‘Who was it?’ he asks. ‘The visitor. Were they helpful? How are they connected? Did she speak to them?’

I flip the folder shut and place it in my in tray for later. ‘They don’t really know each other that well, to be honest. It was a number in her diary. Turned out to be her plumber.’ Mark raises his eyebrows. ‘I know, you’d think it shouldn’t work, but it did. Somehow, he was helping. I was concerned she was getting tired so encouraged him to leave, but he may be useful, yes.’ I say this as if it’s a decision I came to ages ago and not one that has just come to me now that Mark’s in front of me, hanging on to my every word.

‘Right,’ he nods. ‘Well done, you.’ ‘Thanks.’

‘Plumber though…’ he says, thinking. He gives me a wicked look as he leans on the spare chair by my desk. ‘Maybe it’s a euphemism.’ He raises his eyebrows lasciviously. ‘Maybe plumber means—’

‘I hardly think so, do you?’ I interrupt, giving him the kind of look Mrs Shepherd used to give Lou and I in sixth-form assembly, as we giggled over Pete Earnshaw.

‘Fair enough,’ he smirks. ‘As you say, if he’s helping. That’s great, well done. Brilliant.’

He looks around my desk, eventually picking up a photo of Lou and me from back when we did the all-night charity fundraising walk. I’d quite like to extract it from his hands. And change it for one where I’m not wearing a Madonna bra. And wig. And hot pants that channel that John Paul Gaultier outfit. Somewhere on my desk is one of those pens that you tip upside down and the girl loses her bikini. A classic tat gift from someone’s holiday. If only I could dig it out and hand it over. Create a diversion, then encourage him to leave me alone so I can make some notes about Susan and Rhys.

‘Let the Mental Health team know about the development. They’re advising fluoxetine. There’s a prescription on the system for her. Can you get it processed, please?’

‘Course, what are they thinking?’ I search the system as he talks.

‘It could be a selective mutism thing. Post-traumatic maybe. The anti-depressant is one treatment for it. Here, I brought you this book about it.’ He rummages in his bag, pulling it out along with car keys, tangled headphones and a handkerchief. I didn’t have him down as the handkerchief type. ‘Present from my grandma!’ he says, picking it up and stuffing it back in his bag as he passes the book over. ‘There are other approaches, but it’s basically about eliminating any stress and increasing all the things that make her comfortable and relaxed.’

I think about her face when she first saw Rhys; a glimmer of something in an otherwise empty soul. I flick through the pages.

‘Have a look, familiarise yourself with the symptoms and treatment.’

Still flicking through the pages, I wait for him to leave but he hovers, looking around as if searching for something else to discuss.