But I feel the cold granite on my skin.

This is real.

‘Since Thursday?’ I blurt, my throat tight.

‘And she hasn’t been on any of her social media,’ Clodagh says, and there is no mistaking the crying for anything else any more.

I look at my keys, my bag, thrown on the worktop. I look at the half-empty shopping bags. The discarded kitchen paper. I look at it all and, without listening to what else Clodagh is saying, I tell her to call the police and that I will be right round.

Harry Styles meows loudly as I leave without putting out his dinner. He can have the bloody Greek yoghurt. Everything else will have to wait. I curse as I wait for my phone to connect with my car’s Bluetooth system. It never normally takes so long and yet today, of course, it does.

I jab the ‘voice control’ button, order the car to call Nell. Listen to the automated voice tell me it’s calling her. I want to scream at it to shut up, because I want to hear my daughter’s voice. No. I need to hear my daughter’s voice. And there it is, the ‘hello’ I need to hear and I exhale until it’s followed immediately by ‘sorry, I can’t take your call right now’.

I stifle a sob, slam my car into reverse, my leg shaking as I release the clutch.

I call my husband. Maybe he’ll have spoken to her. He should be driving home from work. I wonder how much I should say knowing he has to drive from Belfast, in worsening conditions. I don’t want him so panicked he makes a stupid mistake.

‘Stephen,’ I say, forcing my voice to remain calm. ‘I’m just wondering if you heard from Nell today or over the weekend?’

‘Over the weekend?’ I hear the ticktock of his indicator light, the swish and thump of his windscreen wipers.

‘Yes,’ I say, trying not to be impatient even though I want to scream.

‘No. I’m not sure I did. I can’t think. I would check my phone if I wasn’t driving. Why? Is everything okay?’

I make the decision to lie to him. To my husband. To my partner of twenty-seven years. He won’t like it. He’ll hate it, in fact, but I’m thinking of him behind the wheel of his car. His eyes tired. The salt and pepper of his hair increasingly erring on the side of salt. The crinkles in the corners of his eyes. The commute is starting to take a toll on him. But he won’t admit it. Nell describes him as a stubborn old goat.

‘Yes,’ I blurt. ‘I was just wondering. Nothing urgent. I’m going to call round to hers. Just have a need to see her. Why don’t you call in on your way home?’

It’s a ridiculous lie. A cruel lie, I think, as I imagine him arriving at her house and her not being there. Maybe the police being there instead. But as bad as things are, I need him with me. She is as much a part of him as she is of me. We are tied together by her.