‘Dunno,’ said Bonnie. ‘Haven’t you anything else to go on? I know you don’t know her name, but do you know her date of birth? Where she was born? Anything?’

Olivia, tired of trying to find her daughter without giving the full story, shrugged helplessly at Maude before turning appealingly to Bonnie. ‘She’s my daughter, and she was born on the twenty-fourth of December, 1923. The reason why I haven’t looked for her any sooner is because my darling father told me she was stillborn, and that he’d had her cremated whilst I was recovering from the birth.’

‘Crikey!’ said Bonnie. ‘Lovely father you’ve got there.’

Olivia nodded miserably as she relayed the tale of their fruitless trip to Glasgow Crematorium, and how when her father said he’d taken the baby to Greystones they had believed him to be confused by all the lies he had been telling, until Bonnie had put them right.

Bonnie listened to the story, deep in thought. ‘I wasn’t born in 1923, so I’m afraid I can’t be …’ She paused. ‘Did you say your daughter was born on Christmas Eve?’

Olivia nodded, and something in Bonnie’s expression gave her cause for hope. ‘That’s right.’

Bonnie fixed Olivia with a stern look. ‘Is your father a nasty old man with mutton chops and a cane with a silver-headed snake as the handle?’

Olivia stared back, open-mouthed. ‘How the hell do you know that? You can’t! You said you weren’t born in 1923 …’

‘I wasn’t,’ replied Bonnie icily, ‘but as I said before, my mother worked in the orphanage, and she had a run-in with a violent old man who left his …’ She stopped speaking as she locked eyes with Olivia.

‘Go on,’ said Olivia, gazing at Bonnie with hollow eyes. ‘There’s nothing you could say that would surprise me, not any more.’

‘He left what my mother believed to be his daughter on the steps of the orphanage. She caught him red-handed and he tried to deny any connection to the baby, despite the fact that his were the only footprints in the snow, but she wasn’t having any of it. She told him what she thought of him and said she would turn him in to the police – that’s when he threatened to strike her with his cane.’ She drew a deep breath before continuing. ‘He thought Mum was after money because she was pregnant with me, so he pushed a lot of cash into her arms before storming off into the night, never to be seen again.’ She shook her head as she retold her mother’s side of events. ‘She nearly got the sack that night, because Mrs Ancrum, the woman who ran Greystones, accused her of trying to steal money your father left for the baby, but she wouldn’t do that.’