‘Where was it next?’ says Julia. ‘Oh, yeah. The Fallow Mill Home in Eastleigh. That’s where they shipped me off to next; the place where I got bullied to within an inch of my life. When I fought back they told me I had psychological problems. Told me I was delusional for thinking you would one day come and get me. The only good thing that ever happened to me was meeting a surrogate sister, a person who stood up for me and made sure I was okay. Her name was Zoe and she was my family. I even took her surname because it meant more to me than yours. But she died, Mother, she threw herself under a train because she thought that without proper parents to love and cherish her she had nothing to live for.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, my voice trembling. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that. It must have been so hard.’

‘It was,’ she says. ‘But I stood up for myself because by then I was getting tougher. I was discovering that nobody else was going to do it for me. And then I started to work hard. I passed all my exams and I got the fuck out of there and I made something of my life.’

The pain subsides a little and I look up at her. The similarity to Elspeth is striking. The colour of her eyes, the shape of her mouth, even her defensiveness: they are so alike, it’s scary. How could I not have seen it before? But then, as I know only too well, the brain chooses what it wants to see.

‘I am proud,’ I say. ‘Very much so.’

‘You have no right to be,’ she says. ‘Not after what you did; where you sent me.’

‘But I didn’t know what had happened to you,’ I cry. ‘My mother wouldn’t tell me where you were. I was only a child myself.’

She looks deep into my eyes and it seems for a moment as though she is softening but then she clenches her fists and slams them on the table.

‘You were a child who had known nothing but love and happiness and care,’ she yells. ‘Your parents didn’t just throw you away.’

‘Yes they did,’ I say, angry now at this onslaught. ‘And you know they did because it was all there in my notes. I was sent away and, like that, my life was ruined. I failed my exams, I had nothing.’

‘Failed your exams?’ she cries, jumping to her feet. ‘You call that having nothing? You were sent to a private psychiatric unit where your every whim was catered to. You had your own room, your own things, people visiting you. What did I have? Nothing. I used to cry myself to sleep at night, willing you to come and get me, willing you to be my mother.’