‘Wow, who else?’

‘Ah, a lot of it was just rumours,’ he backtracks quickly.

‘Mark, you can’t say something like that and not tell me the rest.’

‘Well, there was a woman called Ines O’Brien – the one who brought me home from the park when the babysitter forgot me?’ I nod and he continues. ‘She was supposedly cheating on her husband left, right and centre. If you believed the rumours at the time, she was somehow having concurrent affairs with Eddie Hogan, Robbie Murphy, Fran Burke’s father before he ran off, and even a guy in my class in school. But Ines was Spanish and kind of glamorous compared to everyone else, and she travelled a lot. I don’t know if she was really having affairs or if she just looked like someone off Dynasty and everyone assumed she must be.’

‘OK, go on. Any other affairs or rumours?’

He shakes his head. ‘I can’t.’

‘Mark! I’m your wife, spill.’

‘Oh God. OK, this is kind of gross, but there was a rumour about my dad and the babysitter.’

My jaw drops. ‘Tom? You’re kidding.’

‘It’s not true. But if we’re talking about rumours that went around at the time, that was one of them.’

‘Jesus, does Susie know?’

‘Do you honestly think that’s the kind of thing you ask your mother?’ A beat. ‘Sorry.’

‘You don’t have to say sorry.’ His misplaced sensitivity is kind, but never fails to make me feel guilty. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘Sorry,’ he says again. ‘Just with that gorse fire in the news all the time, I wasn’t sure if you were OK … you don’t really talk about it.’

For very good reasons. Out loud I say: ‘Honestly, it’s fine. Tell me more about your dad and this babysitter?’

‘Yeah … I don’t know if Mum heard the rumours back then – I hope she didn’t. I heard it at school. Can you imagine being a sixteen-year-old guy and having some fucker come up to you and say your dad’s screwing the babysitter?’

‘What did you do?’

Mark goes red. ‘I punched him.’

‘Mark!’

‘Yeah. He was this guy who lived here in Rowanbrook. Married someone from here too. Actually, I think he died a few years ago, which is weird to think about now. Gavin was his name. Thought he was God’s gift to girls – all stonewashed denim and floppy hair and cigarettes hanging out of his mouth.’

‘Mark Stedman, there’s a dark side to you! I can’t imagine you punching someone.’

‘He deserved it, and not just for what he said about Dad and yer one. He was creepy as fuck, always hanging around, watching out of these half-closed too-cool-for-school eyes. Like he thought he was James Dean. He used to watch Mary and Lily all the time apparently – I remember people talking about that. Just staring.’

‘That’s starting to sound like more than just “creepy” – did anyone tell the guards?’

‘Ah no, it wasn’t anything to do with her disappearance.’ Mark stops for a moment, tilting his head. ‘Though according to my mother, he was there that day, watching the younger ones play Hide and Seek in the building site.’