She glanced at Mac. The stress was beginning to take its toll on him. Although on the surface he was keeping it together, trying to put on a brave face for her, she could tell that underneath he was starting to fray. He seemed to have a perpetual haunted look in his eyes, a queasy pallor to his skin as though he’d barely slept for days. ‘Thanks,’ she said to him quietly, ‘for doing this with me. I don’t know what I’d have done without you through all this.’

‘Don’t be daft. You and Luke are my best mates,’ he said. ‘What else was I going to do?’

She smiled and, staring out of the window again, she thought about Mac for a while. She’d often wished he would find a girlfriend, worried he might feel awkward tagging along with her and Luke all the time. But on the subject of his love life, Mac had always been intensely private. Occasionally he’d disappear for a few months, alluding vaguely to someone new he was seeing, and sometimes he’d even introduce them to her, but none of the girls ever seemed to last. ‘She’s not the one,’ he’d said once, when pushed. ‘So what’s the point?’

‘Our Mac’s a hopeless romantic,’ Luke had laughed.

‘Oh well,’ Clara had said encouragingly, ‘the right one’s out there somewhere, you’ll see.’

‘Aye,’ he’d grinned. ‘I expect she is.’ And then he’d changed the subject.

They were less than a mile from The Willows when a reply from Emily finally arrived. Her heart leapt. When can we meet? it said. I can come to London.

‘What shall I say?’ she asked Mac excitedly. ‘Shall I tell her I can see her tomorrow?’

He glanced at her in alarm. ‘You’ve got to make sure it’s really her you’re talking to first. You can’t just go and meet any old weirdo off the internet, it could be anyone.’

‘Yeah,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I suppose you’re right.’ It seemed such an incredible thought, to find Emily at last, she could hardly begin to believe it might happen. She looked at Mac. ‘What was Emily like, do you think? I mean, I know you didn’t move to the area until after she’d left, but I guess Luke used to talk about her to you?’

He thought for a moment. ‘Not much, to be honest. She was always kind of present, in the sense that you knew they thought of her all the time, but no one ever mentioned her. I do remember Luke saying she was a big character, quite stubborn and fiery, you know, into her politics and good causes and so on, but that’s about it. Rose especially took her disappearance so hard, I guess they all got used to not talking about Emily in front of her.’