He asks for coffee. Black, no sugar. Different from how he’d had it eighteen years ago. She’s always had a good memory for silly, irrelevant details. Like she remembers that the last time she saw him he was wearing a pale blue shirt with creases criss-crossed along the front, as though it had come straight out of its packet, and his hands had trembled slightly as he held his coffee cup. He’d been too thin then, and he’d smoked too much, and even though he’d told her later that his wife had died a few years before, he still wore a single gold band on his left hand. She notices now that he no longer wears it. He’s clean-shaven and his shirt is ironed and, if it’s possible, he’s grown even more attractive. She dismisses this thought straight away. That part of her life is over.

He was always a man of few words but he’s hardly said anything since he arrived, just short answers to her many questions about his life in Bristol. It doesn’t sound like he ever remarried. Another thing they have in common.

She hands him his coffee and sits down opposite him. She didn’t make any for herself. She couldn’t stomach it. ‘So?’ she says. ‘What have you come all this way to tell me?’

He looks serious, professional, and sits up a little straighter. His body fills the chair and she can smell an expensive aftershave on him. ‘First, Margot, I need to apologize. For never finding out what happened to Flora.’ He runs a hand across his chin and she jolts at the memory of the familiar gesture. ‘It haunts me. I’ve never given up. I want you to know that.’

‘You don’t think she ran away?’ It was always her fear that the police wouldn’t take Flora’s case seriously, believing she was just a teenage runaway, even after the blouse was found.

‘You know I don’t,’ he says shortly. ‘And I haven’t changed my mind about that. We took the case very seriously. You have my word on it.’

‘How can somebody just vanish?’ She can hear the desperation in her voice. It was the same question she’d asked herself every day for eighteen years.

‘You’d be surprised by how many people go missing in the UK each year.’

She shakes her head. ‘Sometimes I don’t think I can bear it …’ Then she, too, sits up straighter, her jaw jutting out. She can’t fall apart now. She’s been strong all these years. And she has to remain so, for Heather. For Ethan.

He assesses her with his calm expression. ‘I’m sorry, Margot.’ His pale eyes are sad, his mouth set.

She assesses him with a cold, hard stare. ‘I’m assuming there’s no development with Flora and that you’re here about Heather.’