‘I’m so sorry, Maggie,’ says Amanda. ‘Much as I wish I could, I have no way of finding your husband. But what I can do is make sure you’re looked after properly.’

I sit back down on the bed, deflated. My lungs are sore from shouting. I rub my chest but it only makes the pain worse.

‘Let me get your inhaler,’ says Amanda.

She goes to the counter and opens the blue medical bag.

‘Here you are, love,’ she says, passing it to me.

I take two big gulps. The action makes me feel dizzy. I put my head in my hands to steady myself.

‘You’re not alone, Maggie,’ says Amanda, leaning across and placing her hand on my knee. ‘And I realize that this is about so much more than the money and the house. You’ve lost your little girl. You need to be able to come to terms with that and we can help there too as much as we can. There’s a wonderful grief counselling service running in Lewes. I can arrange for you to go along to one of their sessions. It might help to meet people who are going through the same experience as you.’

I’m not even close to being ready for that. How can I be? How can I talk about my grief when I can’t even remember how I came to be in that car in the first place?

‘No,’ I say, sitting up. ‘Thank you but that won’t be necessary.’

‘I understand,’ says Amanda, glancing across at Sonia, ‘I really do, but then I’ve also found that in times of hurt being around other people can be an enormous tonic.’

‘I’m afraid I’ve always found the opposite to be true.’ I know I sound rude, but I don’t know how to explain to her. ‘People make me anxious at the best of times.’

I catch Sonia’s eye and she nods her head. Perhaps she feels the same way too.

‘Maybe we leave the counselling sessions for a wee while, Amanda,’ says Sonia. ‘It’s still early days.’

‘Of course,’ says Amanda, her voice a little more brittle than before.

Behind me, Sonia starts picking up clothes from the floor and folding them into neat piles.

‘Here, Maggie,’ she says, handing me a piece of paper. ‘You must have dropped this.’

I take the paper and press it to my chest.

‘I started writing a list,’ I say to Amanda. ‘Of people who might know where Sean is. But … well, I have no way of contacting them or looking them up because my phone was lost in the accident.’

‘I’m sure we can organize a phone for you,’ says Amanda. ‘Perhaps when you go into town later, Sonia?’

‘Sure,’ says Sonia. ‘It’ll probably have to be a cheap pay-as-you-go but it’s something I guess.’