He was really shaken up by it all. After Kate and Shaun left, Matt began searching online for stories relating to a missing child named Holly Farnborough. He wanted to verify my story. All he found was a story almost identical to the one I’d told him, apart from a few vital differences – the year didn’t match, and the surname didn’t match, but more crucially, the photograph and footage of Rachel was not of me. And the child who went missing did not have green eyes. She did, however, bear an uncanny resemblance to Jess.

Matt put the pieces together and was horrified to realise there was a possibility that Jess was indeed the abducted child. Of course, he was still hoping it wasn’t true. He said he was praying for the evidence to be circumstantial. But he knew he had no choice but to tell the police what he thought he might have discovered. Once they confirmed that it was all indeed true, Matt was devastated. He told me he had loved me but couldn’t forgive what I’d done. He said he loved Jess like she was his own, but in the end, he knew that Jess’s real parents deserved to know what had happened to their daughter. They deserved to be reunited. To have some happiness back in their lives.

Although it cuts me up to lose Jess, who I truly believed was my daughter, I do agree with Matt. If Rachel Faisal can experience the joy of holding her child in her arms, then I should be happy for her. After all, I’ve been living my life as Rachel for the past seven years, going through her anguish. Living with the devastation of a missing child. So who knows more about how she must feel than me?

I lurch to my feet with an overwhelming desire to be back inside my small room.

‘You ready to go back in?’ Jenny asks with a concerned smile.

I nod and start walking, faster this time, suddenly yearning to lie on my bed and count my ceiling tiles again. When I’ve finished counting them, I’ll probably have to count them once more, just to make sure the number’s right.

There’s another reason why I’m so desperate to get back to my room. Because something else has started up in my mind. A new thought. The germ of a possibility…

Maybe one day in the future – when I’ve served my time and the doctors believe I’m well enough to rejoin society – I’ll eventually get out of here. And when I do, perhaps I’ll get one last shot at happiness. All I’ll have to do is to persuade Matt that Charlie needs his mum. That my son is better with me than without me.