Hi Cora, this is Joanna here, from 6 Rowanbrook Drive. I hope you don’t mind me messaging! (I’m assuming this is Cora O’Brien who I met at our housewarming, please excuse if I have wrong number.)

We’re still settling in and trying to get to know the area. I was wondering if we could meet for coffee some time and you could show me the ropes – tell me a bit about the neighbourhood and who’s who?

As soon as it’s sent, blue ticks confirm Cora has seen it. Cora is typing … my phone tells me. And then as Mark suggests Spotlight for the third week running, because he keeps forgetting we’ve seen it already, the reply pings through.

Hi Joanna. Yes it’s me! I’d love to meet for coffee. I lived here when I was a child as you know. I know area v well. I can tell you about the Residents’ Association. I just joined. You should too! We can meet tomorrow morning. I’m off work but no plans. There’s a cafe in Edenvale called The Sugar Tree. See you there at 10? Looking forward to it! Cora.

Tomorrow morning. Cora is keen. Then again, so am I. I tell her I’ll be there and go back to Google. There’s no point in searching under Robbie and Mary again, I know their results off by heart. Susie and Tom’s words play in my memory. An altercation between ‘Eddie something’ and Robbie, and the rumour that Robbie was in a relationship with a ‘small girl, the pretty one’.

‘Mark?’

He looks up from his phone.

‘When we were over in your mum’s on Thursday night and we were talking about Lily Murphy, she mentioned a guy called Eddie – she said there was some kind of fight between him and Robbie Murphy?’

‘Oh yeah … that’s right. Robbie ended up with his arm in a bandage or something.’

‘Do you remember Eddie’s surname?’

‘Hogan. Eddie Hogan.’

Why didn’t I ask him sooner? ‘Great. And your mum also said there was a girl, a “small, pretty one” in a relationship with Robbie Murphy?’

‘Yeah.’ He sits up straighter. ‘I’d forgotten all about that rumour. Zara was her name. She was a good friend of Fran’s.’ His cheeks flush and I wonder again about Mark and Fran, and it makes me smile to think of him keeping it from me. ‘A rumour went around that Zara got pregnant by Robbie Murphy. That was awkward. Robbie’s child disappears and meanwhile, he’s fathered another one with a teenager.’

‘Holy shit.’

‘To be honest, I don’t know if the pregnancy bit was true – I never heard about her having a kid. But there were very strong rumours about the relationship between them.’

‘There was me thinking everyone was very boring back in the eighties …’

‘Yep. Rowanbrook might look sedate and wholesome, but behind closed doors, it was all going on.’ A knowing nod. ‘And Robbie and Zara weren’t the only ones.’