In the last couple of months her bedroom had become a makeshift office. Two plastic crates were stacked by the wardrobe, filled with folders and client information. It wasn’t ideal: she would have to decide what to do long-term, if she was going to carry on working. She had wondered about building an office at the end of the garden or changing the spare room, but that would mean selling the double bed and squeezing in a sofa bed, and right now Laura wasn’t happy to commit even to that. Just in case one day soon she decided she didn’t want to work at all.

Beside her, Bobby flung an arm out to one side, his tiny balled fist knocking her thigh. Laura slid down the bed, propping herself on her elbow so that she could curl gently around her son. She watched his eyelids flutter, wondering what he could be dreaming about, what was filling his head. Gradually her mind drifted to the conversation she’d just had with Patrick. They needed to make a decision about recruiting, and sooner rather than later.

It was funny how the two of them had managed to pull together in the aftermath of the fire. She hadn’t imagined it possible when Patrick first called her, a week after the fire, and said he needed Laura to help him keep the business running, ‘Just until Harry is up to coming back,’ he had said, as if he somehow knew she might not want to be there much longer.

She wasn’t even sure that Harry did want to come back to work at all. Laura had eventually visited him in the hospital a week after the fire, when Mia had confessed and the questioning had subsided. By then he was more alert and accepting of visitors and though they all knew how lucky he’d been to get out alive, Laura could tell how much Harry was suffering, not only from the pain but from the sight of his burns.

She hadn’t stayed long and over the weeks their contact had mainly been over the phone. Both she and Patrick felt that Harry was keeping them at arm’s length and in many ways Laura was grateful for that. It was hard to face him when she was still hiding the truth about the night.

Laura’s first reaction was to tell Patrick she wasn’t interested in working for Morris & Wood any longer. She’d wanted to walk away and forget everything about it that had led her to this point.