You’ll be a great juror, Mum, you believe in decency – doing the right thing. Do it and enjoy and stick to your guns!

As she drove her little black BMW convertible towards the tunnel beneath the cliff on the outskirts of the county town of Lewes, loving the sunshine, she sang along to the words of ‘We Will Rock You’ blasting out from Radio Sussex.

But the instant she entered the sudden darkness of the tunnel, she had a frisson of apprehension, partly about the day ahead but also, and more significantly, her career.

She’d taken the redundancy package that Kempson Pharmaceuticals had offered, including buying her company car on very fair terms, but leaving was a big gamble, she knew. Sure, she had plenty of experience, but would she get another job at the same salary level? The recruitment agency she’d signed up with were confident, but the two job interviews she’d had through them so far had not appealed.

At least she wouldn’t be spending all of her first week of unemployment sitting at home, finding things to fill her time. Reading, gardening, lunching with friends and watching daytime TV. Wondering if she had the temerity, as the HR woman at Kempsons had suggested she should, to sign up for Jobseeker’s Allowance. But for the moment that was on hold, and she was on her way to begin her stint of jury service, albeit later than she had expected. This was due to a trial that had overrun, she’d been told.

More importantly to her, she hoped these coming weeks might be a welcome distraction from her worrying about Laura. She was a good girl, constantly updating her on where in Ecuador she and Cassie were and what they were doing. But if Meg didn’t hear from her for longer than a day, she started to fret. There had been a major story in all the papers only last week about two girls on their gap year, of similar age to Laura and Cassie, who had disappeared while backpacking around Thailand over six months ago, and their mutilated bodies had just now been found in a dense forest.