‘Are you sure? I just hit the wall all of a sudden.’

‘I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long. The bedroom’s at the end of the corridor, the bathroom’s on the right.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, though she made no attempt to move. She hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘You have to tell Ryder.’

‘I know I do, but not yet.’

‘Are you worried how he’ll react?’

Flowers had already thought about this long and hard. ‘Not really. I think he’ll understand why I’m doing it. I just don’t see any point in telling him before I need to. In the meantime, I’m working my butt off trying to help him clear as much of his caseload as I can before he goes.’ As Sterling released another yawn he took hold of her shoulders and turned her around. ‘Go.’

‘Thank you.’ She picked up her coat and backpack from the floor and wandered off down the hallway. It was then he remembered she’d been going to make a cup of tea before getting distracted by all the computer gear.

Hearing her go into the bathroom, he hurried to the kitchen to boil the kettle.

It seemed no sooner had Flowers closed his eyes that his phone alarm went off, the annoyingly cheerful ringtone jolting him awake. Hanging an arm over the side of the lounge, he picked up his phone and turned off the alarm. 5.45 am.

Still dressed in yesterday’s clothes, he stood up, stretched and then walked down the hallway to his bedroom. Nerida was curled up under her coat, her blonde hair spread out on his pillow. She was sleeping so peacefully it seemed criminal to wake her, but they had to ring Ryder and they needed to be ready by the time he got here.

He picked up the empty teacup from the bedside table and shook her gently by the shoulder. ‘Nerida.’

She woke up straight away, turning quickly to look at him before relaxing back on the pillow when she remembered where she was.

‘It’s only me,’ he said. ‘It’s almost six.’

He heard her take a two-minute shower and eight minutes later, as he was unplugging the cords and cables from his computer, she walked into the living room. ‘I’m putting this in the bedroom,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘I’ll help.’

For the next five minutes they wound up cords and carried all the components of his system into the bedroom. ‘I’ll just put everything in the bottom of the wardrobe. I was originally going to set it all up in here but the wi-fi is marginally stronger out there.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sterling said, as Flowers closed the wardrobe doors. ‘If I’d gone into Jindabyne like I’d planned, you wouldn’t have had to do all this.’