Chloe glances at the kitchen clock. 5.13 p.m. She pictures her empty seat at her desk. The same desk her boss thinks she’s sitting at right now. The same one with mounting paperwork. Nan’s face crumples and Chloe looks around the only home she knows. She sighs, pulling Nan into her chest. Porridge clings to her shoulder, but Chloe holds her until Nan’s body relaxes into her own.

‘Stella hasn’t been here for months,’ she sobs. ‘When is she going to visit?’

‘Soon, Nan,’ Chloe says and places a kiss on the top of her head because, at times like these, that’s what she knows she’s meant to do.

Twenty minutes later Chloe closes the door behind her, feeling the safety of the key clicking inside the lock. The hallway has disappeared behind a thick curtain that guards the door when she’s not there. Not against intruders, but against Nan wandering out.

Nan is tucked up in bed now, a ham sandwich on her bedside table, tea in her flask. Chloe has reattached the note above the cooker reminding Nan not to turn it on, hidden the lead to the kettle and promised her she’ll be home again soon.

She makes her way back to the office in the dusk, through back streets, up and down kerbs – six minutes’ walk by shortcuts others are too afraid to take. Luckily she’s always felt more at home in the dark than the light.

Orange street lamps illuminate different patches of path. A group of teenage boys jeers from the swings. One throws an empty can at her as she passes.

She walks through the underpass, takes the stairs two at a time, pushes through the double doors. The daytime buzz of the office has made way for a hum now; computer screens are black and lifeless; coats lifted have left the backs of chairs naked. A note from her boss, written in angry spidery handwriting, waits on her desk:

That’s the third time this week you’ve done one of your disappearing acts.

She screws it up and pushes it deep into the rubbish bin. Beside her a tower of filing wobbles a polite reminder. There is still porridge on her shoes. She doesn’t know where to start. She never does.

After a few moments, her screen falls back to sleep. She checks the time – nearly six. They’re being replaced by machines; this newspaper archive is moving into the new millennium and finally switching to digital. Chloe can’t afford to miss any more time off work, she’s already in competition with a motherboard for the only job she’s ever known.

The day’s newspaper lies open on her desk just as she left it: two gaps in the top right-hand corner, her scalpel filling the place where the stories once sat. She grips the small knife and turns the page.