At first, when I voiced my concerns to Doug, he’d cheerfully brush them aside. ‘She’s just chilled out, that’s all,’ he’d say, ‘let her be, love,’ and I’d allow myself to be reassured, telling myself he was right, that Hannah was fine and my fears were all in my head. But when she was almost three years old, something happened that even Doug couldn’t ignore.

I was preparing breakfast in the kitchen while she sat on the floor, playing with a makeshift drum kit of pots and pans and spoons I’d got out to entertain her with. She was hitting one pan repeatedly over and over, the sound ricocheting inside my skull, but just as I was mentally kicking myself for giving them to her the noise suddenly stopped. ‘Hannah want biscuit,’ she announced.

‘No, darling, not yet,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘I’m making porridge. Lovely porridge! Be ready in a tick!’

She got up, said louder, ‘Hannah want biscuit now!’

‘No, sweetheart,’ I said more firmly. ‘Breakfast first, just wait.’

I crouched down to rummage in a low drawer for a bowl, and didn’t hear her come up behind me. When I turned, I felt a sudden searing pain in my eye and reeled backwards in shock. It took a few moments to realize what had happened, to understand that she’d smashed the end of her metal spoon into my eye with a strength I never dreamed she had. And through my reeling horror I saw, just for a second, her reaction; the flash of satisfaction on her face before she turned away.

I had to take her with me to the hospital, Doug not being due back for several hours yet. I have no idea whether the nurse in A&E believed my story, or whether she saw through my flimsy excuses and assumed me perhaps to be a battered wife, one more victim of a drunken domestic row. If she did guess at my shame and fear, she never commented. And all the while Hannah watched her dress my wounds, listened to the lies I told about walking into a door with a silent lack of interest.

Later that evening when she was in bed, Doug and I stared at each other across the kitchen table. ‘She’s not even three yet,’ he said, his face ashen. ‘She’s only a little girl, she didn’t know what she was doing …’

‘She knew,’ I told him. ‘She knew exactly what she was doing. And afterwards she barely raised an eyebrow, just went back to hitting those damn pots like nothing had happened.’