‘I don’t believe you,’ he said, sounding more angry himself now. ‘I know the real you. Yes, you’ve changed, but she’s still inside. This facade, the armour you’ve got now, it’s just on the surface, and it doesn’t stop me wanting you. It never will. I get your injuries have changed you, have changed the way your brain is wired, but the same Dani is still in there. I know it. I see it even now.’

Dani’s eyes welled with tears, but she held it all inside and didn’t say a word, determined to not let the chinks in that armour show.

But why was she so determined to do that?

She picked up her wine and downed the rest of the glass, then looked at her watch.

‘It’s been a long day,’ Dani said.

‘Yeah,’ Jason said. He finished off his drink too, reading the message loud and clear.

‘Thanks for the drinks,’ Dani said.

‘Anytime.’

Somewhat grumpily Jason headed off to catch a train back to Wolverhampton – where he now rented an apartment alone – before the service stopped for the night. Given the wine she’d had, Dani left her car at HQ and walked back through the city to her apartment. It wasn’t that late, just gone ten, and there were plenty of people still out and about. Still, Dani felt jittery as she walked alone in the dark, uneasy, as though there were eyes on her. Perhaps it was her first two days back on the job catching up with her, but as she carried on, her nerves continued to build.

When Dani turned the corner onto the narrow road between two new apartment blocks that led to her building – a quieter and darker street than she’d come from – she picked up her pace and began looking behind her every few steps.

Sure enough, after a few yards, a dark figure appeared around the corner behind Dani, and she felt a wave of panic flooding through her. She walked faster still, looking around twice more as she moved.

The figure was alone. A man, or a woman? Dani couldn’t quite tell in the darkness, and because of what looked like a long overcoat that masked the figure’s frame. The person wasn’t walking particularly quickly. It could be absolutely nothing, Dani realised, but she was spooked.

She ran – no, sprinted – as fast as she could towards the door to her apartment block, reaching into her pocket for the key fob. She looked back again. The figure was still there, still moving calmly but assuredly with a measured step. No alarm. No hurrying. Yet wasn’t the person even closer to Dani now than before?

Who the hell was that?