‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she said. ‘I’ve enough to be getting on with and this kind of get-together isn’t to my taste.’

But before she left the table, to Mary’s surprise, she leaned down and whispered something in her ear.

Four words that changed everything.

And then came the hammering on the door.

35

June 2018

IT’S SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND Mark wants to know how my walk on the pier with Adana went. He doesn’t really want to know, he’s just being polite, making small talk, the way couples do. But suddenly it feels as though he knows I was sitting on a bench in Blackrock Park this morning, and not with Adana at all. I’ve lied to him for so long now, this additional fabrication shouldn’t feel any worse, and yet it does. The walk was good, I tell him, though Adana couldn’t stay long – because somehow if the fictional walk was short, that feels closer to the truth.

This news about Gavin Bowman and the locked room has knocked me. Between what Ellen’s friend Aoife saw that morning in the building site and the bequest in Gavin’s will, it seems clear he definitely locked Lily in that room. So maybe Cynthia didn’t do anything. Maybe I have it all wrong. Skewed and confused by years of hazy memories. Guilt distorting and contorting. Tricking me.

But Cynthia was there, in Rowanbrook, in the early eighties. I know that for sure. And Lila appeared out of nowhere; a sister who’d been ‘living with her dad’. A sister I’d never known about. So, locked room or not, I’m still at square one. Could there be some link between Gavin and Cynthia? If he liked older women and she liked younger boys – flirting with Mark and his friends? Cynthia was around the same age as Mary, who by Ellen’s account was the object of Gavin’s attention. More than attention.

Mark is bustling around the kitchen making a Sunday roast, and the kids are in their rooms, pretending they’re not on various electronic devices. Sitting at the kitchen table, I tilt my laptop screen away from Mark and type ‘Gavin Bowman’ into the search bar.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. A death notice. Some newspaper features about his various roles in various charities. Looks like Gavin went from moody teen to giving back to society. Or at least, very well-paid giving back to society. I dig and I dig, and search their names together, but there’s nothing to suggest a link between Gavin and my mother.

I try ‘Cynthia Kirk’ on its own. I know what comes up, I’ve googled her many times before. Her court appearances for social welfare fraud. Her conviction for possession of a controlled substance. Her suspended sentence that kept me out of care. No social media for Cynthia. Two photographs, both linked to her court dates. A semi-smart version of my mother, in a suit she must have borrowed.

I try ‘Lila Kirk’ though I already know nothing will show. My sister is, and always has been, a ghost. I flick to a photo of Lily, open in another tab. A photograph of Lila would help … Maybe it’s not possible to tell if they’re the same person but perhaps there’ll be something that rules her out; some birthmark or feature I’ve forgotten. In two days, I’m due to visit Cynthia. Maybe it’s time to stay a little longer. Maybe after enough whiskey or recreational painkillers, she’ll sleep, and I can look around the flat. Look for photographs, evidence that my mind is playing tricks. That Lila was someone else entirely.