Her stomach did flips and she got out of bed to avoid having to face the wave of feeling washing over her. In the dark, she ran the shower and stripped off her T-shirt and pyjama-shorts, as well as her woolly socks. She’d turned into a cliché: the woman just out of a relationship wearing unflattering and unsexy, but bloody comfortable, attire to bed, instead of wanting to impress their partner. The same was true about lazy Sunday afternoons. She rarely left the house, apart from perhaps to take Lizzie out in her pram. She much preferred to sit in front of the fire and watch a Netflix series. But the novelty was wearing off and the vision of the mountains yesterday afternoon had made her realise that it was time to get off her arse and get organised. Keeping fit was one thing, but organising long walks in the outdoors, just for pleasure, was something she’d put off doing alone. But she wasn’t alone. She had Lizzie, and Josie, and Millie. And Kate. She realised that she had all the company she needed, and it helped her process the texts from Johnny. Of course she missed him, but that didn’t mean she was going to jump straight back into bed with him, like he’d intimated last night – or was that because he was jealous of Glynn Cortantes?

Or at least that’s what she told herself.

She stepped into the shower and the hot water woke her up. She didn’t want to get out. The heat massaged her aching muscles. Yesterday had been like a twelve-hour shift on a building site, and she hadn’t paused to question her body. Now she ached. She stretched her arms up and back in the shower and rinsed her hair. Reluctantly, she turned off the water and stepped out, taking a fluffy towel from the rail. She dried her hair loosely and wrapped the towel around her body. She threw open her curtains and saw shadows of faded purple and orange were slowly replacing the darkness. There was enough emerging light from outside to find what she needed to wear for the day. She had a feeling that she might be called to the mountainside by the AAIB. One never knew; it would be just her luck should she wear a smart skirt suit to be called up there, so she chose easy trousers and a polo top, over which she threw a Norway sweater from the shop in Keswick. It would be below freezing outside, and she shivered to think of the bodies on the mountainside over near Scafell Pike.