I sigh as I let the phone drop on to my lap. Ange watches a squirrel intently as it runs across the path in front of us and darts up a tree.

‘What actually happened to Iona’s sister?’ I ask.

The squirrel disappears but she carries on gazing into the distance.

‘Why are you so desperate to know?’

‘Because I need to know if it’s Bonnie. I need to know if my parents did something that—’ I break off. ‘Please. My mum died. I can’t ask her.’

Ange gives a small flick of her head, watching me carefully. ‘Someone once asked me how desperately I needed extra money,’ she mutters, after a pause. ‘Get myself on the right track, you know, sort myself out. I laughed in her face, told her she hardly needed to ask. All she had to do was look at the clothes me and the kids were wearing, look at the shithole we were living in.

‘She wasn’t laughing, though. She had a dead-straight face, and so I asked what she meant. What I had to do for it.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She looked at the baby and said there was this really nice couple who desperately wanted one but they couldn’t have one of their own. Said they could give her a real nice life, lovely clothes and all that.’

‘She asked you to sell your baby?’ I gasp.

‘You got no idea, so don’t try making out you have,’ Ange snaps. ‘I didn’t have enough money for food for myself, let alone to feed them. And I wasn’t well,’ she goes on. ‘Got taken into the hospital a couple of times and I couldn’t look after the girls. She’d told me enough times she wouldn’t let them get taken from me, but I didn’t believe her. I knew one day I’d be in hospital and they’d be gone.’

‘You knew this woman?’ I ask.

‘She was my social worker. One of the good ones.’

I pull back, my heart racing, trying not to put together the facts that link my family to this woman.

‘She told me the amount they were willing to pay.’ Ange lets out a chuckle. ‘Didn’t know anyone who had that kind of money to throw about. So I said, “What about the other one?”’ Ange pauses. ‘But Iona was older and they didn’t want her. Told me it would be too risky, that at her age she could remember or talk too much. Anyway, in the end I said yes. They could have the baby. It actually wasn’t the hardest decision I had to make.’

‘Didn’t you ever regret it?’ I ask, feeling sick as I listen to her. How could someone be so desperate as to sell their own child? How could anyone even suggest it?