‘Well done.’ She looks back down at my bag. ‘Can I take a look inside?’ she asks. I turn my attention back to the plate of food, charging my fork with more potato.The buckles rattle as she undoes them. Mother used to say that buckle rattle announced my arrival. I wonder if Kat smells the thick aroma of well-worn leather. I loved that smell, it was home and safety and familiarity itself. I’m not sure if I still smell it, or just believe that I do, the memory strong and fresh.

‘Gosh, you’re organised,’ she exclaims, picking through the compartments. ‘Purse, pen, keys.’ She announces each item as she places them on my starched white bed sheet. Inside the handbag, at the back, she finds the pocket with my leather-bound diary. Gold letters declare the year: 2016.

‘Is this yours, Susan?’ she asks.

I take another mouthful of food before pushing the plate away from me.

‘Can I look?’

I close my eyes.

There’s a crack from the spine of my diary. The sound of each page turned is amplified, it’s deafening. His name lies within those pages. His number. If she finds it, if she calls, if he comes… Then there’s a pause, a silence. My breath is shallow as I drift back towards the forest, searching desperately beneath fallen trunks of moss-covered trees, panic rising in my chest. I hear the words, ‘Who is Rhys?’ but I’ve gone, I’ve run away, I’m racing, searching through the woods; lost as much as I am found.

Chapter Five

RHYS

My phone rings just as I wedge an arm up Mrs J’s U-bend. Managing to extract said arm, the front door opens and Mrs J returns. She shouts something about lunch up the stairs and, by the time I find my phone, shout back to Mrs J and swipe to answer the call, I’ve missed it. Bollocks. There’s no number on the missed calls so I rest my phone on my thigh in case a voicemail comes through, looking down at the initials on David’s bag whilst I wait. I had them stamped on the front, a gesture to prove I meant what I said about us going into business together – I’d train him up, we could be partners. He did okay, he knew enough, but his heart was never in it. I wonder if it would have been in anything? He never found his true vocation. We were opposites, he and I. Dark and light. Push and pull. Lost and found?

A voicemail alert brings relief. I loudspeaker it, searching my overalls and tool bag for a pen that works.

‘Hello, this is Nurse Kat Davies at Sheffield Hospitals. We have a patient here with your telephone number in her diary. I wonder if you might be able to contact us so we can verify your relationship with her? My telephone number is…’

In the absence of paper, I try to write down the digits on my suddenly sweaty palm. My heart makes a bid for freedom via my ribcage and now I can’t find my car keys. Why do I never put them in the same place? Why didn’t Mum call me back this morning? Or reply to my texts? Why is the hospital calling? What’s happened to her? I take the stairs three at a time.