A twelve-hour shift with two staff less than she should have was a nightmare. Jodie filled in where she could but even working flat out, corners were cut. The manager, Katy Dobson, was sympathetic and told Jodie she was doing a great job before she toddled back to her office and shut the door.

To add to Jodie’s woes, there appeared to be more visitors than usual, family and friends who all wanted to discuss the care of their nearest and dearest. She managed to swallow a mug of coffee as she wrote up her notes but she didn’t have time for lunch or supper. When the cheery voice of the night nurse signalled the end of Jodie’s shift, she was ready to collapse.

The nursing home was only a fifteen-minute walk from the terraced house she’d bought when she returned from Dubai. After living in rented accommodation for so long, she wanted, finally, to have her own place and had fallen in love with the extended and renovated house as soon as she’d viewed it. She put an offer in the same day and moved in less than two months later.

That night she trudged home, the walk seeming endless. When she couldn’t find her keys in the muddle of stuff in her bag, she started to cry, weary tears of frustration that further hampered her search. Finally, as she was about to empty the contents of her bag onto the path, her fingers closed around metal and she pulled out the keys.

Inside, she went upstairs to the bathroom, threw her uniform in the laundry basket, and had a quick shower to wash away the stress of the day. It helped a little, as did the soft comfort of the robe she wrapped herself in before going barefoot down the stairs. She needed to eat; another twelve-hour shift loomed the following day. According to the roster, she had a full complement of staff but that could change before the morning.

Too tired to bother with any effort, she took a tub of hummus from the fridge, grabbed a teaspoon, and went into the sitting room. There was a street light almost directly outside her house and it shone through the gauzy voile panels that covered the windows and lit up the room, throwing strange shades and shadows over the walls. She put the hummus and spoon on the coffee table and stepped over to pull the heavy curtains.