I take another sip of coffee waiting for the caffeine to work its magic as I look out the window. My hair is tangled from tossing and turning and I gently pull my fingers through it as I stare blankly at the space where Mr Oiseau usually sits. But he’s not here this morning. And it feels cold and empty without him. My phone pings from the countertop and I glance down at the screen. Did the telemarketer leave a voicemail?

But it’s not a voicemail.

It’s a news notification.

I squint down at the screen, reading and rereading the words. It takes a while for the meaning to settle in my mind. Even Ambien can’t protect me from this.

Woman’s body identified as Sabine Roux.

No.

No. No. No.

I stare down at the words, needing them to morph into something else, anything else. How can this be happening?

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Now it’s real.

She’s dead.

I clench my eyes shut and hang onto the sink as a deep nausea washes over me. I scrabble to collect my thoughts. Calm down, Harper. But in the darkness all I can see is that headline: Woman’s body identified as Sabine Roux.

My eyes flick open and I grab my phone. Because I need to know everything. Now. Where was she found? What happened to her? A flash: her face slightly purple, lying in a ditch. Who did this to her? I tap on the notification and move through to the article but it’s in French and fuck other languages right now.

I pull the text through to Reverso and press translate.

A woman’s body was found in the wood in le Bois de Boulogne by maintenance staff yesterday… confirmed to be the body of Sabine Roux, 22, the missing Parsons Paris student whose disappearance went viral on social media on Monday. Miss Roux had not been seen or heard from since the evening of Friday, October 15.

Le Bois de Boulogne was right near where she lived. Was she taken on her way home?

I imagine the red and white police tape cordoning off the crime scene. Was she buried or was she just lying there amid the autumn leaves?

My forehead tenses as images from that night flicker through my mind: Noah running after her, watching them from the roof, the empty hallway downstairs, the cobbled street, Khalid is arriving soon, the white car…

I can hear Noah’s voice in my head: ‘She just ran off and I went back up to the roof to look for you, but you were already gone.’

And now I’m thinking of his message, which came in on Saturday at 2.33 am. And his excuse: ‘I wanted to text you sooner, I just couldn’t find my phone… I didn’t know what to say. I knew you’d be pissed off.’

Then a flash of Monday night at the gallery. He was so keen to find me he tracked me down via Instagram. It mattered that much. An echo of Noah’s words: ‘I need you to promise me something. You won’t tell anyone about all this, about what happened on the roof.’