‘Okay, I’ll give you him.’ She swipes to the right and laughs. ‘Or rather, I’ll have him. Anyway, now I’ll change the age range so it’s eighteen to thirty. Shout if you see someone lush.’

A photo of a toned bloke standing by a swimming pool flashes up and Liz raises an eyebrow at me. ‘Lush or not?’

‘Well, yes, but—’

She swipes to the right. ‘How about this one?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘And this one?’

‘Okay, okay.’ I hold up a hand. ‘I get it. You think the younger blokes are fitter and maybe they are but you’re forty-three, Liz – what are you going to talk to an eighteen-year-old about?’

She smirks. ‘Who said anything about talking? Claire, I was with Lloyd for twenty-two years. I think I deserve a bit of fun.’

‘You do, but I still think Twilight guy is too young.’

‘For you, maybe.’ She laughs at the expression on my face and reaches for the remote. ‘Right. On with the film.’

Liz weaves her way across the street and up the path to her house. She pauses to wave at me as she reaches her front door, then drops her key on the ground and swears loudly. It takes her four attempts to fit it into the lock. I glance at my watch as she closes the door behind her: 9.15 p.m. She fell asleep during the last fifteen minutes of the film, her wine glass still in her hand, her phone flashing on her lap each time she received a new Tinder notification. It took me for ever to wake her up. Saying her name had no effect so I gently agitated her shoulder which made her murmur, ‘Leave me alone, I’m too tired to have sex.’ My laughter woke her up.

I put our wine glasses in the dishwasher and the empty bottles in the recycling bin. Despite the amount of wine I’ve drunk I feel strangely clear-headed as I wipe down the kitchen surfaces and tidy up. When I’ve finished I go back into the living room. I haven’t heard from Mark for several hours and I need to check he’s okay.

My mobile’s not where I thought I left it on the side table by the sofa so I get on my hands and knees and look underneath, just in case I knocked it under when I was getting up and down to fetch more wine.

I scramble back onto my feet. There’s nothing under the sofa apart from a thick layer of dust and hair on the carpet and several of Kira’s bobby pins. And it’s not in my pocket either. Under one of the cushions, then?