It was strange being with Sasha sometimes, like we were an old married couple, completely at ease with each other. It came from when we’d lived together for two years at uni, our bedrooms adjoining. We did our food shopping and cooked together to save money, went out together all the time. Spent many nights sitting up putting the world to rights, dreaming of our futures. Most people thought we were a couple, which Sasha blamed for her lack of success with men, but we were firmly in the friend zone.

The news came on and Sasha told me to switch it over to something more light-hearted, but just as I was about to change channels, a familiar face appeared on screen and my finger froze.

‘Sasha – that’s Rachel!’

She came over to join me by the TV as the newsreader intoned over the photo of my sister’s missing personal assistant.

Police are appealing to anyone who might have seen Rachel Marson, 27, who went missing on Saturday while riding her motorcycle from London to Cardiff. Miss Marson, who lives in Eastbourne, East Sussex, called her sister to tell her she was setting off at just after 10:30 a.m. Since then, no one has seen or heard from her. She was riding a black and purple Harley Davidson, wearing a black leather jacket and trousers and a purple crash helmet.

They went on to recount her licence plate number and to give out a phone number for anyone who might have seen her.

‘Do you think she might have simply done a runner?’ Sasha asked, passing me my plate.

‘I hope so.’

‘You should turn your phone off,’ Sasha said.

‘Eh?’

‘You keep looking at it. All the time. It’s quite distracting.’

‘I can’t help it. I keep thinking I’m either going to get a call from the police telling me they’ve arrested Charlie or a call from Charlie herself.’

Sasha took the phone from its spot beside my plate and switched it off. ‘Now you can concentrate. Come on, drink up.’

I finished my first G&T and pushed the glass forward for her to refill it.

By ten, we were both wasted. Sasha had turned off the TV and put music on, and was lying across the sofa, gesticulating with her arms and legs as we talked. We were reminiscing about the old days. My anxiety was a constant buzzing at the back of my head, but it had got to the point where the front of my brain was able to ignore it, treat it as ambient noise.

‘. . . And do you remember that Halloween party, the time that girl doing sociology turned up dressed as The Demonisation of Human Sexuality?’

‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘Wasn’t she completely naked?’

Sasha laughed. ‘She was wearing a flesh-coloured bodysuit.’

‘Oh no, I’m disappointed. I knew I should have worn my glasses that night.’