‘When the body was taken away this afternoon,’ he says, ‘I was called in to supervise the clearing out of Nancy’s room. It’s part of the job, making sure everything goes back to the rightful owners.’

We’re arriving at the entrance to the corridor that leads to Dr. Reilly’s room, but he passes by, taking me further on down the corridor instead, stopping to push open a door with a ‘Staff Only’ sign. He ushers me inside.

‘I often lend a hand, packing things or wrapping stuff while the rest of the staff are disinfecting everything,’ he says.

I look around the room. There are boxes and boxes on wooden shelves covering the walls on both sides of the room. Every box has a name, ward location and a date scribbled on the side of it.

‘Sometimes they never come back to collect their loved one’s bits and pieces,’ he says, pushing a small ladder out of his way. ‘But we hold them here, just in case, for five years, then they’re removed,’

I want to tell him to hurry, that I can’t stand being in a room full of dead people’s things. But I don’t want to sound ungrateful, so I keep my mouth shut and listen.

‘There’s some good stuff in here,’ he says, bending over to pull out a box from the lowest shelf. ‘Here it is.’

He plonks a cardboard box marked ‘Nancy Wall, Room 26’ on to a countertop. Then, taking his keys out of his pocket, he chooses what looks like a small knife and slices open the lid.

‘What is it?’ I say.

‘I’ll let you see for yourself,’ he says, standing back from the counter so I can move in closer. I look at him, nervous, before lifting the cardboard flap and glancing inside.

At first I don’t notice anything out of the ordinary, just a bundle of folded nightgowns. The smell is familiar when I pull them out and place them on the table. It’s the smell of Mom. Not the fresh flowery scent that used to radiate from her when she lived at home, but the sanitized version I’ve become accustomed to since she entered this place. While lifting a second pile of clothes out of the box, something catches my eye. It’s small and black, lying on top of a bunch of towels.

‘I thought you should know,’ Barry says, as I turn to look at him.

I’m afraid to touch it.

‘It’s one of those untraceable ones. When you told me earlier that’s what was used to contact the dead girl, I thought you should know. After all, Nancy Wall had no need for a cell phone.’