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Five minutes later, someone knocked on the door. Her stomach lurched.

‘Who is it?’ she called, holding the knife with a trembling hand.

‘It’s me, Gary.’

She went to open the door but had second thoughts. ‘How do I know it’s really you?’

‘Er – don’t you recognize my voice? OK. This morning, when you knocked on my door, I wasn’t wearing a shirt. I just spoke to you on the phone and told you I was in the pub.’

She opened the door. Gary looked as if he’d had a few drinks.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked, sending a blast of beery breath in her direction.

She nodded. ‘I’ve calmed down a bit now.’

‘I got back as quickly as I could. You look like you could use a drink. Why don’t you come to mine?’

She was relieved to get out of Becky’s flat. Moments later, she sat on Gary’s leather sofa, gripping a glass of whisky.

‘My dad bought me that whisky,’ Gary said. ‘Can’t stand the stuff myself.’

It felt good going down, spreading warmth through her throat and chest. Gary sat down in the armchair opposite. He was more sure of himself on his own territory. A strong smell of fresh sweat came off him, mingling with the beer. Masculine smells. Not unpleasant.

She told him what had happened.

‘That’s fucking scary,’ he said. ‘What did the footsteps sound like?’

‘Um … they sounded like footsteps!’

‘No, I mean, did they sound slower and heavy, like a big man’s, or fast and lighter, like a woman’s – like Becky’s would be?’

‘Good point.’ Amy tried to remember. ‘But I don’t know. I’d say somewhere in the middle – heavy but fast. That’s not very helpful, is it?’

Gary smiled faintly at her. ‘Did you call the police?’

‘I called them earlier but they said they’d call me back. That was hours ago.’

Gary took out his phone. ‘Let’s do it now.’

‘I really need to get back. Boris has probably chewed the leg off the dining-room table by—’

‘Now. Why are you so reluctant to keep calling them?’

‘I’m not.’

He looked at her sceptically. ‘You could have fooled me.’

Irritated, she stood up, almost spilling the remains of the whisky, and grabbed the phone out of his hand. ‘The only reason I might have reservations is because they’re useless and won’t listen to me.’

‘Well, your decision, I guess.’

‘Oh, all right, I’ll call them.’

She ignored Gary’s smirk and crossed to the window to call the police station for the third time. It had been a really long day and she ached with exhaustion, the adrenaline deserting her body, leaving her feeling cold and depleted.

‘Well?’ Gary asked.

‘They’re sending someone round. Finally.’

The police officers stood in Gary’s living room, filling it with their alien presence, a scene she had watched many times on TV but had never experienced until now. Amy was always astonished when she saw people being rude or confrontational to the police. She had been conditioned as a child to be respectful, even fearful, of the police and, even though she had little respect for them now, her own experiences brutally reversing that conditioning, she couldn’t relax in their presence. She felt awkward, under suspicion. But also desperate for their help. They introduced themselves as PC Jay Sewell and WPC Minnie Whitaker.

‘So,’ said PC Sewell, who must have been six foot four – he had to duck as he came into the flat. ‘You fell asleep in your sister’s flat and woke to find someone opening the door.’

‘That’s right.’

WPC Whitaker, who reminded Amy of the hockey captain from her school, said, ‘Who else has a key? Did she have a cleaner, or a lover who might have had one?’

‘Just me,’ said Gary. Two pairs of eyes lasered in on him, and he hurriedly added, ‘We had copies of each other’s keys in case we ever locked ourselves out. But Amy has my key.’

‘And he was at the pub,’ Amy added.

WPC Whitaker wrote something in her notebook.

‘Maybe you could take fingerprints from the door?’ Amy suggested.

The police officers exchanged a look. She had seen mechanics exchange similar looks when she took her bike in to be serviced and suggested what she thought was wrong with it.

‘The issue we have,’ said Sewell, ‘is that no crime has been committed. We have nothing to make us think that something suspicious has happened to your sister, apart from your feelings and this … fact about Cambodia. And nobody tried to break into the flat. They opened it with a key.’

Amy looked at Gary.
I told you so
.

‘Don’t you think it’s strange, though?’ Gary said.

