She thought about it. There were other friends she could stay with, but none of them lived as close to her place as Mac did. Staying across the river with Zoe would have felt too cut off from her old life, as though she were abandoning Luke somehow. And she and Mac were the closest people to Luke other than his parents, the two people who cared most about finding him. It made sense. She looked at him gratefully. ‘That would be brilliant,’ she said.

11

London, 2017

Hoxton Square was almost empty when Clara arrived a couple of hours later, its bars and restaurants locked and silent now, no sign of life on the pavements except for a postman doing his rounds, a homeless woman yawning in her sleeping bag, pouring water from a bottle into her hand for her dog to drink. The sky was filled with a cool, yellow light and behind the black railings shadows lay still and dark upon the lawn. She made her way towards her flat, telling herself she’d stay only long enough to throw some clothes into a bag then drive straight back to Mac’s.

Her building was silent as she let herself in and climbed the stairs. She noticed nothing unusual until she put her key to the lock and the door to her flat opened without resistance. She paused in surprise: she had locked it; she knew she had. Fear prickled the back of her neck now as she stepped inside. And as she looked around she gasped in horror. The flat had been completely ransacked. Drawers pulled out, their contents spilled all over the floor, books torn from shelves and left scattered where they fell, the sofa taken apart, wardrobes and cupboards plundered. Nothing had been left untouched. It looked very much as though someone had been searching for something, but what it was, or whether they’d found it, she had no idea.

It was a long time later that the police finally allowed her back in. Clara closed the door behind the officers as they trudged grimly away with their bags and cases of equipment, then she stood alone, surveying the chaos. Who had done this, and why? The downstairs front door hadn’t been forced, so how did they get into the building? Whoever it was must have known she hadn’t been at home last night. She glanced up at her ceiling, the usual pounding music eerily absent now. The silence seemed to fill the room, travelling to each corner and pressing against the walls and when her mobile rang she jumped in shock then leapt to answer it, desperate to hear another human voice.

It was Anderson. ‘Clara. How are you? DC Mansfield told me they’ve finished searching the flat.’

‘Did you speak to my neighbour?’ she asked. ‘The one I told you about?’