She wondered what Nate would make of the file she had on Mia tucked at the bottom of her wardrobe. In it she had been compiling what little evidence she had. The notes she had made following the call to Katie Burton; pages from Mia’s Facebook page printed off; a picture of Jessica Louise, whoever she was. And now there was the complaint about Mike Lewis to add into the mix. Still Laura hadn’t plucked up the courage to pick up the phone to Tess Wills, but as time passed she was becoming more and more certain that she might have to ask Tess the mortifying question of why she didn’t want Laura working with her any more.

She shuddered at the thought as Nate began yawning, stretching along the sofa as he tucked his feet onto her lap.

‘What shall we watch?’ Laura asked.

He shrugged, his eyes already flickering shut. She glanced at her watch. Eight-thirty. She’d been back for forty-five minutes and in that time she had crept up to Bobby’s room, watched her son sleeping, crept out with a heavier heart and then she and Nate had eaten pasta almost in silence.

‘I don’t mind. You choose.’

She gave him a playful nudge on the leg, but he reacted by moving his foot out of the way and in less than ten minutes had fallen asleep.

The following morning the alarm went off at six a.m. Laura rolled over to switch it off as, beside her, Nate pulled the duvet more tightly around his body. ‘Hey, sleepyhead,’ she whispered gently, ‘do you want a coffee before I leave?’

Nate grunted and shook his head.

‘Okay.’ She sat and watched him for a moment, before eventually swinging her legs over the side of the bed and creeping into Bobby’s room. They had both been up with their son in the night. Laura continued to tell herself it would stop soon, the nights would get better, but it was taking its toll on both of them and especially on Nate, who had never been one to do well on little sleep. On top of the stresses that work was causing, it wasn’t helping the obvious tensions between them.

By seven-thirty Laura was in the office. She sidestepped Mia, whose head was down, busying herself with something at her desk, and headed straight for her own desk, where she opened up the PC and pulled up the presentation she was working on for Miles.

Two hours had passed when she heard the ping of a text alert and, grabbing her phone, she saw Nate had sent her a video.

Look what our clever son is doing, it read. Laura clicked on the link and watched Bobby wobbling on his bottom and then eventually throw himself forward and begin to crawl.