He gestures towards the door, encouraging me to leave. We don’t look at one another. ‘Thank you for the tea,’ I say to his wife as I pass back through the lounge. She watches me, confused. The dog sleeps in a shaft of light that falls across the carpet. Daytime television still plays out.

I walk out of the front door, turning to say goodbye, surprised to find him on the path behind me. ‘We weren’t kids, Rhys,’ he says. ‘It was love. First love, but true love. Do you understand?’ His look is intense and I can do nothing else but shrug, pretending I do understand. ‘They say your first is your most intense because you’ve never known it before. It suffocates.’ He takes a sharp breath that stops his words, then heads back inside, closing the door between us. He watches as I get in the car, and watches as I pull away. I see him watching until I’m out of view, and I realise I understand, totally, the kind of love he talks about. And I understand how intense it becomes when that love is not rightfully yours. And whether I like it or not, I understand how he can walk away. What reason has he to stay?

Chapter Forty-Five

KAT

There’s not much to look at out of my office window. Yet I stand with my arms crossed, tucking myself tight in, lost in the view of the concrete and impenetrable windows of the hospital block over the way. I walked the ward, checked on the team, made sure everyone was okay, then retreated back to my office, waiting for Rhys to call. I’ve tried him a couple of times but can’t get through. There’s the sound of a helicopter in the distance. Air ambulance or search team?

A knock on my office door makes me jump. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,’ says Mark. ‘Can I come in?’ I signal to a chair by way of answer. He comes in but doesn’t sit down. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

The calmness in his voice, the warmth and sudden arrival of a bedside manner I didn’t know he had, combines and finds the weak spot in a wall I’ve been trying to rebuild. I turn, tears streaming down my face, arms still folded as I try and fail to hold myself in. ‘What if she does it this time?’ I sniff through the tears. ‘What if we’re too late?’

‘Hey, hey!’ He jogs towards me. ‘Come here.’ Mark pulls me into a tight hold, his arms wrapped around me, strong and firm. His head rests on top of mine. I feel the heat of his breath on my crown. ‘They’re doing everything they can, but we have no control, Kat. We can’t do any more than we have.’

‘But what if we made mistakes, Mark?’ I say into his chest. ‘What if I made mistakes and this all goes horribly, horribly wrong?’

‘You weren’t even here when she left, Kat.’