Chris stood in his hall, staring blankly at the hideous floral wallpaper they hadn’t got round to stripping and repainting in some acceptable neutral shade. His eyes traced peach petals and lime-green leaves as he replayed his interview with the police from a few hours before. He began to feel woozy. The peeled-off edges of the wallpaper revealed crumbling plaster beneath.

He jumped out of his skin when his phone rang.

But it wasn’t the police calling back. It was Tamsin Spence, who lived at number 82 on the street and whose daughter Chris also taught. He cleared his throat and tried to switch into business mode, stuttering out his name as he answered.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel Lily’s session with you on Tuesday,” Tamsin said shrilly.

Chris swallowed. “Oh . . .” He did his best to keep a grip on his professionalism. “Do you want to reschedule?”

Tamsin muttered something about getting back to him and the line went dead. Chris blinked at his phone, reeling from her abruptness, unease curling in his gut. Had word already got around that he’d been whisked away by a police car earlier?

Vicky’s voice startled him again: “Who was that?”

He turned to see her standing behind him in her work tunic and a baggy cardigan. Her short hair was styled differently from earlier. It looked nice, but at some point in recent years he’d lost the knack of telling her so. She was clutching a half-knitted scarf. What was with the knitting lately? Who was going to wear all these scratchy-looking scarves?

“A student,” he said. “Why aren’t you at work?”

“I forgot my ID card. Had to pop back in my break.”

Had she heard anything about Freya? Surely she’d noticed the posters that Chris hadn’t been able to look at as he’d arrived home from the police station in a taxi. Vicky’s face was so expressionless these days. Sometimes when she was lying on the sofa watching TV he’d become genuinely afraid she wasn’t breathing. He found himself thinking often about the Vicky he’d first met. Fun-loving, witty, acerbic. She could open beer bottles with her teeth; at parties people used to hand their San Miguels straight to her. He’d been flattered when, after a few encounters at the parties of mutual friends, she’d made it obvious she liked him. And it had been gratifying to discover her more vulnerable side: the idea that someone like her might want or even need someone like him.

“I thought you had lessons all morning?” she said.

There was a silence in which they both seemed to register that neither had expected to bump into the other.

“Just grabbing a coffee.” He nodded at the orange wool dangling like a dead creature in her hands: “What are you knitting?”