‘So you were friends?’

‘Yes, we were friends.’ Susie shakes her head. ‘I never realized it was the same house … goodness, Mark, you sent me the link and everything. But it looks quite different?’

‘Yeah, I think the outside used to be grey, back in the eighties. It’s been done up since, the whole lot plastered over and painted white. Not much done to the inside though,’ he adds with a rueful smile, ‘that’s been left to us. Speaking of inside, I’m going to get a beer – anyone like another drink?’

Susie and Tom are both fine. I ask Mark for another gin and tonic, and to check on the kids, who, after a perfunctory ‘how’s school?’ quiz, have retreated to their grandparents’ TV. Getting them up tomorrow morning will be painful – especially Sophie – but Susie insists on inviting us in the evening time, so that her days are free for golf.

I turn to Susie. ‘What do you remember about the disappearance?’

She shakes her head. ‘It was a dreadful time. Police asking questions, locals gossiping, lots of finger-pointing. The poor little thing drowned, no doubt, but it didn’t stop people spreading rumours.’

‘What kind of rumours?’

‘That a local man was involved – questioned by the guards. Victor O’Brien was his name. Poor Victor, God rest him. He and his wife were friends of ours. Tom was great pals with Victor.’ Tom nods, on autopilot it seems, and Susie keeps talking.

‘Victor was married to Ines, our Spanish neighbour who found Mark in the park that time. It was all nonsense, of course, Victor had nothing to do with it.’ She tucks a white-blonde strand behind her ear. ‘There was also an altercation between a neighbour called Eddie something and Robbie Murphy, Lily’s father. Robbie ended up with a broken arm or sprained wrist. I remember he had his arm in a sling that morning, during the search.’ She purses her lips. ‘Dreadful. Luckily for him he was left-handed or he’d have been off work for weeks on top of everything else. And he had a very good job. An accountant, but not one of those regular ones – a super-successful one. A high-flyer, that was Robbie.’ She shakes her head. ‘Such awful, uncouth behaviour in a grown man. Eddie I mean, not Robbie,’ she adds quickly. ‘Now, I’m fairly sure the child drowned, but if not, my money would be on Eddie.’ She looks around, checking the kids aren’t in earshot perhaps, before continuing. ‘The most dreadful rumour was that there was something between Robbie Murphy and a local girl.’ The glint in Susie’s eye belies her ‘most dreadful’ claim. ‘I can’t remember her name now. Tom, do you remember?’

Tom frowns in concentration. ‘Small girl, the pretty one?’

Susie nods. ‘Yes, that’s her.’

‘Can’t think of it. Gorgeous little thing, she was.’

‘Yes. Anyway,’ Susie continues, ‘the other rumour was that it had something to do with a young fella called Gavin. He was always hanging around; I mean literally, just hanging around outside the Murphys’ house. There’d been some break-ins too, including one at the Murphys’, so her disappearance was linked with that by some people. Mostly because there was little or no crime back then, so it seemed logical that there must be a connection. The police never confirmed it though, so …’ She shrugs, a delicate movement in her neat red blazer, as Mark arrives back with a gin and tonic for me.