Malc’s office door slams open and shut throughout the morning until almost midday when the paper finally goes to press. It’s cost them money and he snaps at Sandra, his PA. She types faster outside his office. Alec and Chloe instinctively make their footsteps lighter inside the archive. But five minutes later, Sandra pops her head in among the piles of filing.

‘Malc wants to see you in his office,’ she says, and then, looking directly at Chloe, ‘Both of you.’

Chloe and Alec glance at each other, then shuffle back to their desks to collect notepads and pens. Perhaps Malc has a special project he needs them to work on, a nostalgia spread of city photographs for the centrefold, that sort of thing.

Only when they step into his office, Sandra closes the door behind them. Chloe and Alec watch it shut, then turn to Malc. He’s leaning back on his executive chair, feet up on the desk. Nobody speaks at first, until Alec coughs.

‘You wanted to see us?’

‘Yes,’ he says. His voice has a hard edge. ‘There’s a file missing from the archive – Angela Kyle. I want to know where it is.’

Chloe swallows hard. Angela Kyle. She grips her notepad and waits for Alec to speak.

He taps his chin with his pen and mutters, ‘Angela Kyle,’ to the ceiling.

‘You might have seen we were in dire straits this morning?’ Malc says.

They both nod.

‘Well, that’s because our splash fell through. That was meant to be it, an update from the parents about this missing kid.’ Chloe tightens her grip on her pen. ‘But the Sunday reporter – he’s new – he couldn’t find the file in the archive and so he cancelled the bloody interview.’

Malc leans forward on the chair, resting his hands on the desk and lowering his voice. ‘So I’d like to know where the fuck it is.’

He stares at them, and in the space it takes for his eyes to flicker from Alec to Chloe, the heat burns inside her cheeks.

‘Chloe?’ Alec says. ‘Didn’t I see you scanning that file in on Friday?’

She pauses for a second, glancing between their faces, trying to weigh up the best way out of this. She’s usually good at this, but the words she needs aren’t coming today, instead – just like Nan’s – they’re stuck inside some roadblock in her brain. She stumbles, not knowing what to say. And she knows what’s coming, the panic, and then anything could happen. She wants to keep silent, but both men are looking at her.

‘It’s just the file . . . well, it broke, and I took it home to fix—’

But she doesn’t make it to the end of her sentence. Malc stands up behind his desk, taking a deep breath in, and beside her she feels Alec shaking his head slowly.