Zack took her through another doorway, back inside. ‘The guest wing,’ he said wryly, as they entered a corridor in the extension where the renovations had obviously been completed. There were three plain doors on either side. ‘Melissa’s room is the one at the end.’

He produced a set of keys from a trouser pocket, unlocking the door and gesturing Nicky in ahead of him.

The corridor had been windowless and gloomy. Melissa’s room, in contrast, was refreshingly bright. There were dried flowers in a vase on the windowsill, and pictures of seascapes on the walls. Oddly, and perhaps only because boarding school was on her mind, it reminded Nicky of the room she and a girl called Sarah Sullivan had shared at Welton House. Their bedroom had become like a sanctuary to Nicky – the only place in the entire school that had felt even vaguely like home.

She took a few exploratory steps around the room. ‘These are her things?’

‘Everything that isn’t the furniture or the flowers,’ said Zack.

The manager had been wrong. Melissa wouldn’t have needed a carrier bag for her worldly possessions. The stuff on the little desk and the bedside table would probably have fitted in her pockets. There was a splayed paperback with a title Nicky vaguely recognised from her classics class at Welton: Oedipus at Colonus, with letters underneath the title in Ancient Greek. Beside it were a chewed biro and an open notepad, the pages full of frantic-looking doodles, completely filling the space. There was a holey-looking cardigan in a heap; and on the bedside table, a cheap digital watch and a tarnished silver necklace. The charm was a mask with a face set in a frown. An empty link was beside it, suggesting the mask was likely to have been one of a pair: Thalia and something, Nicky recalled, the twin faces of Greek drama. But the mask representing comedy was missing. All Melissa had been left with was tragedy.

Nicky looked more closely at the notebook. She used her own pen to turn the pages, idly scanning the doodles – until her eyes suddenly snagged.

The manager seemed to realise she’d spotted something, and edged closer.

‘Do you have a computer here?’ Nicky asked, turning. ‘Access to the internet?’

Zack appeared slightly surprised. ‘Sure. You can use the laptop in my office if you—’

Nicky shook her head. ‘Not for me. For the residents.’

‘Oh, I see. Yes, there’s a workroom off the main corridor, next door to the counsellor’s office. There are only two computers, both pretty ancient, but good enough to allow the companions to search for jobs.’

‘Would Melissa have had access?’

The manager shrugged. ‘I lock the room at night, but anyone can use it during the day.’