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leave, hesitated in the doorway as though he was about to say something else, then changed his mind. He was an all-right guy, Amy thought, despite his annoying little habits. It was a truism that people in London didn’t get to know their neighbours, and Amy’s main interaction with the people next door to her had been listening to passive-aggressive comments about her noisy bike, so Becky was lucky to have a friend living next door.
    So, the police. This would only be the second time in her life she’d called them. In a flash, she was transported back to that moment – the bleak loneliness underpinning the utter panic and disbelief at what had just happened to her at the hands of someone she loved. She hugged herself for comfort and shook the memory away, as she had so many times before.
    She was about to look up the number of the local station on the iMac when it struck her that the police might need to examine the computer, and any more activity she did on it could muddy the trail more than she had already. So she looked it up on her phone, then called them.
    ‘Camberwell Police.’
    She took a deep breath. ‘I want to report a missing person.’
    She waited while she was put through to somebody who identified himself as Police Constable Ian Norris.
    ‘How can I help?’
    She cleared her throat to unstick the words. ‘I want to report my sister as missing.’
    ‘Can I take your name please?’
    ‘Amy Coltman.’
    He asked for her address and phone number, which she gave him.
    ‘And your sister’s name?’
    ‘Becky … Rebecca Coltman,’ she said, and gave him her sister’s full address and date of birth.
    ‘How long has your sister been missing?’
    ‘Well … I haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks, but I got an email from her last night.’
    She heard an intake of breath at the other end of the line. ‘Last night?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And what did the email say?’
    ‘I know this sounds silly, and that it was only last night, but she said she was going away – going abroad – and that I shouldn’t try to find her.’
    His tone changed entirely. ‘Right.’
    Before he could say anything else, Amy said, ‘It’s completely out of character. I can’t believe she would go away like that and ask not to be found.’
    ‘She’s never done anything like this before?’
    ‘No. She went backpacking around Asia for her gap year but it was all pre-arranged.’
    ‘What about work? Have you checked with them?’
    ‘She’s a teacher. The school broke up for the summer holidays last Wednesday.’
    ‘Last Wednesday. Right …’ He paused, and she imagined him tapping details into his computer. She imagined him as the kind of bloke who typed with one finger, seeking out each letter as if for the first time.
    ‘What about friends? Family?’
    ‘Our parents live in Spain. I haven’t checked to see if they’ve heard from her yet. And I haven’t spoken to any of her friends yet.’ Despite what she’d said to Gary, she felt embarrassed now.
    ‘And have you been to her address?’ Norris asked.
    ‘I’m there now.’ Pre-empting his questions, she said, ‘It’s hard to tell if she’s packed up and gone away. But the door wasn’t double-locked. I can’t believe she’d go away without doing that.’
    ‘You’d be amazed, miss. Some people might as well hang a sign on their front door: “Burglars welcome”. What about her passport?’
    ‘Oh. I don’t know where she keeps it. Please, Officer Norris, I need you to take this seriously. There’s something … not right about the email. I’m sure something has happened to her.’
    ‘We take all reports of missing persons seriously, miss, I can assure you. Was there anything in the email that suggested that she planned to harm herself, or that she was being threatened?’
    ‘No. Let me read it to you.’
    Before he could stop her, she read out the email, in a rush.
    Norris didn’t respond immediately. Eventually, he said, ‘Here’s what I