‘I’ll be right there,’ Jill said.

Diana put down the phone, full of simple gratitude that there was someone else she could trust to look for Constance without caring how great the odds against finding her had already become. But soon, surely, as people began to leave for work, someone would find her.

Automatically Diana plugged in the kettle. Then she thought to cook herself an egg. She had no appetite, but any chore would help to pass the time. She thought about breakfast for Jill, but Diana no more wanted Jill to take the time to eat than Jill herself would. Instead Diana made her a ham sandwich to take with her.

Dawn was breaking when Jill arrived.

‘Any word yet?’

‘No,’ Diana said.

‘Has she ever done this before?’

‘No.’

‘Any idea where she might have gone?’

‘No.’

‘Then I’ll just … look,’ Jill said.

‘I made you a sandwich.’

‘Thank you,’ Jill said dismissively, but then she accepted it. ‘I’ll call in about every half hour, all right?’

Diana nodded.

‘We’ll find her,’ Jill said, and she quickly kissed Diana before she left.

Diana watched her run down the path to her expensive sports car, her one luxury always. What a capable body she had to do Diana’s bidding, but just watching her caused Diana physical pain. She should go back upstairs to make the bed, but her feet wouldn’t hear of it. She sat down instead and poured herself another cup of tea while she waited for the phone which did not ring for forty minutes, and then it was Jill.

‘I’m down by the beach,’ she said.

‘She could be nearly anywhere by this time,’ Diana said.

‘But on foot.’

‘Yes, she doesn’t have any money with her.’

The beach. Diana would not have thought to go there. Poor, romantic Jill. Was she, for lack of any real clues, going to places where she and Constance had gone before Jill moved in with them? For Diana to do that, she would have had to go back to London.

At nine o’clock the phone rang again. This time it was David. Diana had forgotten all about David.

‘I wanted to thank you for last night,’ he began before he registered the strain in her greeting. ‘Is anything wrong?’

Diana explained.

‘You should have phoned at once,’ David said. ‘What can I do?’

By now Diana realized the futility of Jill’s driving aimlessly around the city, and, though Diana would have liked to alert the whole population of Vancouver, there was no point in sending her brother out to search.

‘Would it help if I just came and waited with you?’

Would it? Diana supposed it would. She was learning to need her brother.

Before he arrived, Jill called in again.

‘There’s no real point, is there?’ Diana asked.

‘It beats sitting by the phone,’ Jill said.

‘You must be due at the office.’