George is looking at me and I can see he is on my side, willing me to remember. Eventually he sighs and says, ‘When I came over to the table, you were verbally abusive, Alice. Very abusive.’ He’s not happy at having to tell the story, that’s obvious. ‘You kicked a chair, as well.’

Bakshi is waiting.

What the hell can I say? My stomach’s jumping and my head is screaming for help and I’ve got . . . nothing. I can only really say sorry to George, so that’s what I do.

He nods and sits back. ‘No worries, pet.’

‘Are you forgetting things a lot, Alice?’ Bakshi asks.

Now I’m panic-stricken, fidgeting like I’ve got fleas and seeing any prospect of early release drifting away up the Swanee. God knows where the idea suddenly came from that I should be honest with them, because, sitting where I am now, I almost never tell the truth.

‘It’s just those two times,’ I say. ‘That I know of, anyway. I mean, there might be other things . . . bits of conversation or whatever. It’s like . . . the opposite of a flash, you know? Like it’s stuff that happens when the lights have suddenly gone off. Just . . . a gap.’

I wonder if they’re thinking about transferring me somewhere else, one of the wards downstairs even. If they want to extend the section three and detain me for more than six months, I’m not even sure what number section that is. Then I notice that Bakshi actually looks pleased.

‘It’s understandable, Alice,’ she says. ‘These kinds of blackouts are a well-documented symptom of PTSD. It’s just the brain’s way of taking care of itself. When it gets . . . overloaded, it shuts down for a while.’

‘I was reading about that,’ I say.

‘Well, good. Now . . . the PTSD you suffered after the events of eighteen months ago resulted in quite a different set of symptoms, but again this variation is perfectly normal. These things affect people in diverse ways every time. What happened to Detective Constable Johnston led to you having a serious, potentially dangerous breakdown and this time, after the trauma of discovering Nurse McClure’s body, the PTSD is taking a different form altogether. The odd . . . blip as you call it, and some sporadic episodes of memory loss. It’s a rather more benign form, thankfully.’

‘Right.’ It doesn’t feel very benign. It certainly didn’t last night when I was lying awake, listening for noises outside and sweating through my sheets, but I see what she’s getting at. ‘So, what do we do?’

‘There is medication that can help,’ she says. Marcus scribbles again. ‘So we’d like to start you on that straight away. It’s actually the same thing used to treat the cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer’s.’ She smiles at the look on my face. ‘Don’t worry, you certainly do not have that.’