The man who’d found me in Patrick’s office – Dr Andrew Holt, he told me, who ran the IVF unit here – had a kind face, I thought. I imagined it would be reassuring for the pregnant ladies to have him around. His voice was soothing, his eyes gentle. All the same, when he saw me reading the notebook in the office, he looked worried. ‘Mrs Sullivan, is it? Gemma told me you were here.’

‘Eleanor, yes.’

‘Right.’ His brow knitted further. ‘I’m sorry for your loss. Is there something we can help you with? I’m afraid I didn’t know Patrick all that well.’

Neither did I, I wanted to say. ‘Dr Holt, I don’t really know how to say this. I’ve been having trouble accepting it, the death. It just makes no sense to me, that he could crash like that.’

He nodded sympathetically. ‘That’s quite common.’

‘Maybe if I understood what happened when he was brought here, after the accident. Would they have taken him to A&E? I know you wouldn’t have treated him, I just – didn’t know who else to ask.’

‘I have a patient . . .’ He looked at his watch, and seemed to come to some decision. ‘I can find out, I’m sure. Why don’t you come to my office? It’s just along here.’

I followed him down several corridors, each painted identical shades of puce and lemon. His own office was larger than Patrick’s, but much more untidy, with a jacket heaped on the chair and the desk covered in paper, half-drunk cups of coffee, medical journals with pages folded over. ‘Let me see.’ He pulled his chair over to the computer, and began to stab at the keys, two-fingered. ‘Here we are. Your husband was responsive in the ambulance, told paramedics he’d hit his head. He was first seen at A&E, yes, then because he complained of blurred vision and memory loss, transferred to the neurology ward for observation. Unfortunately, he then worsened and passed away, very quickly. Head injuries can be like that.’

‘Wouldn’t I have been called, once he turned up at hospital?’ I still didn’t understand that, why I hadn’t found out until the police came to my door. They knew it was him by then – I hadn’t been asked to identify the body. That terrible moment of seeing the blue light flicker on my windows. Knowing something life-shattering was about to happen, that I would never recover from. The deep regret that had crushed me later, imagining him in the hours before, dying, while I sat at home drinking wine, oblivious.

‘Ordinarily, yes.’ He squinted at the screen. ‘It’s possible they couldn’t find your number. Or if he was confused, he might have given the wrong name, even. You live in town here, I see?’