‘Yes.’

Mr Wright has the reconstruction on tape and doesn’t need additional details of my extraordinary game of dress-up, but I know you do. You’d love to know what kind of you I made. I didn’t do badly, actually. I’ll tell you about it without hindsight’s glaring clarity.

A middle-aged woman police officer, WPC Vernon, took me to a room to change. She was pink-cheeked and healthy, as if she’d just come in from milking cows rather than policing London streets. I felt conscious of my pallor, the red-eye flight taking its toll.

‘Do you think it’ll do any good?’ I asked.

She smiled at me and gave me a quick hug, which I was taken aback by but liked. ‘Yes, I do. Reconstructions are too much of a palaver if there isn’t a good chance of jogging someone’s memory. And now we know that Tess is pregnant it’s more likely that someone will have noticed her. Right then, let’s get your clothes sorted out, shall we?’

I found out later that although forty, WPC Vernon had only been a policewoman for a few months. Her policing style reflected the warm and capable mother in her.

‘We’ve fetched some clothes from her flat,’ she continued. ‘Do you know what kind of thing she might have been wearing?’

‘A dress. She’d got to the point where nothing else would fit over the bump and she couldn’t afford maternity clothes. Luckily most of her clothes are baggy and shapeless.’

‘Comfortable Bee.’

WPC Vernon unzipped a suitcase. She had neatly folded each tatty old garment and wrapped them in tissue paper. I was touched by the care that she had shown. I still am.

I chose the least scruffy dress; your purple voluminous Whistles one with the embroidery on the hem.

‘She got this in a sale five years ago,’ I said.

‘A good make lasts, doesn’t it?’

We could have been in a Selfridges’ changing room.