There was one from a temporary agency.

Dear Mr Sark

Thank you for registering with our agency. We have a potential opening for you at Rodela Autos, in Widnes. The owner likes to offer people who need it a second chance and he would like to meet you this afternoon at 4 p.m. The job involves working in the car parts distribution warehouse.

Please let me know whether you are interested and available this afternoon.

Yours

Archie Turner

Was he interested? This was perfect. He would have gone to any interview, taken any work on offer. He replied that he was free and would be there that afternoon.

After he sent it, he noticed another email. This one was from Nellie. He opened it.

Hi Roland

I found one more photo you might use. It’s from the summer after we graduated. Mads and I went travelling. Alice was going to come, but in the end she went away with her boyfriend at the time (a guy called Ned). They broke up and she went travelling by herself around Europe but she did send a photo of her and an Australian she met – called Brenda, I think – from when she was in the Lake District. In fact, now I think about it, it was more or less the last time I heard from her. She went to live in Warrington after that summer and we all drifted apart. Fortunately now we’re back in touch!

Nellie

He opened the photo. Alice was sitting beside a blonde woman, next to a river. It was a good one; he’d definitely get it printed and give it to Tom.

He was about to close it, when something caught his eye.

He studied the photo, then froze.

This couldn’t be right. He couldn’t be seeing what he was seeing.

He zoomed in on the Australian woman, Brenda.

‘What the fuck?’ he said.

Nottingham, July 2013

Brenda

She spent the morning going through Alice’s affairs. Birth certificate, GCSEs, A Levels. Bank statements, a password jotted on the corner of one. Passport, National Insurance card.

All the accoutrements of a life.

A life that was now hers.

Alice had been perfect for this. She was at a transitional point so she could easily move somewhere new and lose touch with her friends. She had no parents or siblings, and a boyfriend she had recently dumped.

She was poised on the cusp of a new life, a life that would soon be Brenda’s.

Plus – if what she had said was anything to go by – she had money from her inheritance.

She opened Alice’s laptop. She had had it with her in the youth hostel, and Brenda had watched her enter the password on two occasions. She tried it now; it worked.

She went to the website of Alice’s bank.