There are no lights on in her flat. I press other people’s bells until someone answers, and I tell them my sister’s buzzer has broken and they let me in. I run up the stairs: five flights to the top. I pound on Bethany’s door. There’s no answer.

I text Amy and she replies immediately: No sign of Bee, but the korma is yummy! A x

There isn’t a concierge and there’s nowhere to hide a spare key in this clinical hall. She hasn’t even got a doormat and it’s not the sort of place for pot plants. Amy might have one, I guess, but that’s not really the point. I’m about to leave, when I try the handle. To my surprise, the door isn’t locked. I walk in.

There’s the faintest scent of roses. I don’t turn on any lights. The street lamps outside, the myriad lights on the hill opposite, blaze through the large, plate-glass windows. I can see the outline of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in a spider-thread of LEDs, the tungsten of Brunel’s Other Bridge, lamps glowing on the Grain Barge opposite. The flat is completely empty. I step inside and my footsteps echo on the wooden floors. There isn’t a single stick of furniture left. I go into the bedroom. Curtains flutter in the breeze from a window that’s open a crack, but there’s nothing here, either. Every cupboard in the kitchen is bare.

I call Bethany’s phone again, but this time it doesn’t even ring, as if the number has been disconnected. I check her Twitter feed and her Instagram account, but the last posts are about her forthcoming programme on the dangers of booking online holidays, and they were posted yesterday. I google her webpage, search for the contacts and find a number for her agent: it’s Felicity Pickering of Pickering Productions. I’m not sure she’ll answer, but it’s a mobile, so it’s worth a try.

She picks up on the first ring. ‘Yes?’

‘Sorry to bother you this late…’

‘Who is this?’ Her voice is stridently upper-class.

‘I’m Nick. Bethany’s brother.’

There’s a sharp intake of breath. ‘I’m surprised you have the audacity to contact me.’

I frown. I’ve never met this woman before. Unless I did, but I don’t remember; maybe at one of Bethany’s parties? I must have offended her in some way. Got drunk and said something inappropriate, knowing me.

‘Why are you ringing?’ she asks, crisply enunciating every word.

‘I’m trying to find Bethany.’

‘Ah, well, I can’t help you there. She’s terminated her contract with me. As of this afternoon. Rather abruptly, I’m afraid.’

‘I’m standing in her flat,’ I say. ‘It’s empty. I don’t know where she is.’