That’s not it, I want to say, there’s different and there’s enviable, exotic different. People being people, this effortlessly elegant interloper may have ruffled some feathers.

We watch the screen as the camera moves to the other side of Lily. Two girls who look about twelve or thirteen are craning their necks to see the cake. The girl nearest Lily is auburn-haired, and tanned in a way I always envied when I was a kid, her nutmeg skin bronze against a bright pink t-shirt. The next girl, small, blonde, pretty but perhaps less striking than her friend, seems to have accepted her fate at the end of the line, furthest from the action.

‘Aren’t they a bit old to be at a three-year-old’s birthday party?’ I nod towards the screen.

‘Ah, back in the eighties you invited every child in the estate to your parties. Was it not the same for you?’

‘I was in boarding school, so it was different, I suppose.’ The words come so easily, I don’t have to think any more. ‘Do you know the girls’ names?’

‘That’s Aoife,’ Fran says, pointing at the auburn-haired girl. ‘And the little blonde one is Ellen. Aoife lived up in the Grove, where the bungalows are, and Ellen lived here, on the other side of your house. They were both there the morning Lily went missing too. They used to play with my twin brothers, so I’d see them in and out. Everyone knew everyone back then,’ she says. ‘You could just call in to people without arranging it a week in advance. Not like now.’

The camera moves beyond Aoife and Ellen, and I can see a blonde woman facing away, chatting to someone off-screen. Is the blonde woman Mark’s mother? If Susie was friends with the Murphys and a regular at their parties, it quite possibly is her, but I can’t tell for sure. Now the camera sweeps back to Lily.

‘It’s weird watching it, and a bit … unsettling?’ I say. ‘They look so happy; they have no idea what’s about to unfold. God, it’s sad.’ I sit silently, aware of the understatement, staring at tiny Lily as she leans forward to blow out her three candles; at Mary’s smiling face as she kisses her daughter’s head. They are more than a story the estate agent tried to hide, more than a hazy memory in my head. They were real people, and just weeks after the video was filmed, one of them was gone.

9

May 1985

TINY FLAMES TURNED TO smoke, where candles burned just moments before. Mary leaned forward to kiss her daughter’s head.

‘Smile for the camera!’ Robbie was saying. She turned and smiled, the only person on this side of the table. The guests were lined up on the other side, tin soldiers flanking Lily. Singing for supper. Waiting for cake.

‘Shall we cut it, Lilybug?’ she asked her daughter.

‘Yes!’ came the unsurprising response, as Lily clapped still-baby hands.

Gently, Mary slid the knife through white frosting. With deft strokes, the cake was sliced into neat wedges and passed around to eager hands. Aoife and Ellen, two ponytailed teenage girls, took their slices to a corner of the kitchen and huddled together the way girls that age do. Cora O’Brien nibbled her slice around the edges, making it last as long as possible. Fran Burke inhaled her slice in two quick bites and stood expectantly, perhaps waiting for more. At seventeen, Fran was a little old to be at a child’s birthday party, Mary thought, but Robbie said they should invite everyone. And thankfully, it seemed to be a success – the guests were smiling, the cake was good, and she hadn’t messed up any of Rowanbrook’s unwritten rules. She glanced over at the windowsill, at her souvenir plate and her Alice in Wonderland figurine and her lighthouse. Her touchstones from home. A life with rules she could follow. But today was going OK.