She spends the morning buried deep in the archive, keeping out of Alec’s way and working through his pile of files. It’s easy to hide there, among the filing cabinets that stand buttressed together, three in a row, back to back as if checking which is the tallest among them. There are four rows like that, each of them labelled A to Z with tales of the city. Everything is there, from the waggiest tail competition winners at village fetes to the secrets those names on the front would rather keep hidden: drink driving bans, domestic assaults. Chloe has read and filed it all. Most citizens of this city have no idea they’ve left a Helvetica trail of crumbs creating a picture of their lives, starting with their birth announcements and running all the way through to their own death notices. The archivist is the guardian of all that’s happened over the years, the first stop for reporters on deadline to write a story. No one knows this city and all its stories better than Chloe.

She surveys the archive, across the tops of the grey filing cabinets, up to the tomes containing back copies of every newspaper they’ve ever printed. It’s all going to be gone soon. Replaced with two computers. Just two. But what’s an archive without that human touch?

At lunchtime, Chloe stands in line for a coffee. On her phone she finds another missed call from social services. It makes her stomach turn over inside her coat and she quickly pushes her phone deep inside her bag. In front of her in the queue, a woman laughs loudly into her own phone. The woman has long blonde hair and, when she turns around, a perfect smile with teeth straight out of a toothpaste advert. She smells of a musky, confident perfume that Chloe would never think to wear.

The barista calls out her name – Amanda – and the woman steps forward for her coffee, still laughing loudly into her phone. Amanda doesn’t worry about answering her phone. Amanda has only good news from her phone. This makes Chloe think of social services again.

The cafe is busy, packed with bodies, and Chloe could say with all honesty that she didn’t see Amanda turn around so quickly, that she hadn’t realized she’d stepped straight into her path as she did. She could say she only realized what had happened when she saw the stain spreading across Amanda’s perfect camel coat.

‘Look what you did!’ Amanda says.

She’s not laughing anymore. Staff fuss around her, mopping at her coat with paper napkins instantly dyed tan.

Chloe steps past the chaos; she’s forgotten all about social services. Instead, with a smile, she orders her latte.

‘What’s the name?’ the barista asks, standing poised with a cup and a black marker pen.

Chloe watches the woman leave, now swearing into her phone. ‘Amanda,’ she says.