calls, squinting at the over-bright display. Sturridge was third on the list. Mike was number five.

A sign in itself?

She selected Sturridge’s number and watched the screen as the call connected, composing her apology while the line blipped.

She hung up before it started to ring, unable to decide on words that began to justify calling her shrink at this time of night. She was a professional, grown woman, responsible for leading major homicide investigations. Not the kind of person who should be waking her therapist in desperation because of dislocated sleep.

Hawkins leaned over and deposited her mobile on the bedside cabinet, hearing the shriek of a fox somewhere off towards Walpole Park. Wind stabbed at the house, lashing at the windows, a subtle racket that had been enough to wake her from her nightmares.

Small mercies.

Except now she was awake, and her brain had already begun working through the coming day’s list of pending anxieties. Briefly, she considered dragging herself out of bed, and going to open the door for the cat, but there wasn’t much point. Admiral Kirk tended to side with Mike on most things these days, and would be happily curled at the foot of the spare bed.

She slumped, wondering why, when shit hit the fan, did it insist on coming from so many directions at once? This case was looking more and more like a runner, which inevitably meant precious little time to unravel the clusterfuck she was making of everything else. Neither situation was going to ease up, of course, denying her the luxury of being free to deal with her problems one at a time.

These days the job was so stressful, so much of the time, that she increasingly found herself wondering whether sticking at the career she had always considered to be her calling, no matter what, was actually worth it after all. To date, she had always concluded that changing course would be tantamount to failure, and that regardless of what criticisms could justifiably be levelled at her, she certainly wasn’t a quitter. But perhaps, if she did ever think about it seriously, leaving the police would be not only justified and smart, but inevitable.

More like self-preservation.

She pushed the thought away, dismissing it as a tired brain trying to convince itself that it was long overdue a lie-in, turning her attention back to more immediate concerns.