Could it be she had gone looking for some piece of architecture and got lost or gone further than she’d meant to? Or maybe her phone had been stolen and she couldn’t contact us. Maybe she had met an acquaintance or colleague and was staying with them. I was clutching at straws.

I lay very still with a terrible sense of prescience. More than that, fear lay under my skin as if something dark was crawling my way. Jack breathed beside me and the night stretched on and on and the dawn came, surprising me with its suddenness.

The phone went and I leapt upright. It was a Detective Sergeant James Mohktar who spoke perfect English. He was ringing from the Singapore Hilton. He asked me if I was Mrs Campbell’s next of kin. Her luggage was still in her room and her disappearance was worrying. Had she contacted me? Was there any place I could think of that she might have gone to?

No, I told him. She had not contacted me and I had no idea where she could possibly have gone. ‘She once lived in Singapore a long time ago, but she doesn’t know anyone there now. I’m very worried, this is not like her, or the fact that she hasn’t been in touch…’

There was a pause and then the detective said, ‘You are advising me that Mrs Campbell is definitely missing and that you have no explanation whatsoever for her disappearance?’

‘Yes, I am. My mother was flying out to us in New Zealand via Singapore. She caught the plane from Heathrow to Singapore, but did not catch the second leg of her journey to Auckland. She was then due to fly from Auckland to Kerikeri where she knew we were waiting to meet her. If she’d missed her flight or was ill she would have let us know.’

‘OK, Mrs Montrose. We are going to make a search of the hotel now. My men will make inquiries to try to ascertain her whereabouts and safety and which member of staff may have had a conversation with her and who saw her last. Then I will ring you again…’ He paused. ‘If we do not find your mother, I am afraid you must fly to Singapore to register her officially missing and identify her belongings. She did always carry her passport about her person?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t have left her passport in a hotel room. She would have kept it with her.’

‘We will’ the detective sergeant said, ‘maintain hope, Mrs Montrose, that there is a rational explanation. I will ring you this evening. Try not to worry. Good day.’

I crumpled on the edge of the bed, Jack’s anxious eyes on me. Was God or fate visiting some sick and terrible retribution on me? Was my mother too going to disappear without trace? Her body never found, so that I would never know what happened or where she had gone, who took her or why?