When she was discharged and well enough to travel, Catherine had been invited to appear on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Yang Lan One-on-One and The Morning Show. She was collaborating on a book with the journalist who had broken her story and there was talk of a film, a Hollywood studio optioning the rights before the first words were on the page.

But most importantly, she had survived.

Catherine had no recollection of the hours and days after her sister had tried to kill her. But Edward, rushed to hospital by police escort, had, when she’d finally regained consciousness, filled in the gaps, his grief and bewilderment palpable.

‘The doctors didn’t expect you to live,’ he’d explained, his face crumpling. ‘We kissed you goodbye.’ He swallowed a couple of times to compose himself, but the tears came anyway. ‘You’d lost so much blood, your bladder had been punctured, one of your veins had been nicked . . .’ He’d grinned at her, a flash of sun in the rain. ‘They think you tried to get up and help Brinley, and you fell off the bed.’ He’d squeezed her hand. ‘That probably saved her life.’

And her heart had lifted at that.

She had fiddled with the cannula in her hand, eyes on the plastic tubing. ‘Do the police know how Shannon found us?’

Edward’s expression darkened and he’d dropped his head. The whole sorry saga had come tumbling out.

Honor’s football team had been trying to raise money for one of their midfielders, a girl diagnosed with a rare pancreatic tumour that had metastasized. Their photograph had been plastered over social media sites and in the local newspaper. When the dying girl’s favourite pop star, moved by her plight, had surprised her and her teammates at their football club’s end-of-season disco, the story had been picked up by the national press.

Having breakfast in a cafe one morning, Shannon Carter had seen a short piece about it in a magazine. She’d been struck by the picture of Honor, the likeness to her sister and her unusual name, which had belonged to their father’s grandmother.

‘Eventually, she found Honor on social media,’ he’d explained. ‘But she didn’t say who she was, not at first, just someone who had lived through a family tragedy.

‘They talked online most days. She wanted to know all about you. As Honor shared bits and pieces of your past, Shannon worked out who you were. She hinted to Honor that she thought she was related to you.’ His fingers had tugged at the lambswool blanket. ‘You know how desperate Honor was to get to know your family. Shannon played on that. She persuaded Honor to catch the bus and meet her when she should have been at school, but your sister got cold feet and didn’t show up.’