Strangely, she found it in passing on the very skills she’d declared redundant in herself. Although she knew she could never again be a working journalist, Lindsay had never doubted her abilities. Her background in mainstream newspaper journalism coupled with her single foray into enemy territory, treading on the toes of the security services, made her the ideal choice for the job she landed as a university lecturer in journalism and media studies. Although she’d been apprehensive about moving into the world of higher education, it had been less of a shock to the system than she had anticipated. University life in California couldn’t have been more different from the memories of her own student days at Oxford. Somehow, Lindsay couldn’t imagine her former tutors in Bermuda shorts, playing volleyball at a Sunday afternoon beach barbecue.

The one fly in the ointment was the pressure to pile up qualifications and publications. Publish or be damned was an expression that could have been coined for her new world instead of her old one, Lindsay often thought. But when she’d chosen to write a doctoral thesis researching women’s roles in the trade union movement, she hadn’t expected it to be a straight road back to a police interrogation.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Lindsay’s eyes snapped open and focused on the woman who had just walked in. She was tall to start with, but the three-inch stilettos she had chosen put her near six feet. Her hair was short and neat, emphasizing the kind of bone structure that has generated the fashion industry’s demand for striking black models. Her skin was the color of copper beech leaves in summer. Lindsay took in a pair of sharply tailored trousers in hounds-tooth check, a black matador jacket and a spotless white blouse open at the neck. Lindsay jumped to her feet. “You must be my solicitor,” she said as the woman moved towards her.

The solicitor shook her hand and perched on the edge of the bed. “Right. I’m Jennifer Okido,” she said.

Lindsay shuddered at the thought of how she must appear to this woman who couldn’t have looked less like she’d been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. “Lindsay Gordon,” she said. “Sorry you had to be called out so early.”