Nine years ago, my almost three-year-old daughter, Holly, was abducted from a shopping centre on the outskirts of London. The police never found her, and they never caught the person who did it. All they had to go on was a piece of useless security footage – someone in a hooded sweatshirt leading my baby away from the play area while I was sitting with a friend having coffee in the mall, oblivious until it was too late. My younger daughter, Jess, was thirteen months old at the time, and she was with me in her pram, asleep. I was only a few feet away from Holly, but I was too busy chatting to my friend to keep a constant watch.

There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t blame myself. I was negligent. I know that, even if all my friends at the time told me it wasn’t my fault, that it could easily happen to anyone. That we can’t watch them every second of every day. But that’s the thing – it wasn’t just ‘a few seconds’. There was at least a minute where I was gossiping with Christina without paying any attention to my daughter. Instead, I got caught up chatting to my friend about our respective marital problems. I was relieved that Holly was occupied. Happy to have some time to talk about grown-up stuff. I knew Holly loved that little Wendy house. That it would keep her entertained for ages. I never understood the consequences of my inattention. The devastation that would follow.

For months after she disappeared, I read the papers and scoured the chat rooms for people’s theories of what happened. I suppose I was hoping that I might stumble across the person who did it. I absorbed all of it – even though some of the comments made me physically sick. I read what people were saying about me. All those judgemental mothers in their cosy little vipers’ nest forums talking about how I never deserved to have children. That I was an unfit mother whose other child should be taken away by social services. Some of them even implied that I was behind the abduction, that I had sold my own child to a paedophile ring. It made me realise how thoroughly nasty people can be. But part of me didn’t blame them.

And now… today… seeing Kate’s daughter, Bella. I’ve never had such a violent physical reaction in my life. I’ve never been in a situation like this before, where the sight of a child makes my heart stop. Of course, I’ve had moments over the years where I thought I glimpsed Holly, knowing in my heart of hearts that it wasn’t really her. But this is different. This is a blow-to-the-stomach different.