Her fingers tremble as she scrolls down to Jess’s number in her phone. ‘Hello.’ Jess sounds worried and slightly out of breath. ‘Margot. Are you okay?’

‘Where are you? Where’s Flora? I need to see her.’

‘I’m at Southmead Hospital. Flora was brought in less than ten minutes ago.’

Southmead Hospital? Flora’s here. She’s actually here. ‘I’m at the hospital too. I’ll meet you in the atrium, near Costa,’ she says, her pace picking up so that she’s almost running down the corridor.

Jess is already standing outside Costa with a striking man when Margot gets there. He must be the boyfriend. He has his arm slung protectively around Jess’s shoulders. She looks like she’s been rubbing her eyes: her mascara is smudged. Her face is pale and drawn, her hair a mass of blonde fluff, and she’s wrapped up in her llama coat. Margot notices a ladder in her patterned tights.

Her face lights up when she spots Margot. ‘Come on. I’ll show you where she is,’ she says, linking her arm through Margot’s and almost pulling her along.

‘I don’t understand,’ Margot says, allowing herself to be led, her mind still playing catch-up. Jess is acting like she’s just had an adrenalin shot and she doesn’t bother to introduce Margot to her boyfriend, not that Margot cares. All Margot wants is to see her daughter again. Jess is still gabbling as they hurry towards A and E, something about derelict buildings and a person sleeping rough who turned out to be Flora. She can’t quite comprehend it all. It’s as though her brain has stopped functioning properly so that thinking is like wading through glue.

In A and E Jess explains to the receptionist who Margot is and a doctor appears straight away: a tired-looking man with a crumpled face who introduces himself, although Margot instantly forgets his name, and asks her to follow him. She turns back once to see Jess and her boyfriend standing at the desk, looking helpless.

‘Can you ring Gary?’ Margot calls to Jess. ‘Ruthgow, CID,’ she adds, when Jess stares at her blankly.

Jess nods and is already reaching for her phone as the doctor leads Margot away.

‘I’m afraid your daughter is very poorly,’ he says, his face grave. ‘She overdosed on heroin and, if she hadn’t been found just then, she would certainly have died. We’ve given her naloxone, which will help to reverse the effects, but she’s finding it hard to breathe and I think one of her lungs has been affected. She’ll start to get withdrawal symptoms. It looks like she’s been an addict for a long time. Suffice to say her health isn’t good.’

An addict? Flora is a heroin addict? Margot can’t get her head around it. Please, God, let her survive this.