‘Whether or not I think it’s strange is irrelevant, sir. We have no evidence of a crime. There’s nothing we can do.’

Amy awoke the next morning in her own flat, with sunlight in a warm shaft across her cheek and the dawn chorus in her ears. She had fallen into bed in a punch-drunk daze, leaving the curtains open, still wearing her clothes. Boris was in his usual position at the foot of the bed and, as he heard her stir, came round to lick the side of her face.

‘Oh, lovely … Thanks, Boris. How—’

Suddenly, all the events of yesterday whooshed into her head and she grabbed her phone to check her texts and emails.
Please let there be something from Becky.
But there was nothing. Instead, there were dozens more emails from customers and suppliers that had come in overnight, filling her Inbox on top of all the messages she’d failed to respond to yesterday. She felt a lurch of panic. It was only four a.m. but she knew she would never get back to sleep. She stank; her mouth was dry. She needed to do some work. She needed to find Becky. But she needed to catch up with her work, Becky, work …

She remembered what the therapist had taught her about dealing with panic attacks. She swung her legs around and sat on the edge of the bed, put one hand on her abdomen and the other just above her breasts, breathed in slowly through her nose, held it, then exhaled through her mouth. Repeat. She felt her mind emptying. She would deal with what she needed to do calmly, one thing at a time.

After a minute or two, she relaxed, opened her eyes. The dog gazed up at her, his serious expression making her smile.

She went into the kitchen and gave Boris a bowl of Weetabix, let him out into the garden then headed into the shower. The water usually spat torrents of hot water then cold, but this morning it was behaving, and the warm water cascading over her body soothed her, allowed her to compose in her head an ordered list of what she needed to do. The first item on the list was to outsource her customer-service enquiries to a third party – and a quick Google search brought up half a dozen options. She would arrange that later. The second was to concentrate on finding the men Becky had dated.

By five a.m., she was dressed and finally felt fully awake, ready to sit down at her computer. She’d already emailed herself the new CupidsWeb password for Becky’s account, so she checked it and logged in, clicking straight into the message Inbox. There were two new messages from men saying they liked the look of Becky’s profile. There were lots of messages like this received over recent weeks and Becky didn’t appear to have answered any of them. That was odd. Had she stopped using the site?

She found the messages from the three men she knew Becky had arranged dates with: Rosski20, Notthesheep and DannyBoy. Naff usernames or what? she thought, curling her lip.

She clicked onto Notthesheep’s profile, which proclaimed:
Cheeky Chappy Seeks fun lady 4 Adventure!

‘Oh, Becks, really? He’s a twat!’ Amy said disgustedly, looking through his profile pictures, many of which featured him taking sharp corners on a large, ugly motorbike or raising a pint with a load of other identical-looking fat bald blokes in a pub. The only close-up was a blurry shot of him looking as though he was strangling a big black Labrador.

Amy thought that she personally wouldn’t touch him with a twenty-foot bargepole, but she could sort of see why Becky was attracted to him. Becks had always had a penchant for ‘fun’ blokes, especially ones with fast bikes. And Shaun Notthesheep had come on pretty strong to Becky in his CupidsWeb emails, raving on and on about her beauty, her hair, her sense of humour. That was the other thing about Becky: she could never resist flattery.

Amy read his About Me section: ‘I love to travel to those far-flung places; equally I enjoy a weekend getaway to places closer to home that I’ve never been to. I often go for long rides on my beloved BMW bike, taking that fork in the road you always wondered where it leads.’

Aah, bless, thought Amy, he fancies himself as a bit of a philosopher. She went to the last message, dated from May, and noted that Becky had helpfully demanded to know his surname as well as his mobile number before they met – undoubtedly, so that she could Facebook-stalk him.

‘Good girl,’ she murmured, noting both down. His full name was Shaun Blackman. Not too common – that should help.

Next, she went to Rosski20’s profile. He was quite nice-looking, in a clean-cut, slightly boring way, dark hair slicked back and a goofy smile. Very boy-next-door, Amy thought.

‘Hi! I’m Ross. I’ve got my own company providing motivational speakers for events – which I also do myself, so if you date me, I’ll always be able to help you think positive! I’m also a Reiki practitioner, and author of the book
Help Yourself to a Better Life Experience
. I lived abroad for some years and love to travel. I’d love to find someone who would like to explore new places. My last big trip was to Vietnam and Cambodia and I can’t wait to get back there.’

