At the start of Hilary Bell’s play Splinter an unnamed married couple are delirious with joy. For nine months, their four-year-old daughter Laura was missing. Now she has been returned to them by the police, unharmed, and they can hardly believe it. She doesn’t look quite like the Laura they remember, but it’s understandable that she would have changed during the time she was away.

Lucy Bell and Simon Gleeson. Photograph © Brett Boardman

They have no idea who took her, what happened to her during those agonising nine months, or how she has been found. What’s more, they won’t let the police interview the child. But she is back. The three of them are now trying to regroup in an isolated beach house. But Laura won’t talk (perhaps she’s traumatised), food that was once her favourite no longer seems to have the same appeal, and she destroys the toys she used to love.

Doubt begins to infect the father. Little things gradually convince him that she isn’t their daughter and his suspicions start to fester. The Mother, meanwhile, holds Laura as close as the child will let her, reads to her and does...