Can you look after the house as we agreed? Thanks.

Noah had been furious. They hadn’t agreed any such thing! Someone else could do that. Besides which, Noah already had a key. One week passed, then two. Noah heard nothing from Dan. The silence soon became distinctly uncomfortable. They couldn’t go on like this. He picked up one of the keys and went over to the house. He wanted to see what needed doing before emailing Dan to ask how things were going.

That was where he first got the feeling something was wrong. The house didn’t look the way he’d expected, given the fact that the owner was planning to be away for a year. There was laundry hanging up in the airing cupboard. Dirty dishes in the dishwasher. And then there were the wardrobes: they were crammed with clothes. Were Dan and his family intending to buy everything new in Australia? Surely not.

Noah emailed his brother from his phone while he was still in the house, but didn’t receive a reply until two days later. The tone was brusque, the words few. Noah needed to stop looking for problems, stop nagging. They would organise their trip however the fuck they wanted. However the fuck they wanted. That was what did it for Noah. Dan had never, ever sworn at him. That word, together with the key in his mailbox, convinced Noah that something was wrong. Very wrong. So he called the police.

Unfortunately they didn’t take him seriously either, not even when he burst into tears and told them about finding his brother’s bike on the drive on the afternoon when he’d realised there was a problem. It looked like any old bike, but Dan had inherited it from their grandfather, and never left it unlocked. After a very brief investigation the police concluded that Noah was simply imagining things. They claimed to have been in touch with Dan, who had confirmed that he’d gone to Australia and everything was fine. That was the end of the matter, as far as they were concerned.

But Noah couldn’t let it go.

He had contacted the Swedish embassy in Canberra. They’d promised to check whether Dan and his family had arrived in the country, but couldn’t guarantee that they’d be able to help. Someone would call him within a few weeks; it was holiday time, and the embassy was understaffed. Noah had continued to search, his stress levels increasing by the day, but he’d got nowhere. The airlines all had a duty of confidentiality, and were unable to confirm that Dan had flown with them. Noah went back to the police, but they refused to help. Obtaining lists of airline passengers was a huge task, didn’t Noah understand that? Without real evidence that something was wrong, they wouldn’t lift a finger.