‘Liz Landry. She might.’

Mark carries on grilling and I sit at the kitchen table staring at my phone, trying to decide whether to message Liz now, interrupting her Saturday evening with a work-ish question, or to wait till Monday on the school run. Before I can decide, an email from an unfamiliar address pops through.

Joanna, thanks for your interest in the Lily Murphy case. I saw your first comment, but wasn’t sure about responding as I’m wary of giving up anonymity. It gives me the freedom to write what I want to write. But your second comment really caught my attention. What has made you decide Lily drowned after all? I was surprised to see it. In my experience, the more you dig into this case, the less likely it seems she drowned … Let me know what led you to this? Deep Dive.

Damn. Why did I ever write that first comment? Now there’s no easy way to close this Pandora’s box. I think for a moment then start to type.

Hi, thanks for getting back. It’s a long story, mostly based on research on true-crime websites. Maybe we could chat by phone?

The less I put in writing, the better. And maybe this person Deep Dive has some insight, something that will help me find out for sure if my mother took Lily. Jesus. Even thinking those words feels bizarre. Bizarre and sick. Which sums up Cynthia perfectly.

Cynthia. There’s no getting away from it. I need to go back there to find out more. You need to confront her, says a little voice in my head. Ask her directly. But if avoiding confrontation were a superpower, I’d be running the world. And never more so than when it comes to my mother. We can’t talk about my childhood (a ‘blur’ or ‘so boring’ or ‘Joanna, let it go’ are her stock responses) and we can’t talk about my father (‘a one-night stand’ or ‘I don’t even know’ or ‘Joanna, let it go’) and we can never, ever talk about Lila. I tried once, about six years after it happened. I asked her why Lila only came to us aged three. She was calm at first. Lila was with her dad, she said, but he didn’t want her any more. She looked wistful and almost sad and this was perhaps what lulled me into a false sense of closeness. Of reconciliation. Redemption.

I’m sorry, I said, for what happened to Lila.

And that was it. She stood, taller than me still, her hands, her bony fingers digging into my arms, as strong as when I was ten, the night it happened.

Don’t you ever, ever mention her name again. You lost the right when you did what you did.

And she pushed me so hard I fell to the floor. It comes back to me now clearly. Viscerally. Viciously. Lying on our grotty carpet, staring up at her furious face. I should have left then. Walked away. But she was my mother. And I wanted her love. If not love, then acceptance. So instead of leaving, I nodded and promised. I’d never speak of Lila again.