The brakes screech. I look out the window: cream tiled walls, a crowd of commuters and five plastic chairs all occupied. I glance up at the wall, it reads Hôtel de Ville.

People stand up and others sit down, someone presses the lever on the door and a crowd floods out onto the platform. There’s usually wi-fi in stations so I reach for my phone to check for messages. There’s one.

Camilla: SOS!

I type back: What’s going on?

Typing bubbles.

Accidentally super-swiped guy on 14th floor! WTF DO I DO?

The doors close and we start to move again and before I can type back the wi-fi is gone and I’m just standing smiling down at my phone. I miss Camilla. I miss meeting for drinks after work and hearing about how her boss had done this or that. I miss the mid-date check-ins where she’d text to tell me what the guy was really like. She still does all that but it’s not the same now that I’m not in London.

I drop my phone into my bag and look back at the man with the newspaper. Is that dandruff on his collar? He’s fiddling around now, getting ready to leave. We’re almost at Saint-Paul, the last stop before mine: Bastille. He closes his paper, grabs his briefcase and stands up. As the train slows down and he moves to stand in line to leave, I glance down at the front page of his newspaper.

It’s folded in half, but I can see the whole top half of the page, the headline and the photograph.

My breath catches in my throat.

Another girl is missing.

She’s young. Pretty.

Just like every other missing girl.

But this time it’s different.

Because this time I know her.

Sabine.

By the time we arrive at Bastille, my mind is numb. Through the whirr of blood pumping through my brain I hear the doors beep – a foghorn – everyone spills out onto the platform and I’m absorbed into a swamp of commuters. I join the stampede towards the stairs that lead outside and tell myself, I must be wrong, I must be wrong, I must be wrong.

Because it can’t be her, can it?

A woman in black stilettos moves slowly up the stairs, tottering as she holds onto the bannister for safety. I push past her and take my place in the slow-moving line. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I need to check. I reach for my phone and pull up Safari, but there’s no reception yet. My hairline is damp with sweat and my pulse racing as I reach for my little white billet and push it into the slot, moving through the turnstiles, rushing towards the exit and up the stairs.

I’m met with a light mist of drizzle on my cheeks as I head out into the open and once again pull up Safari. I breathe in petrol fumes and shield my phone screen from the rain with my body as I tap through to Le Parisien. People push past me, muttering annoyance beneath their breath, as I scroll through the latest stories.