I hope that it never happens to you; to you, or anyone you know. Because if it does, then you’ll know the real meaning of heartbreak, just as I do now.

She hadn’t come home after school that day: I’d waited and waited; watched the hands of the clock casually turning as panic rose within me.

Ten minutes; still not home. Maybe Denise had picked her up with her own daughter, Kate.

Fifteen minutes; still not home. Maybe she’d gone to a friend’s house and forgotten to tell me.

Twenty minutes; still not home. Maybe she was at a Nativity rehearsal that I’d forgotten about.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. A lot of possibilities, but only one fact lay acidic in my stomach - my ten-year-old daughter wasn’t home.

I called Denise; Tanya wasn’t there; Kate didn’t know where she was either. But she knew she’d got on the bus because they’d read Smash Hits together, divided up the free stickers. So where was she now? The moment I hung up, my heart thumped from my chest to my throat, leaving me struggling for breath.

Should I call the school? I looked at the time; the school would be shut. I scrabbled in the drawers for the list of numbers I had: telephone numbers for houses she’d been to for parties and sleepovers. I couldn’t find it; I was wasting time; I knew what I had to do, I just didn’t want to believe it.  I dialled 999, was silent for a moment before I could say the words no parent ever wants to: my child is missing.

I answered all the questions the woman asked. 14th of March 1996, 10 years old, shoulder length black hair, brown eyes, glasses, probably her school uniform – blue dress, blue cardigan, black Clarks shoes, black tights, a pink Bratz bag, a birthmark on the back of her left leg. She normally walks home from the school bus, usually home by 4pm. I last saw her about 8.30am. Yes, I have a recent photo.

They told me a family liaison officer would be with me as soon as possible. When I hung up, I went straight to the bathroom and vomited until the only thing left in my stomach was guilt: guilt that clung to every bone and every muscle in my body. This was real, this was happening to me.

I heard knocking at the door moments later, felt hope swell in my body. I raced down the stairs, and for the second time that day my heart collapsed. The liaison officer walked in: her words a drone, her face not that of a mother’s.

That day was the longest in my life: every car that went by, every knock at the door, every phone call, every child laughing outside prompted the same question: was it her? And that night was the longest night of my life. I lay in her bed staring at the clock illuminating the pink bedroom, willing it forwards. Time fuelled my imagination, making the sheets damp with cold sweat. If I began to doze I woke immediately, swearing that I’d slept for an hour at least. But only five minutes had crept by; minutes that turned into hours so gradually, so painfully that my whole body ached in longing.

In the morning I raced to the kitchen, picked up the phone and checked it for messages - none. For the rest of the day I sat by the phone, picking it up every few minutes to check it was working: to check that someone, anyone, could get through and let me know that my daughter was safe; that she was coming home.

The liaison officer sat in the corner of the room, sometimes asking questions to which my replies were tears.

I called work; told them I wouldn’t be in; that I wouldn’t be in for the next few days. They were very sorry, they said; if there was anything they could do, they said; they understood, they said. But how could they? No one could understand the pain I was going through; the scenarios my imagination was creating; the winding stab in my gut each time I saw something of Tanya’s in the flat.

After the first day, I had calls from friends. I don’t know how they found out, but each time I rushed them off the phone, annoyed they’d occupied the line.

By the fourth day I still hadn’t heard anything; I did a  press announcement.

The fifth day went by, still nothing; her picture was everywhere I looked.

Six days and I barely recognised myself in the mirror; my reflection looked ten years my senior.

After a week I couldn’t bear doing nothing; waiting in the house for calls that didn’t come, being monitored by a stranger. So I took the Christmas decorations out of the loft. I thought if I made the flat look nice, Tanya would know somehow; she would know and she would come home; she would come home and things would go back to normal: I would have my family back.

I placed a stuffed reindeer on top of the television; hung tinsel from the doorframes and a laughing Santa from the clock; put up the artificial tree in the corner of the room and pinned her stocking to the wall. I emptied the five boxes of decorations we had in less than an hour, then walked into her bedroom and sat on the bed.

I heard the liaison officer on the phone, heard her voice low, her words almost inaudible: distraught, distressed, disconnected. I turned my head, noticed a piece of blue paper sticking out from under the pillow. I reached for it with a shaky hand, smoothed it in my lap - a Christmas list.

I remembered last Christmas; it had been our first without Tanya’s father and she’d handled it well, better than I had probably.

‘Next year, Mummy,’ she’d said to me. ‘You might have a new husband for Christmas.’

I’d laughed, said that would be lovely - a wonderful Christmas present. But now all I wanted was my daughter in my arms, the smell of her hair under my nose, the contour of her body in the bed I sat on. Tucking the list into my pocket, I walked out of the house.

The shops were busier than I could bear; every little girl was Tanya, every mother with a child the luckiest woman in the world. I bought everything on the list and more, the weight making the plastic bags cut into my fingers as I walked to the car. I drove home with a mantra in my head: ‘She’s going to come home, she’s going to be safe, she’s going to come home, she’s going to be safe.’

The moment I walked into the flat I saw them; I saw them sat in the living room: two of them; a man and a woman. Seeing me, they stood, pressed their hats to their chests. My mouth tore downwards, my face screwed up; tears burst from my throat and the bags fell to the floor. She stepped to me; held me as I shattered into a million pieces, the word ‘no’ falling from my mouth like vomit.

‘I’m so sorry Ms Taylor,’ she said, ‘I’m so, so sorry.’