How can she have just stopped being here? I ask myself as I turn on my back and look up at the strip-lit ceiling. My beautiful baby. How can she be gone? It’s inconceivable.

‘She’s just through here.’

I don’t look up when I hear the nurse ushering yet another visitor into the ward but then the footsteps stop at my bed. I sit up and see a police officer standing there. She’s about my age, tall and rosy-cheeked with thick auburn hair tied back in a ponytail. She is wearing an ill-fitting black trouser suit and a pale-blue blouse. As she draws closer I can smell her perfume: a bitter citrus scent.

‘Hello, Maggie,’ she says. ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Grayling. I’m part of the team investigating the accident. Do you mind if I sit down?’

She’s got a Yorkshire accent and it reminds me of a girl from Leeds I knew when I was young.

‘No, I don’t mind,’ I reply.

She pulls the chair towards me and sits.

‘I was wondering if I might be able to ask you some questions,’ she says, bringing her chair closer. ‘Nothing too gruelling, it’s just regarding the accident.’

‘The accident?’ I repeat, flinching as one of the girl’s visitors lets out a roar of laughter.

Grayling looks over at him and frowns then she turns to me, her face softening a little.

‘Would that be okay?’

I nod my head.

‘Right, well, I know Dr Elms talked through the rough details of what happened,’ she continues. ‘But there are a few things I’d like to clarify.’

Suddenly my heart starts to pound.

‘Is there something …’

‘Maggie, please don’t worry,’ says Grayling, placing her hand on my arm. ‘These are just routine questions.’

I pull the covers up to my chest, my hands trembling with nerves.

‘I just need you to tell me anything you can about the evening of the twelfth of May,’ says Grayling. ‘Why you were in the car. Where you were going. Any little detail you can possibly remember will be helpful.’

I look at her blankly. She might as well be speaking a foreign language. In my jumbled head the 12th of May is an abstract concept; as removed and alien as the disembodied voices that are bleeding into the room from the corridor.

‘You were outside the Plough Inn,’ she continues. ‘In the car park by the bridge. Can you remember what you were doing there?’

I know the Plough Inn. It’s the gastro pub just outside Lewes. I’ve been there once, years ago when Sean and I first moved into Larkfields. We didn’t really like it. The food was awful and the regulars were rather cliquey. I have no idea why I would have headed there that night. I shake my head.

‘So you don’t remember parking the car?’ says Grayling, narrowing her eyes.