Her status updates were as vanilla as his ex-wife’s sexual tastes too. Lots of sharing of LOL-tastic pictures of cats and ‘nom nom’-inducing shots of cakes, plus loads of ‘hilarious’ (i.e., completely unfunny) things that Frankie had said or done.

Still, he hadn’t been expecting to find much on here. What he was really hoping was that, like many people, Helen’s Facebook log-in was the same as her email. There could well be something illuminating on there. Before, checking that out, he decided to take a look through her messages.

There wasn’t much. An exchange with an old friend, arranging a play date. A couple of gossipy exchanges with some woman from the gym. A mutual moan-fest with another chick about the challenges of parenting toddlers. Apparently, Frankie had bitten some kid at nursery and Helen was in a total panic about it, though ‘Sean doesn’t see it as a big deal. He says it’s just a phase.’ Interestingly, there was also a string of exchanges, from about 18 months ago, with a friend who lived in Switzerland, Sara, bitching about their respective mother-in-laws. Helen had really gone off on one about Eileen.

‘She turned up out of nowhere and told me about how I was too soft on Frankie, that I need to be stricter with her or she’ll end up going off the rails like Sean. I asked her what she meant, coz as far as I know Sean has never done anything bad – nothing I know about anyway!! – but then she clammed up and said she didn’t mean anything by it. I tried to press her but she said she just meant Sean was a bit naughty at school, nothing to, in her words, get my knickers in a twist about. When I asked Sean about it later he said he had no idea what Eileen meant.’

That was interesting. Sean Philips had a dodgy past. What did they know about him? He’d been brought up by a single mum, Eileen, in Braintree where Eileen still lived. Gone to study business at uni in Birmingham, then come to London to work in the City. Done well for himself, and set up his own management consultancy firm about five years ago. The Essex boy done good.

Winkler made a note that he needed to talk to Eileen, or maybe go back to Essex and find some old mates of Sean’s.

There was another interesting message about Eileen from Helen, writing to her friend Sara.

‘She’s such a racist. Even though I’m mixed race, I overheard her once saying she didn’t think Frankie should go to the nursery she goes to because there are too many of “them”. Can you believe it? Has she not noticed that Frankie’s mixed race too?!?’

Sara made some horrified statement and Helen continued:

‘I reminded her that both her granddaughters are mixed race and she said, “Exactly”.’