It turns out the corpse found in a cove at Dubrovnik, Croatia, is probably not missing Melbourne traveller Britt Lapthorne – it’s too decomposed. But whatever happens from here is a tragedy, and will be a bigger tragedy if we’re too scared to travel.

Maybe it hurts so much because I got to Dubrovnik the same day as Britt, stayed in a hostel a stone’s throw from hers, and that night went to the same nightclub she disappeared from. For all I know, we spoke to each other.

The Latino Club Fuego is a thumping little place, even on a Wednesday. My brother, high school mate and I drank, tipped, danced and laughed too much, and then it was 3.05am. Bad news, because that afternoon our hostel owner told us we would not be allowed in between 3 and 7. Britt’s hostel in Babin Kuk, just up the hill from Old Town, probably had a similar rule.

The manager Ivica Perkovic was grilled by local police, and told the national daily Jutarnji List that none of Britt’s travelling companions “cared that she did not show up the morning afterwards in the hostel”, and she was “too open a person and also promiscuous.”

Forget him.

Some youth hostels are run by people who hate young travellers. When we hauled our bags into reception that afternoon, the manager pocketed a king’s ransom (including a deposit we’d paid online), told us “you look like you would be sneaking in alcohol, so if you start shit you’ll be on the street”, gave us the key to a dungeon and acted like he’d pulled money from his own wallet so we could stay. We spent not one second more at that building than was absolutely necessary.

The night we stayed out past curfew, our Irish drinking companions told us not to be silly, bless us, we’d be staying at their flat in glittering Old Town, and not another word about it. According to a bouncer, Britt left Latino Club Fuego with five women and two men. Her roommates woke to find her bed empty, her Facebook status remains “off to Dubrovnik, Croatia!” and the silence has stretched to three weeks.