“In an hour she’ll officially be a missing person. Frey! This can’t be real, can it?” She shook her head and slumped forward, her forehead meeting the wheel, red hair cascading either side. It felt wrong just to watch her cry. She had confided in him after all. Driving lessons were so often full of mind-numbing small talk in between “Left here . . . Check your mirror . . . Try not to flatten that pedestrian . . .” And Vicky was so closed off these days. Sometimes Chris fantasized about letting one of his students crash into the back of a bus, just to shake things up, just so he could phone Vicky from hospital and say, Get down here. I’ve been in an accident.

His hand hovered over the bumps of Jess’s spine, visible through the thin white school shirt. She lifted her head and he withdrew.

“I . . . I’ll drive you home,” he said. “If you don’t feel up to carrying on.”

She sniffed again. “Thanks for being nice about it.”

“No problem.” He forced a smile. “And try not to worry. Freya will be home before you know it.”

They swapped places and he drove back through Kingston, past upmarket pubs painted slate gray and olive green, coming to life with after-work drinkers sitting outside as if it were a carefree summer’s day. As Jess became absorbed in her phone, Chris seemed to see and hear police sirens everywhere. But actually it was the flash of sun on a sapphire-colored scooter; the wail of a car alarm; the bright blue hair of a woman he realized was his other neighbor, Emma, standing outside a vintage clothes store with a for sale sign flapping beside her.

7.

EMMA

The fire-wave of anger caught her by surprise. It was the starkness of her empty shop that brought on the white-hot rush. She’d been calm up to this point, packing up swathes of gauzy scarves, hand-sewn purses, dresses imbued with the earthy smell of vintage clothes. Even when a rail had toppled over and buried her beneath a mound of faux-fur coats, she’d just lain there, blinking. But now that her shop was stripped, ready for its new owners and new identity, Emma felt the air whoosh out of her lungs.

“Jesus,” she murmured, pressing her fist against her breastbone. It was anger snatching her breath this time, rather than that wearying sadness. She escaped into the fresh air, only to be confronted by her livelihood sitting in taped-up boxes on the pavement.