Halfway up the wide staircase she stops and looks down at the open-plan entertaining area on the ground floor. Then she tilts her head back and takes in the soaring ceiling. The cast-iron banister curves at the top of the stairs and flows on, all around the first-floor landing. No IKEA furniture in this house, Karen muses, studying sofas and armchairs that look more like Danish design than Swedish flatpack.

A tall, rectangular window runs from floor to ceiling at one end of the landing and the view goes on for miles. But not like back home in Langevik, she notes smugly, not the open sea. Instead, flat marshland spreads out before her. A flock of something that looks like dunlins to Karen are moving restlessly in the spring twilight. For a moment she wonders if the house’s owner has a genuine interest in waterfowl or if the big brass telescope standing firmly on three wooden legs by the window is simply a piquant interior design feature.

‘Hello, Luna, are you here?’ she calls out again and knocks on the nearest door.

She pushes the handle down and looks into what appears to be a study. Empty.

She moves on, knocks, waits, and opens. Four bedrooms, all of equal size and seemingly equally unused. She continues towards the end of the hallway. Another quick knock before she pushes open the double oak doors.

The room must be at least five hundred square feet. She notes the giant bed, neatly made with the bedspread folded down over the foot of the bed. She registers the sliding wardrobe doors covering the entire length of the wall on her left, the sofa, armchairs and wall-mounted TV on her right and the white gossamer curtains billowing in the breeze from the open balcony doors straight ahead.

A few quick steps and then relief; Luna’s body is not lying crushed on the stone patio below. Nor is she passed out in the adjoining bathroom, Karen concludes after popping her head in. She studies the jumble of toiletries on the shelf above the double sinks, three still-damp towels on the floor, used facial wipes and cotton swabs in the bin. A transparent plastic tampon wrapper has fluttered off course and settled on the floor.

She steps back into the bedroom and thinks that at least someone was here recently. Rows of white clothes in the closets, a handful of books on the nightstand, a bone-white jumper thrown over the armrest of the sofa.

There can be no question that this is where Luna has been sleeping. Although maybe not last night, Karen thinks with a glance at the bed. The room is slightly messy, but nothing compared to her own home, and definitely not in a way that suggests a struggle of any kind.