Oh Jimmy, I’m so frightfully sorry for abandoning our beautiful daughter. But it won’t be for long, my darling, I promise. Just until my energy returns and I’m back on my feet, and Mother will love her for me. For both of us. Of that I’m certain after seeing the tenderness in her eyes as she lifted tiny Lara from the crib and into her own arms. But my darling, our little Lara will always have a part of us with her, for she has the fluffy pink teddy bear now, a gift from her daddy to go with the hand-knitted baby set her mummy managed to make, using pink wool from an old cardigan, before she became too fatigued. A dreadful dark cloud descended shortly after Lara was born and I simply can’t shake it off. It’s as if the light in my life has disappeared and I can’t find a way through the tunnel to see it shine again …

Grace was in the office at work, reading through more of Connie’s diary entries and notes. Betty was sitting beside her in an armchair, busy crocheting Hannah’s dolly blanket.

‘Oh dear.’ Grace shook her head and turned the page of Connie’s diary dated 1940.

‘What it is, Grace?’ Betty looked up from her crochet.

‘It’s just so sad.’

‘Ah, come on, lovey, please don’t be upsetting yourself now … I know it was a terrible blow to have Mrs Donato’s death confirmed, but we always knew it was the most likely explanation.’

‘Sure, we knew it deep down,’ Grace said quietly, ‘but I can’t stop reading these diaries and finding out more about Connie. It’s as if she’s my friend, and I care about her … she honestly feels alive to me. And did you know that we share the same birthday?’

‘Well, fancy that! No wonder you feel an affinity with her,’ Betty said kindly.

‘Yes, it’s such a coincidence, and then there’s the similarity …’ Grace let her voice tail off on realising that she didn’t really want to talk about her and Connie’s overbearing mothers, and so instead she lifted the leather-bound notebook up to show Betty. ‘Poor Connie. She’s now lost her sweetheart, Jimmy – Connie’s parents have visited her to break the news that he died in the war and her parents have taken her baby, along with the pink teddy bear and knitted baby set that I found in a suitcase inside the storage unit. And now Connie is just so desperately sad and alone. And if that wasn’t sad enough, I think she was also suffering with postnatal depression after Lara was born.’