Chloe steps through the back door and Maureen calls to her from the lounge. She pops her head around the door. Patrick sits in his chair, his feet up on the pouffe. He doesn’t turn around.

‘Good day at work, Chloe, love?’ Maureen asks.

Chloe senses something in the air. She looks between Maureen and Patrick, his expression set, her smile that bit too wide. Somehow they appear further apart in here than usual, though they’re sitting in the same seats they always do.

‘Busy,’ Chloe says, faking a yawn.

Maureen makes to get up, and Chloe notices Patrick looking over for a split second from his chair before he returns his gaze to the TV.

‘Sit yourself down and I’ll—’ Maureen starts.

‘No, it’s OK,’ Chloe says, putting her hand up before Maureen can offer to make tea. ‘I think I’ll go upstairs and have a shower.’

Patrick turns back to the TV and increases the volume.

‘That’s it,’ Maureen says, ‘scrub the day off.’

Upstairs, Chloe tiptoes across the landing, pausing to cock her head over the bannister. She can’t hear voices, only the low hum of the evening news downstairs. The atmosphere feels the same as it did after Maureen and Patrick’s fight. Every couple argues, she thinks, before looking again at the padlock on the spare room door. She knows so much more now about how they live, though. How controlling Patrick is. At least, that’s how she sees it.

In her room she strips off her clothes and wraps a bath sheet around her naked body. She closes her door and steps out onto the landing towards the bathroom, and finds herself pausing outside Maureen and Patrick’s bedroom. Might more answers lie in there? She had always thought that it was the spare room that would hold the clues to Angie’s disappearance. But wouldn’t the real clues be found somewhere altogether more private? In any ordinary circumstance, she might feel bad for snooping around, but what if she found some clue that has been overlooked? What if her new eye on this story could actually help find Angie?