And despite all the lies I know about, and the doubtless thousands more I don’t, he’s not pretending now. I can’t not reach out to touch him. This time there is no erotic charge. Only my hand gripping his, the simplest reassurance one human being can give another. I am with you while you face this. You are not alone.

‘She’s only been missing a couple of hours.’

‘Because of me. I’ve messed everything up. I need to put it right with her. I need to put everything right. Is it too late, Gemma? Do you think it’s too late?’

Is he asking me if I can forgive him? Despite everything, now he’s here, I can’t promise I wouldn’t let him back into my life if he said he genuinely wanted to be with me.

‘Let’s find her first.’

Bear sniffs the air. The atmosphere changes as the first lightning bolt crackles through the clouds, over the other side of the bridge, where the balloons would usually be starting to inflate.

And I remember something: a fragment of the conversation we had at the penthouse, about the balloon ride I took with Andrew, after he’d been sick but had got better.

‘Do you remember, after Casey got upset, she wanted to go up in a balloon?’

He shakes his head. ‘They don’t do balloon flights in this weather.’

‘But she doesn’t know that,’ I point out. ‘If we’ve not got any better ideas, we could go over to Ashton Court?’

His jeep rattles and rumbles as he drives over the bridge. I can smell musty, sour fabric – there’s a crumpled tent on the back seat, and I wonder where he spent last night, and where he lives when he’s not borrowing his mate’s penthouse.

We park up: usually there’d be rows of baskets and a buzz of tourists clutching tickets and champagne flutes, chattering with nerves. Instead there’s a woman standing by a sign reading: REBOOK YOUR CANCELLED FLIGHT HERE. Dan runs over to her, and by the time I reach them both, she’s examining the photo on his phone and nodding.

‘. . . earlier. An hour or so ago? I told her all the flights were rained off today, so she begged me to sneak her onto one tomorrow. I explained it doesn’t work like that – we book up months in advance for this time of year.’

‘How did she seem?’

‘She was upset there were no flights. And her words were, I dunno, a bit garbled? If I’d had more time, I would have tried to chat, but there was a guy stressing about his cancelled ride because he’d been planning to propose to his girlfriend . . .’

Her face lights up from a huge bolt of lightning and the thunder follows straight away. We’re in the eye of the storm now.

‘Did you see where she went?’ I ask.

‘Towards the woods? She’s bound to be sheltering somewhere.’

Dan tries to call Angelica, leaving a message. ‘She’s been seen at Ashton Court,’ he says, ‘so we’re getting closer.’ Even though his voice sounds calm, his knuckles where he grips the phone are so white it’s like the bones are showing through the skin.