‘I did. I tried. But she was already… she was gone.’ Saying the words out loud doesn’t make it seem any more real. She has to get him to see that she has a solution.

‘How do you know she was gone?’ he spits. ‘You’re not trained. Maybe you just needed to do CPR on her, and she would’ve been fine. Oh God, it’s too late. Is she at the hospital? Did they take her away? Do we need to go there now? I can’t believe this is happening. Our beautiful girl. Why? You should have called me. Why didn’t you call me?’

‘I’m so sorry, Darren,’ she cries. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’ She kneels before him and lays her head on his lap, hugging his legs. He stiffens at first, and then folds himself down on top of her and they sob together. Racking, terrifying, out-of-control sobs that do nothing to lessen the pain.

After a while, when her eyes are raw and her skin dried out from the tears, she slides away from him and sits back on her haunches. ‘Darren,’ she says in a small voice.

He raises his head a fraction.

‘You have to listen to me.’

He gives the tiniest shrug, so she continues.

‘The old Gracie, she’s gone. She drowned.’ Catriona says the words while trying to hide the meaning from herself. They’re just words that mean nothing. She tells herself they’re not true. The truth she wants to believe is that Grace is asleep in her bed. She needs Darren to believe this truth too. He has to. ‘Everything will be fine, Darren. It can go back to how it was before. Because… because I found another Gracie. She’ll be ours. It won’t be any different, I promise.’

Darren’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open as he starts to understand what Catriona’s telling him. As he starts to realise the implications of the other girl in their daughter’s room. ‘That child in Gracie’s bed… who is she? Where… where did you get her?’

‘I told you. That little girl is Grace. She can be Grace. All you have to do is agree with me, and then it will all be okay.’ Catriona realises that Darren won’t accept this solution immediately. It will take time for him to process it. To realise that Catriona’s right. That she has their best interests at heart. That other woman in the shopping centre, she didn’t deserve to have her child, not after she left her unsupervised in a public place. Catriona pushes out the little voice accusing her of doing something similar – leaving your child alone in a bath isn’t exactly the action of a responsible mother either. But it was an accident. She’s only human. And so is that other mother, the voice replies.

‘That is not Grace,’ Darren replies, his eyes hardening.