‘It’s perfect,’ she said to Rivka on the phone the end of their first week. ‘Now, stop worrying.’

‘Fine,’ Rivka said, her version of I’m not sure I believe you but I’m not going to argue. ‘When am I going to meet this paragon of virtue?’

‘I never said he was a paragon of anything, simply that we’re perfect together. And you’ll get to meet him soon. I’ve been busy with this new job as you know.’ In fact, Jodie was putting off a meeting between her friend and Flynn for as long as possible. He was handsome, charming, kind… everything she’d ever wanted in a man… but he wasn’t an intellectual and she knew the very clever Rivka would find his conversation a bit lacking.

‘Why don’t I have you both over for dinner?’

Oh dear, Rivka and Tasha. Poor Flynn, she wasn’t going to put him through that yet. ‘That would be lovely, maybe in a few weeks when everything is more settled.’

‘Hmmm, well, okay, if he’s still on the scene in a few weeks, we’ll have him over.’

That had been a week ago. Jodie was, if anything, more sure she’d made the right decision. She couldn’t remember feeling so content… as if she’d been missing something all these years, and Flynn filled that gap.

It turned out that he was a far better cook than she. And more romantic. The first time she’d come home following a twelve-hour shift to find candles lighting, a bottle of her favourite red wine waiting and dinner ready to be served, she started to cry, shocking poor Flynn who stood there blinking in confusion.

She hurried to reassure him that they were tears of happiness, then they sat and ate the delicious food, drank the wine and she thought that life couldn’t get any better.

There had been no more packages left on her door and Victor was beginning to fade into the background where he belonged. She’d had a few conversations with her union rep about the NMC investigation, but things were progressing with the speed of a wet week in January. ‘It’s the way it is,’ he told her as if that meant something. ‘The longer the better, it gives you time to get some good feedback from your new employer.’

Patience – it wasn’t chief among her virtues. She wanted the investigation over, to be able to get on with her life without it darkening the horizon.

That morning, the manager at Seacrest Manor had said he was delighted she’d joined the team. On the advice of her union rep, she asked him to put the comment in writing. Despite the manager’s quick assurance that he would, it galled Jodie to have to ask, and she put the nausea that gripped her in the afternoon down to that.