‘I just wanted to give you these. In case you feel like sleeping at home tonight.’

She regrets the words the second they leave her lips.

Since when is it any of her damn business where Leo Friis spends the night? Or with whom.

Chapter 2

2

It’s unseasonably warm, she tells herself. That’s why I can’t do it. The thermometer had told her twenty-five degrees when, twenty minutes earlier on this Sunday afternoon, she had laced up her running shoes.

From the moment she set off down the gravel road, turning north and continuing along the coastal path, she had struggled. She had been less than a mile into her run when exhaustion hit her full force. She had pushed herself to at least finish it before giving up and collapsing on the smooth cliffs with her back against one of the shrunken pines.

It’s too warm for late April, she grumbles inwardly. At least for Doggerland.

Deflated, she gazes out at the horizon and starts fretting. Methodically. Starts with the greenhouse effect, global warming, and the melting polar ice caps, feeling hopelessness take root as she wipes the sweat from her forehead. Seeks the comfort she has always derived from staring at the sea, whether its leaden waves heave menacingly or, like today, has both the gifts and the sacrifices hidden in its depths covered by glittering sunlight.

But after the most recent alarming reports, the frothing breakers hurling themselves against the cliffs and the gentle combers lapping against the rocky shore seem more like cries for help than a source of succour. It’s over, she thinks. If we don’t do something, we’re doomed.

In an attempt to bring her anxiety under control, she looks down at her dirty trainers and forces it to focus on something actionable. On the washing machine that has started to make strange noises during the spin cycle and the numbers that stared scornfully back at her when she checked her bank balance the night before. And then on the horror that awaits her on Friday morning: the job-related fitness test, the JRFT. The mandatory annual medical assessment, complete with bike and firearms tests. Her eyesight will be checked, her blood alcohol level determined, her blood pressure and complete blood count measured . . . For a moment, she allows herself to relax in the knowledge that her alcohol intake has been moderate lately. At least, by her normal standards. She has even cut back on cigarettes. Practically quit altogether.

Practically.

And she has worked out, done all the exercises the physiotherapist told her she will have to do for the rest of her life to compensate for her knee injury. She has done arms and core, too, and felt the strength return to her muscles.