I sit back now, staring at the paper. Perhaps this means I’m right – the room had once been Lily’s. And I’m swamped now, overwhelmed with the memory of a small, trusting face and big blue eyes. She knew I’d never do her harm. And then I did.

On Monday night, Mark is late home from work. The kids are already upstairs, and I’m on the couch, deep in Google, when he joins me.

‘Do you want to watch that new thing with the subtitles?’ he says, picking up the remote. ‘Apparently it’s brilliant once you get halfway through the second season.’

‘You go ahead – I have some research to do.’

‘Research?’

‘Yeah,’ I say, not looking at him. ‘A DIY project.’ My cheeks heat up at the fib as I angle the Mac screen away and shift towards the end of the couch, not entirely sure why I’m lying. Then again, ‘I’m googling Rowanbrook residents to see if one of them is the link between Lily Murphy and me’ isn’t a great opener either.

I started earlier with Mark’s parents, but there was nothing of interest and little I didn’t already know. A fifty-year wedding anniversary announcement in the Irish Times, highlights from Tom’s career with Bank of Ireland, and an occasional photo of Susie in magazine society pages. But nothing that suggests I ever met them before that first time Mark brought me home for Sunday lunch. I try Victor O’Brien and this is where it gets morbid. Less than a year after Lily went missing, he drove his car off a bridge. Well over the limit with alcohol, traces of cocaine too, and driving through the worst storm the country had seen for years; nobody could say if it was deliberate or not. The date jumps out at me. 19 March 1986. The same year and maybe even the same month my sister died, though I only remember it was near Easter. I turn that over, wondering. But staring at Victor’s photo – his ruddy face and thick beard and humourless frown – I can’t see any connection. Next up is Ines O’Brien, Victor’s wife. Cora’s mother. Like Susie, she appears occasionally in magazines. Unlike Susie, Ines does not smile. In every photo, she looks somehow … hard. At war with the world. I find a small piece in a newspaper feature on bilingual homes. She was half-Spanish, it says, spending much of her time back home in Málaga with her mother, and raising Cora to be fluent in Spanish. That gives me an idea. I flick through the Rowanbrook WhatsApp group member list, and find Cora’s number. I hesitate. This is like commenting on the Deep Dive blog – asking questions that could indeed lead to answers for me, but also to awkward enquiries from other people. Then again, Cora seems like someone who might talk without worrying unduly about why I’m asking.

With her number saved to my Contacts, and a quick glance at Mark, I start to type.