The closer they got to Max’s house, the more she wanted to ease the tension. If they fought now, they’d still put on a good show when they arrived, of course. But Max had always had a nose for these things – a strange character trait for someone so jocular. Chloe pushed the button to open the window. It squealed as it did so, raspingly dry against the frame of the door. The air outside was warm and laden with petrol fumes.

‘Thank you for doing this,’ said Rav, looking out of the window on his side of the car. ‘I know you didn’t want to.’

Chloe cocked her head, surprised. ‘I know it’s important to you. And that you want the work.’

‘Like I said, it might be fun. It’s been a while.’

Chloe made a non-committal noise.

‘I know you still think Max was partially responsible,’ Rav said. His voice was gentle and his thumb softly stroked her arm. ‘For what happened with Zadie. But it was a long time ago. We’ve all changed so much since then.’

Halfway through swallowing, Chloe’s throat stuck together. It had been years since she’d heard Rav say Zadie’s name.

Rav had no idea what he was talking about. Sure, he knew that Zadie had disappeared from university and that Zadie and Max had been a couple. But he had never really been in the inner circle, never seen Max and Zadie unguarded, up close. And he hadn’t seen Max’s face the morning that Zadie vanished. His skin – usually an even dark olive – had been waxy and somehow grey. By the time Rav saw them, Max was composed. Calm. The worried, long-suffering boyfriend with the highly strung, complicated girlfriend. Rav had swallowed Max’s lies about loving Zadie and missing her but respecting her need for space. Which was all very convenient. Space meant that Zadie couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t bring his beautifully designed artifice crashing down.

‘We’re pretty close now,’ she said, putting her hand on Rav’s thigh and inclining her head towards the driver’s satnav. There was no point revisiting the conversation about Zadie. Nothing she could say to convince him that Max was guilty as sin. Rav had chosen what he believed, the version of the story that best suited him. His muscles felt tight under her hand. Not desperately so, but tighter than usual. The kind of thing you only notice when you’ve touched the same person’s leg in the same way for fifteen years.

The car turned off the slow, busy road and on to a quieter one. Suddenly the trees either side were green and the buildings pretty. They must be nearly there. Eventually, the taxi came to a stop outside a modern glass house that stood, almost comically mismatched, at the end of a terrace of pretty Victorian buildings.