Hannah moved her thumb over the phone screen and the picture of Mel and Xander popped up. The phone wasn’t even locked, what a naïve wee soul. ‘So when was the last time you saw her?’

Xander wiped at the bar with a towel even though it was clean. ‘Are you a detective now?’

Hannah thought about that. ‘I just want to find my friend. And we prefer investigator to detective.’

‘Seriously?’

Hannah shrugged. ‘You don’t seem that bothered Mel is missing.’

‘Of course I am. You’re the only one who’s allowed to care, is that it?’

Hannah hadn’t had much interaction with Xander in the past. She remembered when he and Mel hooked up after a Physics Society mixer at King’s Buildings House. It was lame, as all these things are, and the lights were too bright in the bar, but she watched as the two of them sat talking in a corner, eye contact and obvious body language. Mel was beautiful in a prim kind of 46way, severe fringe, her black hair always glossy, no make-up but impeccable nails. The way she carried herself was contained, organised. She hadn’t really talked about boys before, so Hannah was surprised she and Xander hit it off so quickly. Compared to Mel, buttoned-down and precise, Xander was like a drunken giraffe, flopping around in a daze. Or maybe, as she watched him now, he was more together than that, more aware.

‘You’re allowed to care,’ Hannah said, planting herself on a barstool. ‘Can I get a drink?’

Xander shook his head as if to say he didn’t understand women, which he undoubtedly didn’t. ‘What can I get you?’

Hannah scanned the gantry and saw a bottle she recognised. ‘Highland Park, straight.’

Xander’s eyebrows raised as he reached for the bottle. His T-shirt rode up and she saw the Superdry logo on his underwear.

‘I didn’t have you pegged as a single-malt girl.’

‘You don’t have me pegged at all.’

It wasn’t him necessarily, but something about this situation had her hackles up. Maybe the way he was talking to the blonde when Hannah walked in, or just his unearned confidence. Or the fact that the most sensible girl Hannah knew had disappeared off the planet.

The whisky clunked on the bar and Hannah paid. She lifted it to her nose and breathed, felt the molecules of vapour burn her nostrils. She thought of Grandpa. How would he find Melanie?

‘Tell me when you last had contact with her,’ Hannah said, taking a sip.

‘Had contact?’

‘You know what I mean – saw, spoke to, WhatsApped, sexted.’

‘We never sexted.’

Hannah knew that already from checking Mel’s texts.