And then, there she is.

Staring back at me.

The same photograph I just saw in the newspaper.

Sabine.

The world swirls around me as I try to read the article. It’s in French but I glean the basics: woman’s disappearance… last heard from on Friday night… didn’t arrive… failed to respond to phone calls… reported missing…

How can this be happening?

People are bumping into me, telling me to move out of the way. And so I reach for my umbrella, put it up, and in some sort of trance, I move towards the crosswalk. I’m shivering from cold or shock, but I cross the road with everyone else, and put one foot in front of the other until twelve minutes later I’m standing outside the office, stabbing the keypad with the code.

Bzzzz.

I push open the door and move inside. Time slows as I head towards the elevator and press the up button, then wait for the familiar sound of the lift tumbling down towards me.

There it is.

That blessed, familiar mechanical crunch.

The elevator arrives and I step inside.

My heart is slower now, as though it’s scared to beat. And I’m telling myself shitty things like, She’s only missing not dead. Noah said she wanted more than anything to be an artist, maybe she’s doing it for attention, some sort of messed-up PR stunt…

And just as quickly as I think these things, I feel awful for going there.

Because this is how it happens. This is how victims get blamed.

The elevator doors slide open and I step out into the office. Everything is exactly as it was yesterday when I left: Judy smiles up from her desk as I move past her, printers hum, Claudia talks loudly on speakerphone, Stan is in with Hyacinth with the door closed, Wesley sits grimacing at his screen, Nathalie is in the kitchen and the rest of the office is quietly going about its business.

Nobody pays any attention to me as I move over to my desk, drop my bag on the floor and slowly, calmly, power on my computer.

‘Morning,’ Wesley snipes from his side of the desk.

‘Morning.’ I reply. Deadpan. I stare at my screen, waiting… waiting… waiting.

A flash of white and my computer is on. I pull up the browser and type in Le Parisien.

As I see her face yet again, I let out a deep, controlled exhale.

‘Everything okay?’

‘Fine,’ I say without even looking up.

I need to know what else the article says. I need to know everything. And so I highlight the text, and copy and paste it into Reverso then press ‘translate’. After a few moments the text appears in English. And, as I scan through the words, my vision blurs.

Woman’s Disappearance Goes Viral

Sabine Roux, 22, was last heard from on her way to a party in Montmartre on Friday, 15 October. Miss Roux was a student at Parsons Paris and a small group of classmates began posting notices about her on social media on Monday morning after she didn’t arrive at various sessions throughout the weekend, and failed to respond to phone calls. ‘Her phone has been off since Friday and Sabine just isn’t like that. She always answers her phone. And all she cares about is her work. She wouldn’t just not turn up,’ said the student who contacted Le Parisien. ‘The police won’t listen to us but something is very wrong. We had to do something.’ Within 12 hours there were more than 3000 posts on various platforms asking if anyone had seen her. The police have not issued a comment but an informed source told Le Parisien that Sabine Roux has now been formally reported as missing.