‘I would have adopted you if they’d let me, but being single, it wasn’t possible. Still, I cared about you very much for those weeks in the hospital – you were so tiny, so vulnerable, they thought you must have come early – and I was glad when Ruth and David came forward. We stayed in touch, you know that, for a while, but . . .’ She stops, blinks. ‘Well. Lives change. People move on and Ireland is a long way from London – from Wiltshire, but I’m so glad we’ve reconnected.’

Marina holds the folder close, but she isn’t ready to leave. There must be questions Sofía can answer.

‘Do you recall a witness who said they’d seen a pregnant woman hanging about the house? Do you think that woman was my mother?’

‘I remember the story, but it turned out the woman had a connection with one of the tenants.’ She frowns and stirs her tea.

‘Was there anyone else? Any other women turning up, or being spotted?’

‘Well . . .’ She puts down her spoon. ‘To be honest, it was something and nothing.’

Marina leans forward eagerly. ‘Yes?’

‘There was someone else.’

‘Who?’

Sofía grimaces. ‘It was after you’d been found. A woman came to the baby ward.’

‘What happened?’

‘A nurse approached her and she left.’

‘Did they speak?’

‘Briefly. When the nurse questioned her, the woman said that she was lost, but I remember feeling uneasy about it. Security wasn’t so good back then, and the nurse said she appeared skittish, which you might put down to embarrassment, but it seemed like a coincidence.’

‘Could it have been a journalist?’

Sofía makes a face. ‘Unlikely, judging from her behaviour – and in those days, there were few female journalists. We decided in the end it was a curious or misguided member of the public fascinated by the story.’

‘Did anyone tell the police?’

‘Yes, but there wasn’t much they could do and it wasn’t reported in the papers or anything.’

She frowns and Marina guesses there is more. She is quiet, waiting.

‘On the day that you left the hospital . . .’

‘With David and Ruth?’

‘No, no. You went with foster carers before that. Anyway, on that day, a group of us went out to the car park to say goodbye – including the same nurse.’ She pauses. ‘I didn’t notice anything at all, but the nurse mentioned later that she had seen the woman again.’

‘What was she doing?’

‘Watching.’

Marina lets this sink in. ‘Why didn’t the nurse speak out? Surely she should have alerted somebody.’

‘Perhaps, but realistically, if the woman had been visiting a patient the previous time, it made sense that she would come again. We were quite a spectacle, all of us making a fuss of you. A lot of people would have noticed and stopped.’ She pauses, smiling fondly at the memory, and shrugs. ‘Like I said, it was something and nothing.’