The trusting nature of academia. She imagined burglars walking into the building and going through the offices like locusts, stripping the place of everything electrical, phones, laptops, Kindles, iPads, all into a giant van.

Peter Longhorn’s office was small and tidy, a narrow window with a view west of grey brick and white-framed windowpanes. Posters for symposiums and conferences on the walls, a framed picture on the desk of a woman in her early thirties smiling and holding a baby who was fumbling with a melting ice-cream cone, bib around her neck and sunhat on. The woman in the picture was pretty, blonde hair in a mess, flowery blouse askew with one hand tight on the baby’s rump.

Hannah scanned the room – piles of papers, textbooks, journals, scientific dictionaries. She went to his desk, cheap chipboard and plastic moulded corners. There were locks on each drawer but they all opened.

The top drawers were full of pens and Post-its, other people’s business cards. She went through them, doctors and professors from other institutions, nothing obviously weird. She flipped 135through notebooks full of equations and diagrams. Next drawer down was more paperwork, brown folders full of essays and exam scripts, all marked. She lifted them out and felt around at the back of the drawer space, nothing. Put them back. The final drawer had conference and laboratory brochures, ranging from pamphlets to thick, glossy prospectuses. She pulled them out and riffled the pages, seeing if anything fell out. Nothing. She shoved her hand into the empty drawer, her fingers shifting dust as she felt around. And touched something.

She pulled them out. Three photographs with wide white borders, like from those retro instant cameras. She flipped them over in a trembling hand and stared. The first was a picture of Melanie lying on a hotel bed wearing black lingerie that Hannah hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t in her drawer back at the flat. Mel was smiling at the camera, propped on an elbow, her other hand on her smooth thigh. Hannah stared, tried to make sense of it, then she looked at the next one. Mel naked in a shower, hands running through her hair, eyes wide and grinning, eyebrows raised as if asking the photographer what they thought they were playing at. The shower was standard hotel décor, grey tiles and white surrounds. Hannah stared at the mole under Mel’s left breast then back at her face. She turned to the third picture. A selfie. Mel and Peter Longhorn, cheeks pushed together, faces filling the frame, relaxed and happy, a slight pout on Mel’s lips, a look of contentment in both their eyes. All Hannah could see in the background was a sliver of white tablecloth and the glare of a candle. A restaurant somewhere.

Hannah sat down in Peter’s chair and stared at the pictures, thinking. Then she shook her head, pocketed them, put the brochures back and left.