A friend. She could ask Rivka; she’d take a day off work to help her. But Jodie shook her head. Strangely, although she’d known him such a short period of time, she knew exactly who she wanted by her side. She picked up her phone to tap out a quick message. Can you take tomorrow morning off?

It was over an hour later before her phone buzzed. She stared at it, willing it to have the answer she wanted, sighing in satisfaction when she read, Sounds like a good plan.

Flynn had agreed without even asking why. Okay, he probably was thinking of a night of passion followed by a relaxing breakfast somewhere rather than being dragged to an investigatory meeting. She’d explain that night over dinner but she knew he wouldn’t let her down. It was odd how she knew she could trust him completely.

Unwilling to spend the day mooching around the house worrying, Jodie ran back upstairs. Twenty minutes later, she was back down wearing comfortable clothes and her walking shoes. Fresh air and exercise would help keep her sane.

She decided to have breakfast along the way and stopped at the first café she came to on Harmer Street. The prospect of the next day’s meeting was the perfect excuse for indulging so she ordered her favourite – smoked salmon and scrambled egg on sourdough toast washed down with a large cappuccino. When it arrived, looking delicious, she discovered that worry wasn’t a good aperitif. She ate a few mouthfuls before pushing it away and a few minutes later, without finishing her coffee, she left.

The sky was a cloudless blue, the temperature warm enough for Jodie to take off and carry her light jacket as she walked along Gordon Promenade and the Thames and Medway Canal, but she pulled it on again when she reached the flat, exposed Saxon Shore Way, turning her collar up to protect her from the chilly breeze that blew across the broad expanse of the Thames. Sometimes, she’d walk only as far as Shornemead Fort but today she kept going to Cliffe Fort. Over a ten-mile walk there and back, it would give her the exercise she needed and, if she were lucky, it might calm her rattled brain.

Both abandoned buildings were disused artillery forts and neither held much allure but the views across the river, and back towards Gravesend, were worth the walk and usually she’d stand and stare, but not that day. Despite her hopes that exercise would lighten her mood, it didn’t appear to be working.

After four hours she arrived home, tired and philosophical. The next day she’d know what the case against her was and be able to address it, until then, she was driving herself crazy thinking about it.