Opening the front door of the house, she realised she had been there before. As soon as her hand made contact with the heavy wood, she felt it. Another party, years ago. Brine smell of harbour water. That green lawn. If you’d wanted, you could have stepped right off the edge and into the harbour, water black and glinting.

The interior wasn’t familiar or unfamiliar. Clean lines and hard edges, emptied of furnishings. From the doorway, there were stairs leading down to the main living area. The balustrade was made of glass, with steel running along the top edge. The walls were bare. Even the alcoves and the built-in shelves, intended for statues and art objects, were empty. A niche where she had remembered a bronze statue, a kind of tangled shape, heavy ribbons folding in on themselves: now a void. If this was the same house, it had been stripped.