Jamesy sniffs. ‘Well, maybe he was just getting a taste of his own medicine.’

He has sounded sad before. Scared. But here is the bitterness of a man whose own life was taken from him.

‘Jamesy, I know you must be upset,’ I soothe. His bitterness towards Liam makes me uneasy. ‘I know you’ve been robbed of your freedom for years, but surely you can’t think Liam Doherty deserves any of this.’

I can hear heavy footsteps as if Jamesy is pacing up and down his room. He sounds agitated. His breathing is heavy. I hear him take a drag on a cigarette.

‘He’s not as broken as he looks,’ Jamesy says at last.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Liam Doherty knows more than he was letting on about who set me up. I’m not surprised, after all these years, it’s come back to haunt him.’

‘You think he knows you were set up?’ I ask, incredulous. Surely it was in Liam Doherty’s interest – more than anyone else’s – to have his daughter’s real murderer brought to justice.

‘Aye,’ Jamesy says before coughing and taking another drag from his cigarette.

‘But why would he stay quiet all these years? You’re not suggesting he was involved in her death himself?’

The very thought seems so alien to me. Liam, for all his roaring and shouting, doesn’t seem like a man capable of harming his own child. He’s a broken man.

‘No. No. He didn’t do it. But that doesn’t make him innocent, either.’

I remember how angry Liam was when he called into the Chronicle offices – how he wanted the story pulled. How he said he hoped Jamesy would rot in hell.

Except that he didn’t say that, did he? He said he hoped Kelly’s killer would rot in hell. He’d never actually used Jamesy’s name.

‘Who do you think did it?’ I ask him.

There is silence at the other end of the phone. The pacing has stopped. I listen, his breath just audible down the line.

‘Jamesy?’ I say again and wait for his answer.

But the line just goes dead.

I stand up and stretch before walking to the balcony doors, which look out over the inky black water of the River Foyle. The river is swollen, choppy. It’s a bitter night and there are no walkers along the quay. I watch as the patrol boat from Foyle Search and Rescue passes, on the lookout for any poor soul tempted to end it all by jumping into those murky waters. I wonder how the volunteers manage, dealing with people in crisis each and every day.