I was taken aback. What was Heather saying? We didn’t even know if Minty had been a real person, or just someone I dreamt up, but that was Heather, always rushing in. She’d always been the same, straight over to talk to people, not thinking through what she said.

I tried to pull Heather away back to the car. ‘Sorry to have bothered you.’

The woman’s expression changed to that of a very stern and scary headmistress. ‘Hold on a minute. I think you’d better come in. I’d like to know exactly what you know about Minty.’ She indicated that we should follow her back through her gate to the front door.

‘Oh my God,’ I whispered. ‘What have you done?’

Once inside, the woman closed the door and led us through to a back room overlooking the garden. ‘Right. Introductions. I am Eileen Jeffrey,’ she said.

‘And I am Bea,’ I said, ‘and this is Heather.’

Eileen studied us hard again. ‘Now tell me exactly what you have found out in your research.’

I looked over at Heather. ‘I …’ As I looked out of the window, I noticed that there was an apple tree to the left, just as I’d seen in my hypnosis session. I took a deep breath. ‘OK, this is going to sound completely bonk—’

‘We’ve only just started looking,’ Heather interrupted. ‘We found out your family lived here and—’

‘But what about Minty?’ asked Eileen. ‘What do you know of her? You said Grace’s daughter?’

‘I dreamt about her,’ I said. It wasn’t exactly a lie and I was still unsure whether she was a figment of my imagination or not. ‘A very vivid dream.’ I pointed out to the back garden. ‘I’m sure it was out there, Grace with her little girl.’ Inside I was panicking and wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. ‘I … maybe because I’d been researching about Grace, my mind made Minty up.’

‘No, she was real enough. Her name was Amelia,’ said Eileen. ‘Minty was her nickname. It’s extraordinary that you dreamt that. How could you have known that?’

‘So she did exist?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes, but why did you say Grace’s daughter?’ asked Eileen.

‘I’m not sure. I felt it.’

Eileen sat down heavily on the chair opposite. ‘Felt it? Are you some kind of psychic?’

Heather burst out laughing.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not at all. To be honest, it’s as much a mystery to me as to you. I guess Grace has kind of captured my imagination.’

‘Nobody knew,’ said Eileen. ‘No one knew that Minty was Grace’s daughter. I only found out when my mother was dying. I always thought she was my sister – or would have been had she lived.’

‘Your sister?’ I asked.

‘Was?’ Heather asked.

‘She died when she was two years old.’