Marilyn is waiting for me on the couch, her oxygen tank close to hand. As I’m about to start the interview, she digs out a box of cigarettes from the side of the couch, lights up and takes a deep drag.

Don’t tell the boys, will you, love? I know I shouldn’t, but after all this business… How can it hurt? A ciggy is my only bit of comfort these days.

I know what you’ve read in the papers, love, but we didn’t really have bad feelings towards Paul back then, other than him wanting to keep Jess away from us. I had a cousin who was like that, a gay, I mean. We’re not bigoted, honest to God. Lots of them about aren’t there, and I love that Graham Norton. But the press… well, they twist your words around, don’t they? Do I blame Shelly for giving Paul custody? Not really. She just wanted a better life for herself and the girls, and who can blame her? Never had much growing up. I know people think we’re scroungers, but we have every right to live how we want to live, don’t we? You try getting a sodding job these days.

Some people think we only wanted Jess because we were after Stephen and Shelly’s house and all that insurance money. I’d be lying if I said it wouldn’t have come in handy, but that was the furthest thought from our minds, honest to God. We really just wanted to spend time with little Jess. It dragged on and on, and some days the stress would just get so much I could barely sleep. ‘You’re going to give yourself a heart attack with all that worrying, Mum,’ the boys kept saying. So in the end, when I got really ill, I backed off, decided not to get the lawyers involved. Thought it would be for the best. Jessie could always come and find us when she was older, couldn’t she?

So when Paul rang and asked if we wanted to see Jess, well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. The social had been promising for ages that they would do what they could, but I didn’t put any store in what they said. We were all dead excited. We thought it would be best not to overwhelm her, it can be right chaos here sometimes when we all get together, so I decided that it would be just me, the boys and her cousin Jordan, who was closest to her age. I told little Jordan that his cousin was coming for a visit and he said, ‘But isn’t she an alien, Nana?’ His dad went to cuff him round the ear, but Jordie was only repeating something he’d heard at school. ‘How could anyone believe any of that bollocks?’ Keith would always say whenever one of those bloody Americans started up about The Three being out of the Bible or whatever it was they was saying. He said the buggers should be sued for defamation, but that wasn’t up to us, was it?

I got a right shock when the social worker dropped her off. She’d shot up like a tree since I’d last seen her. All those photographs in the press didn’t do her justice. The scars on her face weren’t too bad, made her skin look a bit tighter and shinier, that was all.

I nudged Jordan and told him to go up and give her a hug. He did as he was told, although I could see he wasn’t too keen.

Jase went out and got us all a McDonald’s, and I asked Jessie all about school and her friends and that. She was a right little chatter-box. Bright as a button. Didn’t seem at all out of her depth around us. I was a bit surprised, to be honest. The last time I’d seen her, she was dead shy, her and her sister Polly. Hung around their mother’s skirts whenever Shelly brought them over. A pair of little princesses, me and the boys used to joke. Not rough and tumble like the others. Not that we saw the twins often, mind. Shelly only really brought them round on Christmas and birthdays, and there was a right set-to one year when Brooklyn bit Polly. But Brooklyn was only a toddler back then; she didn’t know what she was doing.

‘Why don’t you go show Jessie your room, Jordan? Maybe she wants to play on the Wii?’ I said.

‘She looks funny,’ Jordan said. ‘Her face is funny.’

I gave him a smack and told Jess not to take any notice.

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘My face is funny. It wasn’t supposed to happen. It was a mistake.’ She shook her head as if she was a thousand years old. ‘Sometimes we get it wrong.’

‘Who gets it wrong, love?’ I asked.

‘Oh, just us,’ she said. ‘Come on, Jordan. I’ll tell you a story. I have lots of stories.’

Off they went, the two of them, Jess and Jordan. It warmed my heart seeing them together like that. Family’s important, isn’t it?

I find it hard to get up the stairs these days, what with my lungs like they are, so I asked Jase to pop up and keep an eye on them. He said they were getting on like a house on fire, Jessie talking ten to the dozen. Before you knew it, it was time to send her home.

‘Would you like to come again, Jess?’ I asked her. ‘Spend more time with your cousins?’

‘Yes please, Nana,’ she said. ‘That was interesting.’

After the bloke from the social had collected her, I asked Jordan what he thought of Jess, if he thought she’d changed and that, but he shook his head. Wouldn’t say much about her at all. I asked him what they’d been talking about all afternoon, but he said he couldn’t remember. I didn’t press him on it.

Paul phoned me that evening, and I got a right shock again when I heard his voice! Civil he was, as well. Asked me if I’d noticed anything strange about Jess. His words. Said he was a bit concerned about her.

I told him what I’m telling you now, that she was a lovely little girl, a real joy to be around.

He seemed to find this funny, laughed like a ruddy drain, but before I could ask him what was amusing, he hung up.

Course, it wasn’t that long afterwards that we heard what he’d done.