‘We’ve phoned the police. Can you ask Paul if he saw anything before he left? And check on the girls, they’ll be worried.’ Eve disappears outside.

Paul doesn’t pick up so she texts instead then walks through the kitchen into the hall. The house is quiet; her footsteps ring on the stone. She opens a door into a red-walled room with a large table, oil paintings and the musty smell of ancient meals. There’s a chintzy sofa and matching chairs in the next room, a dusty-looking carpet. It seems odd that she’s never seen these rooms before. This part of the house feels neglected.

‘Izzy?’ Her voice sounds thin in the cavernous hall. ‘Poppy? Sorrel?’

There is no reply, only the tick of an unseen clock as it scrapes the hour and the stale scent of flowers left in water too long. Unease deepens. Eve’s house has always seemed a sunny place filled with laughter, it’s as though she’s wandered into someone else’s home by mistake. Melissa walks further into the hall towards the stairs, calling for her daughter, for Eve’s daughters. Her voice echoes back to her, but no one answers. This seems to be a house that swallows children. As she puts a foot on the first step, she catches a faint rhythmic creaking coming from a door that’s half open, down a corridor she hadn’t noticed at the back of the hall. When she pushes the door wider, the interior is indistinct, the curtains pulled halfway across, crooked as if someone tried to darken the room in a hurry. As her eyes become accustomed to the gloom, she sees Izzy astride a dapple-grey rocking horse, tilting backwards and forwards slowly. Sorrel and Poppy are squashed together in a large armchair sharing Izzy’s laptop. Their faces are pale in the reflected light. Poppy is half-dressed, Sorrel still in her pyjamas. She has never seen Eve’s children even glance at a screen before. Izzy spends all her time on her mobile or laptop; staring at the children’s faces she’s unsure now which is the more normal behaviour. Charley and Blake aren’t with them, there is a brief pulse of worry until she remembers that they didn’t stay over last night.

‘Hi.’ Her voice sounds over cheerful, a little flimsy.

Izzy stares at her mother. Poppy glances up then back at the screen, frowning. Sorrel wriggles from the seat and runs to Melissa. ‘When’s Ash coming back?’

Melissa takes her hand; the small fingers are icy. This room is unheated; Eve must have no idea the children play in here. Ash will be colder than this if he’s outside in the rain, dangerously cold. The body temperature in children falls much faster than in adults.

‘Oh, it won’t be long now,’ she says cheerfully. ‘Shall we get you ready to go to school?’