‘I’ll help you tell your story if you let me,’ I say. ‘I’m looking into everything surrounding Kelly’s death. I’d like to meet you and talk to you about it.’

‘But it’s not for The Chronicle?’ he asks. ‘I don’t want anything to do with that paper.’

I suck in a breath. ‘No, Jamesy. It’s not for The Chronicle. It’s for the other papers I told you about. Maybe even a book.’

I hear him suck air in through his teeth. ‘A book? About me?’

‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘I mean, I have to run it past my editor and all, but we could start to chat.’

‘You won’t tell people I’m a monster,’ he says. ‘I’m not a monster. You have to believe me. I can’t talk to you if you don’t believe me.’ There is a childish pleading quality to his voice now.

‘I just want to hear your side of the story, Jamesy. So I can tell it to people. Don’t you think it’s time you had a voice in all this?’ I purposely don’t tell him whether or not I believe him – because the truth is, I’m not sure where I stand.

But I won’t break the third rule of journalism – flatter and cajole your subjects. Make them feel they are in control of the narrative.

‘I do, I really do,’ he answers.

‘Then can we arrange to meet? Talk about this face to face?’

He pauses for a second. ‘Well, I’m not in Derry,’ he says. ‘I’ve never gone back there. Not when I got out eight years ago, and not since. And sure, there’s nothing for me to go back to anyway. Mammy’s long gone. The house passed on to someone else. Derry forgot about me,’ he says.

I hear him sniff, wonder if he’s crying.

‘Where are you staying?’

He pauses, clears his throat. ‘Ingrid,’ he says, ‘can I really trust you? Because if the people here knew what they said I did, I think they might try to hurt me. Or if people from Derry knew where I was … I’m scared, you know. I know there’s a price on my head.’

‘You can trust me,’ I tell him. For the most part I mean it, certainly when it comes to his location anyway.

He shares his address with me; a small seaside town on the Antrim coast. The kind of place flooded with children in the summer looking to play on the beach or at the amusements. It strikes me as an odd choice for him, but then again, if he is as innocent as he says he is, why would it matter if there are children running around all over the place? He’s no threat to them.