Ann-Marie puts her arm around Lauren. ‘I’m sorry, I said too much. I don’t know. Believe me, I’m trying to find out more. Christine was so lovely. She wasn’t like anyone else here. That’s why I remember her so well, even though it was a long time ago. I always remember her.’ Ann-Marie pauses. ‘She gave me birthday presents.’

‘Why did I never get birthday presents?’ She feels her nose sting.

‘No … no. So … listen a minute. I was about seven – or eight – when she gave me the last one, the summer before she went away, a bit younger than you are now …’

Ann-Marie pulls herself up and takes the curving red stairs two at a time. Lauren follows her reluctantly. As she climbs she is sure she can hear dripping from the basement down below. The staircase is cavernous and dingy, and she drags her hand along fleur-de-lis wallpaper. At the top, Lauren sees a splinter of light from Ann-Marie’s bedroom.

The walls are dark purple and stuck with glossy posters of actors Lauren doesn’t recognize and a blurry Magic Eye picture. An art nouveau fireplace blossoms with flower-shaped fairy lights. A lava lamp bubbles above. In the corner of the room is an orange labyrinth of plastic tubing for rats. Ann-Marie is pulling a candy-striped shoe box from underneath her big iron bed. She brushes off a layer of beige dust from the lid. ‘Guess it’s been here a while.’

She thumbs through a pile of papers and cards. ‘Ah, look,’ she says, ‘here’s a card from Alan Mackie. I thought I had chucked them all out. And here it is – a birthday card from your mum and dad.’

‘Doesn’t Alan creep you out?’ Lauren asks.

‘He did send me a lot of birthday cards,’ she replies. ‘Well, one every year, from when I was about ten. And some presents. Two years ago he sent me a swimming costume and my mum asked him to stop.’ She shrugs and holds out the other card. It is light green, with a Celtic knot hand-stamped on the front. ‘So sweet, eh? Happy birthday with love from Christine, Niall and baby O.’

‘Baby O?’

‘That means you.’