Once they’ve gone, the ward door closing softly behind them, for a few moments I lie there, staring at the ceiling again. I think of everything I have learned about Sarah – Sarah Jane, or Jane, as Freya knew her; all the pieces of the picture that I have collected up and can now set out, like frames of a film, ready to roll. I let the story all come together in my mind; all the thoughts and words are there.

I think too about the email she once sent me. That casual phrase, Stay in touch! But in the end, it was Sarah who cut ties. She did it with Marianne, with Alastair, with Chloe. With everybody in the end. Retreating into herself and her own world. Telling her stories only to herself. It must have grown exhausting, to be out there in the world, so full of spirit and life, with colleagues, with friends, with a boyfriend. Being around people, keeping up the pretence. Wondering when it would all fall apart.

I close my eyes, and open them again.

After eating something, I feel stronger. I think maybe I feel strong enough.

I roll over and lift my phone from where someone has set it down on the bedside table. The screen is tiny, not like on my laptop, but it will have to do. I want to do this now, before I leave here, while I’m in this safe, clear space. I open up the Notes application, a fresh blank screen.

I think about my previous effort at a narrative for the inquest: that empty page, my thoughts a total blank. This time, I pour out everything. I don’t care that it is emotion-filled and unprofessional, or that it feels like trying to describe a dream. It was a dream life that Sarah Jones was living. I conjure up the composite Sarah I have pieced together, and I try to tell the story of her life. The best way I know to explain the circumstances of her death.

It isn’t professional, but it’s what I need to write down. It is what I want people to know. I want to set the panels of her life out clearly, and tell a story people can try to understand.

Share a lesson perhaps for all of us to learn.

It’s just after 6 p.m. when I send the document off. I email it to the address the coroner’s officer gave me.

In there are all the answers I can give. I know these answers apply to me too.

I know some day soon, I will have to set my own record straight.

Chapter 37

3 weeks later

What do you wear to an inquest? I stand in front of the mirror in my small bedroom, holding items of clothing up against me. At least I have regained most of the weight I lost. My clothes fit me again. Just about.