As she comes out of the newsagent’s, a couple of teenage boys move their bikes from the pavement outside the doorway. She catches her reflection in the window as she walks away: notebook and pen in one hand, blazer, smart trousers. She even feels like a reporter. She pictures herself then, thirty minutes from now, perhaps Maureen making her a cup of tea while she sits on the sofa opposite Patrick, taking notes in her pad. She’ll glance around the room, jotting down detail to colour in the story; nothing will go undiscovered, no stone unturned. The cashier in the shop hadn’t even questioned her buying a shorthand pad. She stops still on the pavement – she doesn’t know shorthand. Can she fake it? After all, she’s seen what reporters scrawl in their notepads. Would the Kyles know the difference? But she doesn’t like the thought of deceiving them. She checks her watch, there isn’t time to buy a dictaphone. Yet the thought of abandoning her plan now when she is already so close, so prepared, is impossible.

‘Too late now,’ she whispers under her breath.

She carries on walking. Nerves collecting inside each step. For the first time ever she has sympathy for reporters sent out on door knocks. Is this how they feel? She’s never thought about their job outside of the office, just complained if they didn’t return files back to the archive. She puts her nerves aside. She’s doing this for Angie, for the Kyles, so they might finally get some peace, some answers. After all, someone needs to keep hope for the missing. She remembers her own visits to the police station. They were hardly dynamic in their approach; twenty-five years ago they were probably even worse. She’s got to remember to stay focused.

She arrives at the house and watches for a while from the other side of the road. She pictures Maureen and Patrick pottering behind the walls, busy in their permanent state of pretence and waiting. She imagines Angie’s absence as something they pull on each morning as routinely as their clothes.

Unlike some of the other houses in this street, this one hasn’t sprouted an extension from its side. The old wooden gate hasn’t been swapped for a wrought-iron one either. The only update appears to be the double glazing and the new front door, brown uPVC to match the colour of the brick. Chloe looks up at the bedroom window she’d glanced into two weeks before, but for some reason she can’t see the same light shade, and the curtains seem different too. She squints harder, makes a sun visor with her hand to see more clearly. She checks the number – 48. It’s definitely the right place and yet somehow it feels different. She puts that down to nerves too.