We sit down on bright plastic chairs, Chloe’s squat suitcase pushed in beside us. Her movements are heavy, awkward, like she isn’t comfortable in her own skin. Our bodies, our looks, are very different, and yet I can relate to exactly how she feels. I tighten the band in my hair, the ponytail high on the crown of my head and, as I lift my arms, I catch the smell of myself: sharp, vinegary. Sweat under my arms.

I run through it again, the reason why I’m here. It feels like a well-rehearsed script by now; I have said it to Marianne and Alastair before, and I’m repeating myself now again for Chloe. Maybe I’m rushing her, but I’m just so aware of the time.

‘If you could just explain how you knew her. Anything you remember about her, no matter how small.’

Chloe toys with her sandwich. Perhaps she’s uncomfortable eating in front of me. I try to take the lead, twisting the cap off my orange juice. The smell is strong: citric, sharp. I press the bottle to my lips and make sure to take a sip.

‘I knew her from high school,’ Chloe says. ‘I would have been twelve, thirteen. She joined halfway through the year.’

‘And you … became friends?’ I do try to tread carefully, not say the wrong thing.

‘Yes. I didn’t … have many friends back then. So I suppose I was grateful for her attention.’

‘You hung out together?’

Chloe shifts in her chair, pushing the palms of her hands down the length of her coarse skirt. ‘Only in school. Our backgrounds were different.’

‘How do you mean – about your backgrounds?’

‘Well, she came from a very privileged home. She had a horse that she rode at weekends. She went on dozens of holidays abroad.’

Chloe looks up at me, something pained and sad in her eyes. ‘I, on the other hand … didn’t have a happy home life.’

From across the table, I can now read her name badge. Managing director, it says, and the logo is for a huge company that even I have heard of. I recognize something in her then. She is high up, successful. But personal life and professional life: I know so well how they don’t always match up. Despite the smart work suit, the professional competence she so clearly has, I can see the struggle to keep things together.

I fumble in my bag and pull out the postcard that Alastair gave me. I slide it across the small table to her.

Chloe picks it up, turns it over.

‘Do you recognize it?’ I ask.