I follow at a distance, wishing I could see her face again. The yearning for her radiates out from the core of my body through to my fingertips and toes. I never believed my daughter was dead. I always thought she was out there somewhere, waiting for me to come and rescue her. To think that I might have found her is so bittersweet. I’ve lost all those important years. Years where she’s forgotten me. Where she’s not even aware of who she really is. That she has a biological family who would love her so much more than this fake, undeserving one. But I can’t even tell her about us. Not yet.

The girls are walking in the opposite direction to where I parked my car, so at least I know I didn’t end up in the Morrises’ road. Unless Bella is going to her friend’s house. But as the two of them reach the end of the street, they hug and break off in different directions. I follow Bella, who speeds up now that she’s alone. Dusk is falling and she suddenly looks quite vulnerable walking along on her own. The school crowds have thinned and there are only one or two other people around now.

I close the gap between us so we’re only a couple of hundred yards apart. I won’t get any closer, but the unfairness of my situation hits me again. This child in front of me should be one of the closest people in my life. Instead, she’s a stranger. She probably wouldn’t even recognise me from last week’s brief encounter. Yet I carried her in my belly. Nursed her. Bathed her. Kissed her. Held her. And now… now I mean nothing to her.

This line of thinking isn’t getting me anywhere. I can’t let myself wallow in self-pity. Proof is what I need. Proof. But how do I get it? I think it must all be tied up with Shaun’s prison stay. I need to discover more about that.

Bella turns into another road. It’s a housing estate that’s never seen better days and probably never will. She hunches her shoulders, keeps her head down and walks even faster now, almost running. I do the same. Despite the drizzle and chilly temperature, I’m sweating beneath my coat.

Bella jogs towards what looks like a low block of flats on the other side of the road. It’s built from a brownish brick, with four small windows on the ground floor and four on the first floor. She crosses a narrow path that runs along a scrubby patch of grass and heads into a recessed stairwell illuminated by a security light that flashes on as she approaches. The walls inside the stairwell are covered in multicoloured graffitied tags. She disappears from view but I’m pretty sure she didn’t go up the stairs.