God, this woman. ‘Absolutely. Mark would love to meet you. So would his mother, I’m sure. Susie Stedman is her name.’

A slight frown that quickly clears.

‘Do you know her?’ I ask.

‘How would I know your husband’s mother. This is boring. Pour me a drink.’

I should say no. I should tell her to get her own drink. But somehow, we always revert to parent and child when I’m here. She demands – drinks, cigarettes, attention – and I comply. I fix her a whiskey and stand just close enough to hand it to her, then try again with my questions.

‘It’s just, I saw a photograph of you. From 1982, at a picnic with Susie Stedman.’ That’s enough for now.

‘I have no idea who this woman is but, who knows.’ She shrugs. ‘The eighties are a blur. Good times.’

Christ. I was six years old when that photo was taken. Six years old and home alone while she was leeching off the Rowanbrook residents. Drinking their wine and taking their cash and half minding their kids. Half minding at best. A ‘blur’? She could be talking about a night out, not a decade of negligence.

‘You were their babysitter.’

‘Was I?’ She sits up, swinging her legs around. Her feet are cracked and caked in grime. ‘I babysat your husband?’ She throws back her head and laughs.

‘More so his younger siblings, and some other kids in Rowanbrook. A girl called Cora, and … and a girl called Lily.’ Again, I watch. And again, there’s a slight crease in her forehead. So tiny, only someone who’s known her forty-two years would spot it.

‘If you say so.’

She flops back on the couch, eyes half closed. Sleepy and bored.

I sit, watching. Where to go from here? I can’t bring up what happened. She’ll never, ever forgive me for that. I can’t even say her name without bringing on a rage. But I need to know. Was Lila Lily? Was the sister I killed actually Lily Murphy? And if so, what was she doing here with us, while her heartbroken family searched?

27

June 2018

I LEAVE CYNTHIA AS she’s finishing her second drink, before she has a chance to ask me for a third. It’s impossible to say no to her. I couldn’t then and I still can’t now. Guilt and loyalty and a warped kind of love keep me paying her bills, and coming back, week after week. Often – mostly – I can’t bear her, but I can’t bear to cut the tie either. So I turn up and do my duty and fill her drinks and bring her cake. But I don’t stay long. And now I go, back into lazy Saturday morning traffic, home from what Mark thinks is a coffee with Adana.

On the way, I stop in to Susie. She’s surprised to see me again so soon.

‘Joanna, we are honoured. Twice in two days. Come in!’

‘I won’t stay, Susie, I just wanted to ask if I could borrow some of those old photos from yesterday? I’ll take good care of them.’