Stacey Collins pushed open the door of her house and stepped inside. She cursed under her breath as she stood on a pile of letters and leaflets and almost lost her footing.

It had been one hell of a day at the office and she was glad that Sophie would be spending yet another night at her grandparents’. Although she loved her daughter dearly and knew that they desperately needed to spend more time together, the only way she could deal with the workload and maintain her position in the force was to have regular nights when she was able to work as late as she needed to.

It was now nearly ten in the evening and she had been far from the last one to leave. She would get to the office early the following morning. There was still so much work to be done. She had reread the case files and the autopsy reports and the background profiles of the murder victims so many times that she knew many of the details off by heart. But she was still convinced she must be missing something.

There was something else playing on her mind too. The row with Ella. The woman’s words kept bouncing around inside her head. The image of her twisted, rage-ridden face refused to fade away.

You spend your whole time acting like a man.

Why did it bother her so much that Ella had said that? She had certainly heard worse insults, and besides, it just wasn’t true. She had got as far as she had in the force because she was dedicated and effective. Hadn’t she? She needed a distraction to take her mind off it all.

She reached down and picked up the pile of post, sorting through it slowly as she made her way through the house into the kitchen, where she pulled a half-bottle of white wine out of the fridge and fetched a glass from the shelf. There were two bills, one from her credit card and another from the gas company. There were two leaflets from pizza delivery companies and a mailshot from a replacement window agency. The remaining letters were addressed to ‘the householder’ and received only a cursory glance before taking a trip to the bin. But, as she reached the last of the junk pile, she paused.

Stacey usually had little time for junk mail but something about the thin white envelope caught her eye. The lettering in the top-left-hand corner was thick and black: HELP THE INNOCENT VICTIMS OF CRIME. Underneath the wording was a picture of a man in a wheelchair. Instantly Stacey was reminded of her father. The look on the man’s face was the same. He was trying to cope with the inconvenience and the shame of it all, but at the same time he refused to lose his dignity. The man was a good few years older than her father and was being pushed along the street by a young woman, someone like her. This was the reality of how her own life would be in the years to come if the unthinkable happened – if her mother died first.

It was something she thought about often, the possibilities for the future and what it might hold. For the most part she tried to put it out of her mind but every now and then it all came flooding back to her.

She opened the envelope swiftly and took out the sheets of glossy folded paper inside. It was a mailshot for a charity that helped support the victims of crime. Stacey herself was no stranger to the inadequacies of the criminal compensations scheme. A few hundred pounds for losing an eye, a couple of thousand for losing a leg. She had seen it time and time again with the victims of attacks that she dealt with on a daily basis. Most of all she had seen it with her own father, who had got only a few hundred pounds for having to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

She read quickly through the details of the charity, the work they had done and the people they had supported. ‘We understand that as a professional person, you get deluged with requests for help from charities all the time. Unlike most organizations we do not ask you to commit to a long-term standing order. Instead a small one-time donation is all it will take in order to help the lives of thousands.’

Stacey was sitting down at the table and reading as she was sipping a glass of wine. By the end tears were welling up in the corners of her eyes, not from the charity’s appeal but from her thoughts about her father. By the time she had reached the end she was reaching for her cheque book and writing out a one-time donation of twenty pounds. She placed it in the return envelope and on top of her pile for posting the next day.

She then picked up the phone and dialled a number. After a few rings the line was answered. There was a cough, followed by a slightly shaky voice repeating the last four digits of the phone number – an old-fashioned habit that he had been unable to shake, which Stacey always found charming.

‘Hi, Dad.’

‘Hello, darling,’ John Collins replied. ‘Sophie’s gone to bed already. It’s quite late.’

‘I know. I didn’t call to talk to her. I wanted to speak to you.’

‘Oh? Anything wrong?’

‘Not at all. Just thought it would be nice to have a chat.’

With an early start planned for the following morning, Stacey stayed up just long enough to finish a second glass of wine before turning in for the night.

It was only then that she noticed a flashing light from the corner of her eye. The answering machine. She clicked the play button and a smooth French-Canadian accent drifted up to her ears.

‘Hope you don’t mind my calling you at home. I know you won’t be there till you finish and I really don’t want to bother you while you’re busy. Just wanted to wish you good night and find out how the case is going.’

Stacey smiled. A few hours earlier she had been convinced that Jacques himself had been the killer. It all seemed to fit. Now, in the cold light of day, it seemed absurd that she had ever entertained the notion.

Sleep refused to come to her. Instead Stacey lay awake thinking about what Ella had said. It was so unfair and made her so angry.

Acting like a man.

That stupid woman had no idea how hard it had been bringing up Sophie on her own. Ella had even gone so far as to suggest Stacey should have given her up for adoption, not knowing how painful a topic that was for her.

Giving her up for adoption had appeared like the easy option in the beginning. She had gone as far as filling out the forms and signing up with an agency. It seemed to be the right decision. Stacey still had her whole career ahead of her and had no desire to become a parent and be consumed by the responsibility.

It would have been hard enough at that age with a steady, reliable boyfriend, but with no one else on the scene to share the burden it was just going to prove impossible. Adoption would be far better for the baby. That was what Stacey had told herself time and time again, and that was what she truly believed as she was wheeled into the delivery room.

But the moment she had given her final push and then had that tiny sticky, noisy bundle of life thrust into her arms, she knew she could never be parted from her. She smiled at the memory, and then at the irony of just how much things had changed in the past thirteen years. If the woman from the adoption agency were to turn up during one of their full-on mother–daughter arguments, she would not hesitate for a second.

She lay on her back with her eyes closed, Ella Stanley’s angry face still imprinted on her mind, still bugging the hell out of her. She realized she was also angry about the old woman’s razor-sharp insight into her relationship with the young Jack. He had been the bad guy all the girls wanted and she had gone after him with every ounce of her being. When they finally ended up together, it was as if all her Christmases had come at once. And when it ended, she felt as if there would be no more summer, no more spring, no more anything. Life seemed to lose all meaning. Until she learned of the new life growing inside her.