‘IT HAD BEEN BURNING FOR THREE HOURS BEFORE THEY managed to put it out. And they said the temperatures inside, at the point of – I can’t remember what they said…’

‘Origin?’ suggested Evi.

The girl sitting opposite nodded. ‘Yes, that’s it,’ she said. ‘The point of origin. They said it would have been like a furnace. And her bedroom was right above it. They couldn’t get anywhere near the house, let alone upstairs, and then the ceiling collapsed. By the time they managed to get it cooled down enough, they couldn’t find her.’

‘No trace at all?’

Gillian shook her head. ‘No, nothing,’ she said. ‘She was so tiny, you see. Such tiny soft bones.’

Gillian’s breathing was speeding up again. ‘I read somewhere that it’s unusual, but not unheard of,’ she went on, ‘for people to… to disappear completely. The fire just burns them up.’ The girl was beginning to gulp at the air around her.

Evi pushed herself upright in her chair and the pain in her left leg responded immediately. ‘Gillian, it’s OK,’ she said. ‘Get your breath back. Just take it steady.’

Gillian put her hands on her knees and dropped her head as Evi concentrated on getting her own breathing under control, on focusing on something other than the pain in her leg. The wall clock told her they were fifteen minutes into the consultation.

Her new patient, Gillian Royle, was unemployed, divorced and alcoholic. She was just twenty-six. The GP’s referral letter had talked about ‘prolonged and abnormal grief’ following the death, three years earlier, of her twenty-seven-month-old daughter in a house fire. According to the GP, Gillian had severe depression, suicidal thoughts and a history of self-harm. He’d have referred her sooner, he’d explained, but had only just been made aware of her case by a local social worker. This was her first appointment with Evi.

Gillian’s hair trailed almost to the floor. It had been highlighted once, but now, above the old blond streaks, it was an unwashed mouse-brown. Gradually, the rise and fall of the girl’s shoulders began to slow down. After a moment she reached up to push her hair back. Her face reappeared. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began, like a child who’d been caught misbehaving.

Evi shook her head. ‘You mustn’t be,’ she said. ‘What you’re feeling is very normal. Do you often have difficulty breathing?’

Gillian nodded.

‘It’s completely normal,’ Evi repeated. ‘People who are suffering immense grief often experience breathlessness. They suddenly start to feel anxious, even afraid, for no apparent reason and then they struggle to get their breath. Does that sound familiar at all?’

Gillian nodded again. She was still panting, as if she’d just run a race and had narrowly lost.

‘Do you have any mementoes of your daughter?’ asked Evi.

Gillian reached to the small table at her side and pulled another tissue from the box. She hadn’t cried yet but had been continually pressing them against her face and twisting them round in her scrawny fingers. Tiny twists of thin paper littered the carpet.

‘The firemen found a toy,’ she said. ‘A pink rabbit. It should have been in her cot but it had fallen down behind the sofa. I suppose I should be glad it did, but I can’t help thinking that she had to go through all that and she didn’t even have Pink Rabbit wi-’ Gillian’s head fell forward again and her body started to shudder. Both hands, still clasping flimsy peach-coloured paper, were pressed hard against her mouth.

‘Did it make it harder for you?’ asked Evi. ‘That they didn’t find Hayley’s body?’

Gillian raised her head and Evi could see a darker gleam in her eyes, a harder edge around the lines of her face. There was a lot of anger in there as well, struggling with grief to get the upper hand. ‘Pete said it was a good thing,’ she said, ‘that they couldn’t find her.’

‘What do you think?’ asked Evi.

‘I think it would have been better to have found her,’ Gillian shot back. ‘Because then I’d have known for sure. I would have had to accept it.’

‘Accept that it was real?’ asked Evi.

‘Yes,’ agreed Gillian. ‘Because I couldn’t. I just couldn’t take it in, couldn’t believe she was really dead. Do you know what I did?’

Evi allowed her head to shake gently from side to side. ‘No,’ she said, ‘tell me what you did.’

‘I went out looking for her, on the moors,’ replied Gillian. ‘I thought, because they hadn’t found her, that there must be some mistake. That she’d got out somehow. I thought maybe Barry, the babysitter, had managed to get her out and put her in the garden before the smoke got too much for him, and that she’d just wandered off.’

Gillian’s eyes were pleading with Evi, begging her to agree, to say yes, that was quite likely, perhaps she’s still out there, wandering around, living off berries, Gillian just had to keep looking.

‘She would have been terrified of the fire,’ Gillian was saying, ‘so she’d have tried to get away. She could have got out of the gate somehow and wandered up the lane. So we went out looking, Pete and me, and a couple of others too. We spent the night walking the moors, calling out to her. I was so sure, you see, that she couldn’t really be dead.’

‘That’s completely normal too,’ said Evi. ‘It’s called denial. When people suffer a great loss, they often can’t take it in at first. Some doctors believe it’s the body’s way of protecting us from too much pain. Even though people know, in their head, that their loved one is gone, their heart is telling them something different. It’s not uncommon for bereaved people to even see the one they’ve lost, to hear their voice.’

She paused for a second. Gillian had pushed herself upright in the chair again. ‘People do that?’ she asked, leaning towards Evi. ‘They see and hear the dead person?’

‘Yes,’ said Evi, ‘it’s very common. Has it happened to you? Did you – do you see Hayley?’

Slowly Gillian shook her head. ‘I never see her,’ she said. For a second she stared back at Evi. And then her face deflated, collapsing in on itself like the air slowly trickling out of a balloon. ‘I never see her,’ she repeated. She reached for the tissues again. The box fell to the floor but she’d managed to keep hold of a handful. She pressed them to her face. Still no tears. Maybe they were all used up.

‘Take your time,’ said Evi. ‘You need to cry. Take as much time as you like.’

Gillian didn’t cry, not really, but she held the handful of tissues to her face and allowed her dried-up body to sob. Evi watched the second hand make its way round the clock three times.

‘Gillian,’ she said, when she judged she’d given the girl enough time. ‘Dr Warrington tells me you still spend several hours a day walking the moors. Are you still looking for Hayley?’

Gillian shook her head without looking up. ‘I don’t know why I do it,’ she mumbled into the tissues. ‘I just get this feeling in my head and then I can’t stay indoors. I have to go out. I have to look.’ Gillian raised her head and her pale-grey eyes stared back at Evi. ‘Can you help me?’ she asked, suddenly looking so much younger than her twenty-six years.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Evi quickly. ‘I’m going to prescribe some medication for you. Some anti-depressants to make you feel better, and also something to help you sleep at night. These are a temporary measure, to help you break the cycle of feeling so bad. Do you understand?’

Gillian was staring back at her, like a child relieved that a grownup had finally taken charge.

‘You see, the pain you’ve been feeling has made your body sick,’ continued Evi. ‘For three years you’ve not been sleeping or eating properly. You’re drinking too much and you’re wearing yourself out on these long walks over the moors.’

Gillian blinked twice. Her eyes looked red and sore.

‘When you’re feeling a little better in the daytime and you’re sleeping properly at night, then you’ll be able to do something about the drinking,’ continued Evi. ‘I can refer you to a support group. They’ll help you get through the first few weeks. Does that sound like a good idea?’