I flop down on to the sofa and take the toy in my hands. Closing my eyes, I see that image, the one that has flashed in front of me so many times since I woke up. I’m strapping Elspeth into the back of the car. She looks up at me with indignant eyes. ‘I’m not going, Mummy, and you can’t make me.’

Momo wasn’t with us. If that was the case then we must have left in a dreadful rush. Why was I in such a hurry to go out at that time of night? Any other evening Elspeth would be in bed by then and I would be happily ensconced at my desk, plunging into the next chapter of my novel. The thought of driving off into the night just doesn’t make any sort of sense.

I place Momo back on to the cushion beside me. I sit for a moment trying to summon the courage to empty the rest of the boxes but I feel prickly with nerves. I take another sip of wine and close my eyes. ‘Think, Maggie, think,’ I mutter to myself. ‘Where the hell were you going?’

Then I glance across at my laptop. It must be charged by now. I get up from the sofa, taking my wine with me. I sit down on the floor and take the computer on to my lap. Opening the lid, I hold my breath and wait for the dark screen to come to life. After a couple of moments it does and my heart does a little somersault in my chest as the screensaver appears. It’s a photo of me, Sean and Elspeth, taken on holiday in Whitstable a couple of years ago. We’re sitting on the shingle beach, all huddled together. Elspeth is in the middle and Sean and I have our arms wrapped round her, like a precious gift. Her hair is in bunches and she is wearing a purple T-shirt with ‘Whitstable Oyster Festival 2014’ emblazoned across the front.

Oh, how she loved that holiday. The best thing about Whitstable for Elspeth was that the beach was made of shingle instead of sand. She’d spend the day counting stones and putting them into piles of even numbers while Sean and I sat back on our deckchairs and read our books. The other children would be running around, splashing in the sea and playing Frisbee, but Elspeth was perfectly content to just sit amongst her stones.

I put my hand towards the screen and touch her face. My beautiful girl. Then I think back to that last trip to Whitstable, the one cut short because of Sean’s work commitments, and a cold sensation ripples through me. There will be no more holidays now, no more smiles.