‘Look, Catriona. You can heal from this. I’ve seen people go on to lead productive lives after extreme trauma, but you have to let us in to allow us to help you. You’re doing really well today. Just keep it up.’

Her words comfort me, but they also make me realise that a ‘productive life’ is probably code for making the best of things. The reality is that my life has gone to shit. ‘It’s nice of you to say that, Jenny, but I committed a terrible crime. I’ll be in here for years. I’m not sure how “productive” my life can be in prison, or in hospital. Not that I deserve anything else.’

‘It’s early days, Catriona. Just take it one day at a time. You’re already able to remember your real identity. That’s a huge step.’

‘Even if it’s not all the time.’

‘Like I said, it’s early days. You had a trauma and you invented a situation that would help you to deal with that trauma.’

‘I know. It was weird. In my head, Holly Faisal somehow became mixed up with the memory of my daughter Grace. Thinking that she’d been abducted was easier to handle than the truth that she’d drowned. Because that way, it felt like it wasn’t my fault, and there was always the chance that one day’ – my throat constricts and it takes me a moment to continue – ‘that one day she’d come back.’ Talking about Grace like this makes my heart hurt. The pain in my chest is crushing, and I have to stop walking again. Take another moment to catch my breath.

‘There’s a bench up ahead,’ Jenny says. ‘Do you want to sit?’

I nod and we veer across the short, springy grass to sit on the bench, which faces a neat flower bed. I feel like an elderly person, resting here like this.

‘Do you have any other thoughts about why you used Rachel’s name, and why you used the name Jess for her daughter Holly?’ Jenny asks.

‘I’m not sure.’ I twist my fingers in my lap. ‘I don’t think it was a conscious thing. I found stuff online about Holly’s family and discovered that Rachel’s husband Andrew moved to Spain to be with another woman. He left her alone with her youngest daughter, Jessica. I guess, in a weird way, I empathised with her because I was also alone with a young daughter.