Even at this unearthly hour, her spirits lifted at the view across the park. The thick fog of the previous morning had lifted and the sky was a delicate shade of duck egg blue with a streak of pink shot through it. She could just make out a couple of dog walkers and a man in a tracksuit whizzing along on roller blades. Apart from them, Battersea Park was deserted. She’d bought her tiny flat eighteen months ago and even though the mortgage was a stretch she hadn’t regretted it for a second. It was on the fifth floor of a redbrick mansion block and despite the fact that it was only a studio and there was no lift, it felt like home. She’d furnished it very simply, buying two navy Chesterfield sofas, a fold-out bed, a battered old wooden desk to work at and a massive coffee table that was always covered with meteorology textbooks. For a while she hadn’t even bothered with a TV but when her boss got wind of it he’d been so furious that she’d rushed straight out to the supermarket and bought the cheapest telly she could find.
