Chloe puts everything away. She heats up a can of rice pudding for supper, then sits in Nan’s chair, looking out of the living room window. She watches the street, hoping to see a familiar figure appear under the orange glow of the street lamps. Instead it’s just a fox that scuttles by.

Chloe watches TV for a while, skipping channels when she can’t focus on any one programme. She looks outside again. It has now been twenty-eight hours since Nan went missing. Chloe knows her chances of being found are falling with each hour that passes. In a newspaper story a reporter would describe her as clinging to hope. She thinks of the Kyles, how they first feasted on it, until even hope became famine. She settles down in Nan’s chair. The standard lamp in the window a beacon to return Nan home. Its long fringe shade casting shadows across Chloe’s face.

SEVEN

Chloe has an uncomfortable night on the sofa, twisting and turning in half-dreams the way she often does. She wakes throughout the night to check her phone, the living room close enough to hear if there were a knock at the front door. At some point she must drift off into a deep sleep because her ringing phone jolts her awake.

‘Yes?’

‘Chloe?’

‘Yes.’

‘PC Bains here from Acton police station.’

She tries to stem her fear of what they might say. ‘Acton?’

‘Yes, in west London. The reason I’m calling is because I have a Mrs Grace Hudson here at the station and . . .’

Chloe sits up quickly, on the edge of the sofa cushion.

‘. . . she’s a little disorientated and dehydrated, but otherwise well.’

‘Oh, thank God.’

She presses the phone to her chest because it feels like the right thing to do. She composes herself and takes instructions from the police officer, promising her she’s already on her way.

Nan is OK. Disorientated, but OK.

She’s home. Or not quite. She’s in Acton. Chloe sieves back through the photo albums in her mind. Nan and Granddad’s first home was in west London; they’d both been born there and had only moved up here when Grandad got a job at the brick factory. Nan had gone home.

Chloe takes the fast train to London even though it’s more expensive – she refuses to be slowed by twice as many stops. It is still early morning and the train is filled with commuters, and the scent of pressed shirts, fresh aftershave and plastic cups of hot tea. She calls her own office and leaves a garbled message for Alec. She knows it will be greeted with more eye-rolling, but right now – this minute – she needs to get Nan back.

She texts Hollie too: Nan ok, in Acton. Not sure why. On train to get her. So relieved. xx