‘Only €120 for a pair of runners – are you mad in the head, child,’ Mark says, opening the patio door and stepping outside. A light breeze flickers through the stifling heat in the kitchen.

‘But the ones I’m wearing have a hole in them,’ Emily calls after him. ‘You don’t want me going to school with holes in my shoes, do you?’

Ben chimes in. ‘Oh – you mean the hole you made with the scissors, so you could get new ones?’

‘Oh my God, Ben, shut up. As if.’

‘Don’t say shut up,’ I tell her, on autopilot. ‘It’s not nice.’ It’s Saturday evening and Mark is thinking about putting on the barbecue, and now Emily wants to show me a new jacket she’d like too, and I smile and agree and admire and promise but I can’t concentrate on any of it. My mother kidnapped Lily Murphy. There is no other logical conclusion. I keep playing it over and over in my mind. The photographs of Lily online. The sharp shock of resemblance. The cold light of day telling me no, Lily is surely not Lila. The search for a connection – the hope that there was none. And then there she was. My mother, sitting on a picnic blanket, in Rowanbrook, in 1982. Still there in Rowanbrook in 1985. Still there during Lily’s final days. But why would she take her? She didn’t look after the daughter she had – leaving me alone in the flat on Woodbine Street; five miles and an entire world away from her life in Edenvale. Leaving me alone while she was working and partying and drinking and leeching. Leeching off the people of Rowanbrook, and then taking one of their own. But why?

‘Mark?’ I call, through the open patio door. The smell of grilling burgers wafts in. Someone – Fran maybe – is using a hedge trimmer. The sky is a midday blue, though it’s already six o’clock.

Mark looks up from the barbecue.

‘This is a little random, but did anyone ever ask for a ransom for Lily Murphy?’

‘A ransom? Not that I know of. Though I suppose I wouldn’t know … And I’m just thinking now, if the Murphys got a ransom request they’d be warned not to tell the police, right? Like on TV?’

‘Maybe … though if they paid a ransom, I suppose she’d have been returned.’

‘Not necessarily. On TV they’re always double-crossing – taking the ransom but killing the person anyway.’

My chest tightens at that. Breathe. ‘I wonder if there’s any way to find out if there was a ransom request?’ On some level, a stepped-back level, I can’t help marvelling at how calm I sound. ‘Or where Mary Murphy is now? You don’t know where she moved to, do you?’

‘Not a clue. Maybe our solicitor or estate agent would have some kind of record? There’d have to be a contact address on the legal docs when they sold … Who’s that friend of yours who’s an estate agent, would she know?’