Nothing.

Mel found me rooting through the washing basket, checking the pockets of my work trousers from earlier.

‘No joy?’

‘It’s gone. Vanished.’

She crossed her arms, leaned against the bathroom doorframe.

‘What else is the matter, Joe? Is that all?’

‘Not sure yet.’

‘What does that mean?’

I squeezed past her in the doorway and went back downstairs to the house phone in the lounge. The iPad had a backup of all my phone contacts, so I grabbed that too. My heart was thumping hard in my chest.

Mel’s voice came down the stairs to me, high and tense.

‘Are you going to tell me, Joe? Let me help you, at least.’

My iPad was showing nineteen notifications on Facebook. That was weird.

Having that many notifications in one go was new to me. I was not a prolific user of Facebook in any case – my life’s not even half interesting enough, I’d once told Mel, which she’d said was missing the point of social media entirely. My posts were few and far between and wouldn’t normally generate that many comments in a month, never mind one night. The picture of William with his school award must have hit the spot.

I ignored Facebook for the moment and went to the address book back up, found Ben’s home number and punched it in on the landline. As it connected, I went back to the iPad’s home screen and hit the Facebook icon. The familiar blue and white of my timeline appeared, all the usual stuff. People going out for the night, or staying in, eating this or that, watching this or that TV show; who was already halfway gone and who was sober, who was going for an early night and who was just getting started. As the dial tone sounded in my ear, I pressed on the notification icon to find out what people had been saying that involved me. The screen filled with a list of new updates. Paul Coffey, Tanya Payne and Tom Parish commented on your status. I clicked on the top notification.

Felt the ground shifting beneath my feet.

I hung up the phone and stared at the screen.

What?

There was a status update from me. Or rather, from my account, more recent than my post about William’s school award. My profile picture alongside the update.

The update was just a few words, a hashtag and a picture.

Joe Lynch – 2 hours ago

We never know how little we deserve what we have until it is taken away from us #ClassicUnderAchiever #LostAndFound

The picture was a low-angle shot, the camera virtually on the ground. Taken in an underground car park, Ben’s car registration plate visible on the right-hand side. A sign said: Car Park for use by patrons of Premier Inn only.

My phone. My Facebook account was synced to my smartphone.

Oh, crap.

I clicked on the picture to enlarge it. There was something in the foreground, flared out with flash – but you could see clearly what it was. A black leather bracelet. Looks like mine. I dumbly looked at my wrist. Gone. #LostAndFound. Must have come off when I was grappling with Ben, and now it was in a photo posted on a social network with a billion users.