Jess

In the cuttings, it's variously described as the side of a quiet road, a lonely roadside verge, or the side of a lane near Ipswich.

One article gives a more detailed description of how the lane runs between two small villages and how there's a field on one side and a wood on the other.

but it's hard to be certain where the place is there are just so many back lanes near by so many fields so many clumps of woodland and with no other distinguishing features to go on they don't manage it they can't quite figure it out

But by now, they've got the bit between their teeth.

They spot a bungalow nearby, set back behind a thick privet hedge, and they knock on the door.

There are a lot of what-ifs in this story, and this is one of them.

What if Jess hadn't knocked on this particular door, where a woman called Jean lived?

Because with Jean, Jess had struck gold.

She tells Jess that people talked about it for weeks afterwards and that there were a few theories circulating about who the baby's mother was.

They drive about half a mile to a passing place on the lane.

And she said, that's where you were, right there.

Jess has quite strong feelings about The Verge.

You know when you see flowers on a roadside marking the place where someone's died in a car crash?

Well, for Jess, it's the exact opposite.

The mirror image, in fact.

She almost memorialises this verge because it's the place where she believes her life begins.

She once sent me a photo of it with a heart emoji.

The fact that it's beautiful, and it really is, it matters to her.

But being at the verge that day has another effect.

It alters how she feels about the fact that she was abandoned.