With her new identity, she says she is trying to put the past behind her. Anna insisted before agreeing to this interview that her anonymity must continue to be protected. ‘I’ve changed a lot,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be recognized as who I once was. I’m not Anna Roberts anymore. And I’m not the child who always stayed at home in Scotland, though I’m still using the same name I used there, that Dad gave me. For now.’ She pauses. ‘I’ve never, ever felt like Anna. I don’t tell people what happened to me when I was a child – it’s none of their business. If they know, they know, but mostly they don’t, and I prefer it that way.’

And what does she plan to do with the rest of her life? ‘I just want to get on with things,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to be “that girl who was abducted” the whole of my life. I want to travel – be in places where people don’t know about my past. Reinvent myself again. I love to dance – I’m hoping to pursue that.’ She pauses. ‘I want to live the kind of life my dad wanted for me.’

47

Jesse

June 2016

Manchester

‘Hey,’ I say, opening the door of my somewhat scuzzy student house to her.

She smiles. ‘Hey,’ she says back.

As usual, she looks very different to the last time I saw her, even though it wasn’t that long ago. Her invisible braces are straightening her teeth and even altering the shape of her jaw. She’s changed her hair, yet again. It’s short and jet black and suits her now pixie-like face with its sharpened features. She’s lost even more weight, and I can see from the well-defined muscles of her arms she must have been training hard too. She never seems happy with how she looks, and is forever trying to change her appearance.

She gives me a hug. ‘You going to invite me in then?’

I open the door wider and step back against the wall so she can pass. ‘Of course. In you come.’

We walk through to the kitchen and I switch the kettle on, moving aside a pile of dirty plates and dumping them in the sink as I do so.

‘Exams OK?’ I ask.

She wrinkles her nose. ‘Yeah. I guess. Mainly. The ones I turned up for, at least.’

Oh for fuck’s sake. Why didn’t she go to them? But I know better than to tell her off. There’s no point. She’ll do what she wants to do. She always does.

‘How are things going at home?’ I ask.