I grit my teeth together as I push it all back down. I clear my throat. She’s okay. Mum’s okay. She needs to start answering me when I call her, but she’s okay. Dropping back down into the chair, I slip my phone into the top pocket of my overalls, behind the logo I know is there: ‘Woods Brothers Plumbing’. Brothers. ‘Sorry! That was… Sorry,’ I say, ruffling my hair to rub away the peak of stress. ‘Sorry, okay. I’m fine,’ I say, telling myself just as much as her.

‘Perhaps we should start again.’ Her voice is patient, understanding. She sits back down, beside me this time. Her knee touches mine until I shift position. My heart is returning to its normal pace. Her eyes, deep brown, study me; read my mood, maybe. ‘My name is Kat. I am the acting ward sister here. I called you because we have a lady with us for whom we’ve been unable to identify a next of kin.’ I nod, as if I understand. But I don’t. ‘The only information we could find among her things was your number. In the absence of anything else,’ she says, scratching at something non-existent on her skirt, ‘I thought it was worth a try.’

‘Right…’

‘To be honest, I wasn’t expecting you to just turn up.’ She shifts in her seat. She looks young. I imagined ward sisters to be all middle-aged and mumsy. ‘I think I suggested you call us first?’ She looks down at some papers, taking her hair out of a clip and scratching at the back of her head before twisting it tightly and pinning it back up.

She looks up at me, chewing the inside of her mouth. ‘Mr Woods…’

‘Rhys,’ I correct.

‘Okay, Rhys, can I ask if you know a Susan Smith?’

I rack my adrenalin-riddled brain. ‘Hang on, let me think,’ I answer. ‘I meet a lot of people through my job. I’m a plumber. I mean… maybe I know her…’ I pick through customers from recent weeks. ‘Did she say she knows me?’

‘Well, not exactly, no.’ Kat switches the cross of her ankles, letting them rest right over left, at their narrowest point. She holds a file on her lap, her patient’s name in capitals printed along the top. Susan Smith. The name does feel familiar. ‘Susan isn’t actually talking at all at the moment. Hence this all seeming… odd, I imagine.’

‘She’s not talking?’ Susan Smith… There’s a memory peeking through the fog. A quiet woman. Small. Whispered tone. But… ‘I think I do know her, actually,’ I say. The memory comes closer, the grey clouds parting and her face appearing. Her demeanour quiet, but intense. Sort of arresting.

‘Your number is the only thing in her diary. We were sort of hoping you might know why that might be?’

‘Is this a joke?’ I ask, suddenly, jumping up to search the room for signs of a hidden camera. ‘Is it Paul? Winding me up? Is he getting me back for that time I tried to set him up on a blind date with an old school teacher of ours? I’m about to be plastered all over MTV, aren’t I? At least Beadle’s dead, God rest his soul and all that.’ I realise this can be the only explanation, though wish he’d found somewhere else to set me up. ‘I must say, I didn’t have Susan Smith down for joining in with this sort of thing though. Is she here?’