In Nan’s room she rummages through her wardrobe, pushing aside hangers home to fur and felt and lamé that will never be worn again. She pauses at a drop-waist black and gold dress from the eighties. She saw this dress in a photograph inside the album she looked at on the night Nan was missing. Granddad’s arm resting on one of those padded shoulders. She pauses for a second, her hand running over the material, and then, when she sees what’s next to it, she pushes it aside. She pulls from the hanger a plain black blazer. She tries it on in the mirror. Her long dark hair falls over the padded shoulders; something doesn’t look right. She takes it off, pulls out the padding, and slips back into it. The arms are a little long, and it’s a bit wide for her frame. And – she sniffs it – it smells of mothballs. But then she remembers seeing a bulldog clip in Nan’s bureau and she runs downstairs to get it, cinching it in at the back. Now her reflection is perfect. She dots some of Nan’s Lily of the Valley perfume behind each ear and on her wrists. She tries on one long plastic beaded necklace and then another, leaving the jewellery scattered across Nan’s dressing table. No, this will do. She twirls one more time in front of the mirror and sees the bulldog clip again. She just needs to remember not to take her coat off once she gets inside the Kyles’. She’ll remember, of course she will.

It’s only a ten-minute walk from Nan’s house to Chestnut Avenue, but Chloe takes the long way round so she can stop at the newsagent’s on the way. Beside the till there’s a stationary section, a slim red ring-bound reporter’s notebook. She buys it and a biro, remembering to test it on the paper first. She hands over the money to pay and leaves the shop transformed.