‘She got out of the back, but when it went by, the front passenger seat was empty.’ He shook his head. ‘Too dangerous – how do you know who you’re getting? When she left home, I made Faiza promise, promise me she would never do that. Black cabs only, I said, send me the receipts, I’ll pay. I meant to say something to her the next time I saw her,’ he tapped the paper with his fingertip, ‘this girl. But I forgot. May I ask what’s happening with her?’

Maggie nodded. ‘She’s gone missing.’

Becca’s room was at the rear of the house, its narrow sash window overlooking the side return, a tiny yard and the red-brick backs of the houses behind. The bed was a single, tucked tight into the corner, but it ate up almost a third of the floor space anyway, leaving an L-shaped peninsula of carpet barely wide enough to walk around. The redundant chimney breast took a big chunk, too, and created two deep alcoves, one that housed a wardrobe, the other a chest of drawers topped with a pine-framed mirror.

Despite its size, the room was quite appealing. Robin had expected clutter, slippery stacks of magazines, heaps of clothes, a sticky basket of make-up slowly gathering dust, but instead it was minimalist. The two magazines on the shelf of the tiny bedside table – she stooped: Elle and Heat – were both lined up squarely under a library copy of Veg Every Day and a well-worn paperback Jane Eyre. The bedcover was white seersucker, the anglepoise-style lamp brushed steel. A shot glass held a tiny cactus.

‘You haven’t cleaned up in here?’ Maggie asked.

‘No.’ Valerie hovered at the threshold, anxiety rising off her like a heat haze. Another person who didn’t sleep last night, Robin had thought when she opened the front door. She knew about Corinna, Maggie had told her yesterday on the phone, and as she’d come in, Valerie had touched her arm. ‘I’m so sorry about your friend.’

‘The police asked me that, too, when they looked,’ she said now. ‘She always keeps it like this – she says it feels bigger when it’s tidy.’

‘Is anything missing, that you know of?’ said Maggie.

‘No, I’ve checked. Her jewellery’s all there.’ She pointed to a lacquered box on the chest. ‘Not that she’s got much that’s worth anything, just the two rings Graeme’s mother left her and a charm bracelet. I looked for her overnight bag, just in case, but it’s still in the bottom of the wardrobe. She only had her handbag.’

A shallow bamboo tray next to the box held a liquid eyeliner, mascara, and an eyeshadow palette in matte greys. Without touching it, Robin read the bottom of a Maybelline lipstick: Very Cherry. ‘Is this the make-up she uses?’