‘It is time to let go. Twenty years of suffering is twenty years too much. That’s why I thought opening up might help. It wasn’t all about the money,’ Marie says. ‘Although God knows, I could do with it.’ She gestures around her tiny flat. ‘But it’s been a lot to carry, hasn’t it? Sometimes I feel I’ll snap under the weight of it all. I don’t know how you both cope, living in the same town full-time. At least I get to leave, go on tour.’

‘But you always come back,’ I say quietly.

‘I come back for you two,’ Marie says. ‘And it’s hard. Every bloody time I drive past that place. How can you bear it?’

‘I think it’s easier, staying. Everyone knows us and what we’ve been through but because of that everyone protects us – or tries to, at least.’

There was a shift in the town when we had finally been found. The streets, once filled with kids kicking footballs, racing around on bikes, were empty. In supermarkets mothers would tightly hold on to their children’s hands. Cars jammed up the residential roads around the primary school. Nobody let kids walk anywhere. There was a sharp decrease in independence for the kids. A sharp increase in fear for the parents. And guilt. Neighbourhood Watch groups were formed and Mum had said they were full of the ‘if only we’d all been more vigilant’ and the ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ brigade.

It’s all changed now of course, but nobody has really forgotten and it’s because the community felt they had let us down that they close ranks when reporters ask for snippets of ‘What are the Sinclair Sisters really like?’ gossip. If we moved away people would still find out who we were and we wouldn’t feel as… safe, I suppose, although I don’t think any of us have ever felt completely safe since before we were snatched. It wasn’t only our physical selves that were taken away but our innocence and our inherent naive faith that people were good and adults could be trusted.

‘At least here I know that no one will ask me out,’ Carly says.

‘I wish you’d meet someone,’ I reply. Carly, more than anybody, deserves to be happy.

‘I can get you not wanting kids,’ Marie says, ‘But… you must get lonely.’

‘Not really. I’ve got you two. And Archie and that’s enough for me. Imagine falling for someone and they turned out to be… bad. You never know who to trust, do you?’

I know what she means. Monsters walk among us and sometimes they look like you.

Sometimes they look like me.

The conversation stutters again. Carly wipes away tears that are streaking her cheeks. I want to tell her that letting George into my life was the best thing that ever happened to me. That she too can learn to allow someone in – but I think of the secrets I carry inside and outside of my marriage and I know that would make me a hypocrite. Who am I to give life advice when I am making such a mess of mine?