He took her. Jackson Cromwell – my mother’s lover. He took my teenage sister. He took Lark from us. I know he did. And sometimes, looking back – eyes wide open – I wonder if I should have reacted when I saw the way he looked at her, the way he flirted.

It’s the anniversary of her disappearance this Friday. Twelve long months of not knowing where Lark is – whether she’s alive or dead.

My ex-partner William couldn’t cope with my outpourings of grief following my sister’s disappearance. It couldn’t have been easy for him listening to me repeat the same tragic words, desperate to explore my feelings, desperate to cope with what had happened. I went from numb to feeling too much, to numb again, all with the aid of too much wine.

In fact, I still hadn’t come to terms with her loss when, seven months later, my mum died. Imagine a car wreck – well that was me in human form.

But a few weeks after her funeral, life took an upward turn. I discovered I was pregnant. For three months a tiny baby had been growing inside me and I’d been too swept away by grief overload to realise. It was a miracle, and for the first time in ages, bubbles of happiness fizzed.

‘It can’t be mine,’ William said, when I broke the news over his favourite meal of guinea fowl and gnocchi.

‘Of course it’s yours,’ I said, placing the little stick telling me the best news ever onto his side plate, and trying to smile despite his tactless comment.

‘That’s got your pee on it, Amelia,’ he said, pushing it away. ‘Are you positive it’s mine?’

‘OK, for one …’ I held up my index finger ‘… I’ve only slept with you in all the time I’ve known you. And two …’ I burst into tears.

William jumped up, grabbed a serviette – he always insisted we had them on the table, as I had, still have in fact, a habit of getting ‘stuff’ on my face when I eat – and thrust it into my hand.

‘OK, great, I’m going to be a dad,’ he said, and left the room. He’d barely touched his gnocchi. I guess the pee on the stick hadn’t helped.

So this portrays William in an awful light. But, in fairness to him, he’d been through my hell with me, and was no longer ‘Fun-Loving Will’ the man with the amazing smile who I met on a night out with the girls three years ago. He was a faded, tired version. In fact, I couldn’t recall the last time he’d smiled. He wanted out of our relationship, but, at the time, he didn’t have the heart to leave a woman weighed down by a bucket-load of tragedy. And now, a baby – our baby – would trap him forever.

*