Sunningdale Nursing Home was a large, attractive building, usually calm in its sea of grounds. Elegant and refined, it was built as a Victorian convalescent home, on a gentle hill, enjoying an elevated position over its neighbours.

But there was no poise now. Ugly flames bit at the building, rising up out of the windows on the east side, with the nearby windows festering with anger. The night was alive with colour: red flames and blue flashing lights and orange street lamps ate into the black night, so it was clear to see that much of the east wing was now blackened and crumbling. This was a huge, huge fire. Crowds congregated on the road opposite, witnessing the horror. Two fire engines sat, one with its apparatus extended with water being hosed onto the building. A police car and three ambulances lined the road, one pulling away even as I arrived.

I pulled over as close as I could, getting slowly out of the car. There was so much I couldn’t process; I needed someone to help me. I stood by my car and looked to see if there was anyone I knew. Although it was the middle of the night, the scale of the fire meant that the crowds were heavy. Lots of emergency-service workers busied around. I could see stretchers – and horror of horror – some with covered bodies. Shouts cut through the night and crying could be heard pitched above the murmurs of the captivated crowd.

I searched the faces for someone familiar, never daring to leave my car which cradled Jack.

Then, relief. I raised my hand at a figure by an ambulance, a heat blanket hugging her shoulders. ‘Miriam!’ I shouted until she noticed me. It was Miriam who’d called me – the weekend duty matron.

Miriam bolted straight for me. We didn’t say anything at first, just looked at each other with wide, frightened eyes before we embraced, sharing our tears. After a few moments, I asked the question I dreaded: ‘What happened?’

‘The fire alarms sounded, but I don’t know how it started.’ Her voice came in the gaspy breaths of someone who’d been crying hard. ‘We were in the sitting room and we got up straightaway –’

I noticed her eyes briefly averted from mine and I suspected that she, and whoever she was on night shift with, had been asleep when they were expected to be awake.

‘– and we called the fire brigade and rushed around trying to wake the ground floor and we managed to get out six, but the fire was really bad – I don’t know how it got bad so quickly – it was enormous, flames filled the room –’

‘Who did you get out?’

She looked at me, a frightened child. ‘Mrs Summers, Mrs Waite –’ She continued and with each name it felt like a victory, but the list was too short.