Vietnam and Cambodia! Amy sat up. That was a bit of a coincidence, wasn’t it? Although of course it didn’t mean that they were there together. If Becky had recently read his profile, perhaps that was where she had come up with the idea.

He seemed pleasant, and his private messages to Becky were polite and funny. Amy could see why Becky had picked him. She Googled ‘Ross’ plus ‘book’ and ‘
Help Yourself to a Better Life Experience
’ and immediately discovered that his last name was Malone. Becky must have done the same, since she hadn’t asked him for his surname in any of their messages.

The last man on the list, DannyBoy, had a short profile in which he said he was a property investor, never married, no kids. He was the most attractive of the trio – or, at least, the one Amy thought was the best looking: he still had a thick head of hair, and oozed Alpha maleness. His About Me section claimed: ‘Me … Just an ordinary guy, looking for a lovely lady, who might be prepared to put up with me and my sometimes difficult ways … I’m not very difficult, just a bit demanding, impractical, romantic and spontaneous! I don’t have a long list of likes and dislikes or wants and needs … I’m prepared to see how things go with the right someone. I want to love and be loved – not too much to ask, is it? :-)

Amy read through their Inbox exchanges. His name was Daniel Bentick, and he liked scuba diving, reading, his beloved vintage Jaguar, and experimental theatre. She noted that Becky had claimed to love theatre too, which made her smile. Becky
hated
theatre, unless it was the most commercial of West End musicals. After a few increasingly flirty emails back and forth, Becky had given him her mobile number – but he hadn’t given out his. Amy cursed. The messages stopped after that, their communications having obviously transferred to the phone. He could definitely be the hot date, she thought.

She went back to Google and carried on reading the search results for Ross Malone. There were literally millions of results, though she knew she would only need the first couple of pages. It would have been more problematic if he was called John Smith, but she knew what he looked like and she knew his profession. There were several men with that name on Facebook, but she quickly spotted him from his profile picture. Unfortunately, he had all his security settings switched on, so she couldn’t find out any more useful details. But he had a page on LinkedIn, the site for professional networking, as she thought he would, and this gave her all the details she needed.

He did indeed run his own business, providing motivational speakers for events, and on LinkedIn, she found the address of his website, which provided his office address. He also kept a blog, which he updated regularly. Most of it was stuff like
17 Ways to Take Control of Your Life
, but there was some useful personal information in there too. He blogged about his dog, Wiggins, a cocker spaniel: ‘This afternoon when I was taking Wiggins for his daily walk in the park opposite my office …’

Easy. Thank you, Google. She looked up his office address on a map and immediately found the name of the park – it was called Marble Hill Park, in a place in southwest London called St Margarets.

‘Right, Boris. If Becky hasn’t shown up by the end of today, you and I are going for a walk in a different park tomorrow,’ she told him. ‘Let’s see if you can make friends with a dog called Wiggins, eh?’ Boris’s ears pricked up at the word ‘walk’, but when he realized none was forthcoming, he slumped his nose back down onto crossed front paws and sighed.

Amy moved on to Shaun Blackman. He was harder to track down, but she found him on Twitter and identified him from his avatar. He tweeted several times a day, mostly about his bike adventures. But as she read through his tweets, her heart sank.

He had been in Canada for the last three weeks, on a trip with his ‘buddies’, fishing and riding motorbikes. He’d got a nice bike for the trip, a Harley, much nicer than the Tupperware BMW he drove at home, and she paused for a few moments to admire it. He’d uploaded dozens of photos of his trip: ‘Me with a large fish, me in front of Niagara.’ ‘Me drinking beer in Vancouver.’ ‘Me and some sexy Canadian girls.’

She found him on LinkedIn, too, revealing the company he worked for. She picked up her phone and called the direct number listed for him on their site, which – unsurprisingly at 5.12 a.m. – went straight through to voicemail: ‘
Hi, this is Shaun Blackman, leave me a message, but please be aware that I’m away on annual leave until July the thirtieth so won’t be able to—’
Amy hung up.