‘Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. That’s…’ She looks around the room as if suddenly adding everything up and hitting the jackpot.

‘He couldn’t go on, you know?’

‘Oh, I see.’ That she instantly understands is something of a relief. ‘Yes, we have reason to believe that’s how Susan ended up here,’ she says, quietly. I turn to face her and her hands shoots up, pinching her lips together. ‘Oh, not that I should… That’s probably not, I shouldn’t have told you that.’

There’s a pause, then a siren outside, arriving or leaving, I’m not sure which. I remember being in the ambulance, holding his hand as they raced from Mum’s to here. He’d already gone but they just wouldn’t call it, forcing him to breathe instead. I kept looking at his face, trying to work out why. Why he’d done it. What triggered the course of action that led him to give up. I kept reliving the months leading up to it. I still do. Searching for an answer.

‘What makes someone do it?’ I hear myself ask. ‘What makes someone give up?’ Kat shakes her head, but doesn’t answer. ‘I always think we should have seen it, seen what he was thinking before he…’

She stands and comes towards me, taking my hand to sandwich it between hers. ‘Sometimes there’s a reason. Something someone can’t resolve. Sometimes those around them can make a difference,’ she says, searching out eye contact, forcing me to look at her. ‘But sometimes we can’t. Susan is on her own. No family. No friends either, it seems. If, and I don’t really know for certain, but if she intended to hurt herself, there’ll be a reason. There always is, it’s just not always ours to understand.’

I process her words, looking out of the window, recalling the atmosphere the last time I saw Susan. David’s mood. They talked, no more than she and I though. I think back to those few short months when it was me and our David against the world. Or that was what I tried to tell him.

‘I’ll talk to her,’ I say.

‘It’s fine, Rhys. There’s no need. Really.’

I catch Kat’s eye this time. Hold her attention. ‘I’ll talk to her. Maybe I can help,’ I say. ‘They seemed to get on. Maybe they had common ground. Maybe he told her things he didn’t say to us. Maybe she told him things.’ The more I speak, the more I realise this could be the very thing I need. A chance to understand. And if I understand, maybe I can work through my hurt, maybe I can help.

Kat shifts her weight, looking out of the porthole window in the door. The longer she takes to answer me, the more I realise I need to do this. Because maybe, just maybe, Susan holds the answer to David’s end. I look around the room. The walls are covered with images of historic Sheffield: the cooling towers, the roundabout down by the markets, Sheffield’s now legendary Hole in the Road. I remember Saturdays, getting off the bus with Mum and David. We’d go down that underpass to see the fish tank. You could see the tops of buses circle the hole, and we’d look up, feeling like ants in some kind of weird fish bowl. We’d get chips, then walk up to the now concreted fountain outside Orchard Square shopping centre. The three of us. I was the big brother. I was supposed to look after him.