Hannah had only spent a few minutes on the phone to the police last night, it was a non-starter. She thought maybe they wouldn’t do anything because it hadn’t been twenty-four hours or whatever it was supposed to be. But the jaded cop with wheezy breath told her down the line that was just a television cliché. The truth was there was no time limit on missing persons, and the police didn’t investigate unless the person was vulnerable, like an old lady with dementia wandering off, or a schoolchild. There was no law against responsible adults going missing, apparently. Hannah checked after the conversation, and annoyingly the police officer was right. He’d almost laughed when Hannah voiced her concerns, especially when he heard Melanie was a student. A twenty-year-old student hadn’t come home yet, call out the search parties. Hannah insisted on getting the cop’s name and a reference number for the call, but it was just bluster.

Then at seven this morning Yu Cheng phoned just as Hannah was about to call her. Real worry in Yu’s voice when Hannah told her she hadn’t heard from Mel. Hannah had been keeping a lid on it until then but after speaking to Mel’s mum she felt a tightness in her stomach. Checked social media again, texted a bunch of people in Mel’s phone, nothing.38

It was staring her in the face when Indy said it. Mel was a missing person and this was a case. If the police won’t investigate, someone else has to, so here she was. Only trouble was, Grandpa was dead.

Jenny righted herself.

‘I need a private investigator,’ Hannah said.

Jenny came from behind the desk. ‘What’s up?’

‘Mel’s missing.’

Hannah saw lines around her mum’s eyes that she hadn’t noticed before. She also had a red mark on her forehead and looked exhausted. Jim’s death had hit them all, but Hannah sometimes forgot he was Jenny’s dad. She pictured her own dad on a funeral pyre, how she would feel about that.

‘She’s probably just at her boyfriend’s,’ Jenny said.

Hannah shook her head. She was already tired of going over the details, but she would have to again and again if she was going to do something about it.

‘Xander hasn’t seen her, no one has.’

‘Family?’

‘Yu is worried sick.’

‘So contact the police.’

‘They’re not interested.’

‘What?’

‘They don’t know her. This isn’t like her at all.’ She felt something rising in her chest, breathed to keep it down. ‘I need help, Mum. I need to find her because no one else will.’

Jenny studied her.

‘OK,’ she said eventually.

Schrödinger purred as Hannah stroked him from neck to tail. He moved away to find sunshine by the window.39