Miss Taylor walks slowly, lingering on schoolwork on the walls, talking Chloe through the history of the school and setting out its values. Chloe longs to run her hands along the walls as they walk. She imagines Angie doing the same. If these walls could talk, she thinks. Then supposes they wouldn’t be able to give up any clues. Miss Taylor pauses outside a classroom.

‘After you . . .’ Miss Taylor says, opening the classroom door.

The room is filled with noise where at least thirty children are scattered among tables and chairs, with a few lying on the carpet on their bellies, reading books, their legs bent and crossed in the air above them.

‘Looks like we’ve turned up at golden time,’ the deputy says, introducing Chloe to Mrs Bryant, the teacher, and her assistant. Miss Taylor talks Chloe through things like ‘Key Stage One’ and other terms she’s unfamiliar with. She makes an effort to nod and appear interested, all the time her eyes roaming the room, taking in everything from the tiny chairs to the whiteboard. Although surely it would have been a blackboard in Angela’s day? It was when she was at school.

‘And has this always been the reception classroom?’ Chloe asks.

‘Yes, ever since the school opened in 1974,’ she replies.

Chloe nods and looks around. In the corner there is an old white butler sink that has clearly never been replaced. There’s a little plastic footstool in front of it, and Chloe pictures Angie climbing up onto something similar to wash her hands back when she was here. There’s a doorway on the other side of the room through which sunshine spills light across the floor. She pictures Maureen and Patrick standing there each afternoon to collect their daughter, the sun dipping in the sky, an amber glow warming the tops of their heads as they waited. She smiles as she imagines Angie looking up at them from the carpet with their halos of afternoon sunshine – these two perfect parents. But then she corrects herself: no, no, it would have only been Maureen, Patrick would have been at work. Strangely, she can’t remember seeing anything about what he did in the cuttings. She makes a mental note to check. Chloe wants to imprint everything about this room in her mind, right down to the poster paint smell. It all builds up a picture. A picture that she has stepped into, that she is now a part of, and that surely brings her closer to the Kyles?

‘Shall we continue?’ Miss Taylor says, guiding her elbow.

Although Chloe has already seen everything she needs.

That night, back in her bedroom at Nan’s house, she writes down what she can remember about the school in her little notebook. On her phone there is a message from Hollie: Phil said he didn’t hear from you today. Make sure you call him. Xx