After she’d showered, she pulled from the pile of clothes Chloë had left some high-waisted black trousers with wide legs, Chloë’s old Dr Martens and a white blouse that had see-through sleeves and lots of tiny buttons, with a faint perfume still caught in its folds. Better than Carla’s clothes, anyway. She ran her fingers through her wet, spiky hair, then tied a patterned scarf round it, put on her sunglasses and went downstairs to find Chloë waiting, hot with excitement, by the door.

‘So where are we going?’

‘To the Warehouse. I need to find something there.’

‘Won’t someone report you?’

‘They’ll have gone by the time we get there.’

‘Do you have keys?’

‘No.’

‘But …’ And then Chloë stopped. ‘Oh. Right. That’s amazing. How does that work?’

‘When I was last there, there was a window with a broken latch. It’s been like that for a year.’

‘So we just climb in.’

‘I just climb in. You keep a watch out for anyone coming.’

‘That’s a bit boring.’

‘Good.’

They took the Overground to Kentish Town West, almost entirely in silence.

‘Is this about Sandy?’ Chloë asked.

‘Of course.’

‘What?’

‘I’m not exactly sure.’

‘But you will know,’ Chloë insisted, both confident and in need of reassurance. ‘You’ll find out.’

‘I hope so.’

‘And then you’ll be able to come home properly.’

‘That’s the plan.’

They left the station and walked along Prince of Wales Road towards Chalk Farm.

‘Where have you been, though?’ Chloë asked.

‘Oh. Places where people go when they don’t want to be found.’

Chloë took her arm and squeezed it. ‘I’m so very happy you’re not there any longer, wherever it was.’

‘Tell me how you’ve been.’

‘Me? Well, compared with you, not much has happened. It’s not been so long since you disappeared.’ She made Frieda sound like some magic trick. ‘You know – same old. I like my course, though Mum is disgusted.’

‘Still?’

‘She’s going to be disappointed in me for the rest of her life. Instead of having her daughter the doctor, I’m going to be her daughter the joiner.’

‘Sounds good to me.’

‘As for Dad …’ She rolled her eyes.

Chloë talked on: about carpentry, college, the apprenticeship she was now doing at the run-down workshop in Walthamstow, full of men who didn’t really know how to treat her, about Jack and how very glad she was to be no longer in a relationship with him – her voice rose and wobbled as she said it – and Frieda led them on a circuitous route towards the Warehouse, half listening to her niece but alert for anything that seemed out of place.

At last they were at the entrance to the building, which was set back from the road. It looked imposing, impregnable. Frieda led Chloë along the small side alley where the bins were kept, and round to the back. Looking up at the houses that the Warehouse backed onto, she saw how many windows there were. For an instant, she thought she saw a face at one; then she blinked and it became an earthenware pot on the windowsill. But there really was a figure in the house to the left. A woman was watering the plants in the conservatory, moving tranquilly through the glassy space. Frieda wondered if she should come back later – but then there would be other people to worry about. Best to get it over with.

‘This is the window here.’ She stepped forward and gave it a sharp tug upwards, but it didn’t budge. She put the palms of her hands on the frame and pushed hard. Nothing. Through the glass she saw the corridor and, beyond that, the door to her room. ‘Paz must have got it mended,’ she said.

‘Is there an alarm?’

‘I know the code so I should be able to disarm it. And, anyway, if Reuben is the last to leave he often forgets to turn it on.’

‘Josef should be here. He’d know how to get in.’

‘We need a crowbar.’

‘I’m not exactly carrying one with me. I should have brought my tool bag. What about that loose paving stone?’

‘I’m not sure we should –’

She didn’t have time to finish her sentence, for Chloë had bent down, picked it up and in a single movement hurled it against the window. For an instant, a crazed network of lines appeared in the glass; then, as if in slow motion, everything disintegrated and they were staring at a jagged hole.

Frieda couldn’t think of anything to say and, anyway, there wasn’t time to say it. She picked out some of the glass then untied the scarf from her hair, using it to clear away the fragments sticking to the bottom of the frame. Now they could both hear the beeps of the alarm, ready to break into full sound.

She stepped in through the window and looked down at Chloë’s scared, excited face framed by the bristle of her hair, her glowing eyes.

‘Wait near the front entrance, but out of sight. You’ve done your bit. More than your bit.’

The woman was still watering her plants in the conservatory. A light went on in the upstairs window of the house next door, though the sky was still silver blue. Frieda walked swiftly up the corridor to where the alarm box was, under the stairwell. She punched in the number. The beeping continued. She tried again, slowly, making sure she had it right. Still the red light didn’t change to green. The security code must have been changed, or she was remembering it wrong. And, sure enough, after a rapid warning stutter of beeps the great scream of alarms started up, almost ripping her eardrums and rolling around her skull like pain.

She went back down the corridor, still not running and oddly calm, her heartbeat quite steady, and went into her room. It was as if she had never been away. Everything was in its proper place. The books on the shelves, the tissue box on the low table, the pens in the mug above the Moleskine notebook. She pulled open the deep bottom drawer of her desk and, sure enough, the bin bag was there, loosely knotted. She picked it up, feeling the objects inside slide and clink, pushed the drawer shut, and left again, closing the door behind her. She stepped out of the window. More lights had gone on in the houses. There was someone standing in his garden, his hand shading his eyes, trying to see what the commotion was about.

She walked down the side alley and to the front entrance, where Chloë was pressed against the wall behind a rhododendron bush thick with dying purple flowers. Her face was pinched with fear.

‘They changed the code. Come on.’ She took Chloë’s arm and led her onto the road, turning away from the direction they had come in, weaving through side-streets. Behind them, the alarm. Her feet were uncomfortable in the heavy boots. Her neck stung and when she put a hand up it came away smeared with blood.

‘What about the police?’ Chloë asked.

‘The alarm isn’t connected to the police station. It kept going off by mistake.’

‘Did you get what you wanted?’ Chloë asked, after a few minutes. Her voice was hoarse.

‘Yes.’

‘So it will be all right now?’

‘We’ll see.’

Chloë went into the house first, to check Olivia was alone. Then Frieda followed. The instant Olivia saw her she burst into noisy and ecstatic sobs, as though someone had pressed a button on the back of her neck. She wept, exclaimed, waved her hands in the air. Mascara ran down her cheeks. She yanked the fridge open and pulled out a bottle of sparkling wine, even though there was already wine open on the table.

Frieda sat at the kitchen table. She still felt oddly calm, distant from what was going on around her. Chloë made them all scrambled egg. Olivia drank – from her own glass and Frieda’s and Chloë’s as well – and talked and asked questions that Frieda didn’t answer. The bin bag was at her feet. She thought of the last time she had seen Sandy. He had hurled it at her, his handsome face wild, and shouted. But what had he said? She couldn’t remember. She should have paid more attention, before it was all too late.