I sat down, shocked, amazed, thrilled. In the background, he continued to talk: ‘I read the message at least five times to be sure that I was not dreaming, then the questions flooded in: “Was it the real person? Why contact me when your email address is in the back of the book so people can contact you directly? What should I do?”’

He told me he would not pass on her number, but would immediately ring her himself.

‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘Good luck. Let me know.’ And then I sat by the telephone, unable to focus on anything, waiting until he rang me back. An hour later, the phone rang once more.

‘I’m sure it’s her. As soon as she picked up the phone, I was gripped by the tone of her voice, the authenticity of her manner of speaking.’

Olivier told me that her son – her son? she had another son? – had seen me on the news, recognized his mother’s writing on the letter and told her to go immediately and check out the news replayed on the Internet. She had then rushed out to buy the book and read it in state of shock. She told him she found him one of the few sympathetic voices in the book, and had decided to contact him as an intermediary.

‘I had no further doubt that she was the author,’ he explained. ‘The voice, the words were those of a woman who was simultaneously fragile and strong. She said that she had just learnt that a woman had been seeking her for seven years, that a book had been written about her letter in the bottle. Henceforth the whole world knew her letter, and it was as though her story, her suffering, her very intimate being no longer belonged to her. She says she felt as though she has been violated.’

I was devastated. ‘It was not meant like that. Please, can I talk to her?’

‘I did ask her whether she would talk to you, meet you. Maybe . . . definitely . . . but not yet, she needs time. She needs space, maybe a few months, an intermediary perhaps. That was why she contacted me.’

I sent a message back to her via Olivier that of course I would respect her wishes. I was terribly upset that her reaction was one of ‘violation’, but felt that if I could gain enough trust to talk to her directly we could rectify the situation, make it all better.

Meanwhile I realized that I had to carry on with my interviews and publicity as though nothing had happened. If I refused, it would be obvious that something dramatic had occurred, and I would have to explain that she, the author of the letter, the unknown mother, had emerged. And she was not ready. Neither was I. So I told no one except my family. It was surreal and rather horrible.