I had nodded, invited him through to the living room. Of course it was impossible for him to miss my fairly low-tech attempts at piecing together all the bits of this investigation and everything that has happened since.

‘You’re really looking at this from every angle?’ he’d asked as he examined the index cards, running his finger down some of them while he read. He had paused for just a moment when he reached the card with his name on it and had glanced back at me.

‘Fame at last,’ he said with a weak smile. ‘Or infamy.’

He paused again at the clipping from The Chronicle with the report on Kelly’s funeral.

‘That was a brutal day,’ he said before he’d spotted Jamesy Harte in the picture of mourners.

‘That man …’ he said, and I blurt out what I know.

‘That man is dead.’

I watch as Niall puts his hand on the back of one of my dining chairs, trying to steady himself.

‘Sit down,’ I urge. ‘I know it’s a shock.’

Niall does as I tell him and drops his head into his hands. For a moment I wonder if he is going to start crying, or maybe be sick.

‘I can’t believe it,’ he says, his voice quiet.

I sit down on the other side of the sofa, angle my body towards his. There is more to tell him and I’m not sure how he will react.

‘What happened?’ he asks.

‘Did you see the news at all today? The body on the train tracks?’

Niall sits back in the chair. It’s almost as if the weight of my words has pushed him back into the seat.

‘Jesus Christ!’ he exclaims. ‘Did he … Was it … Did he kill himself? How do you know all this?’

He blinks at me and there is no mistaking it now – there are tears pooling in his eyes. He tries to stop them from falling, but I notice his hands are shaking.

‘I mean, the police haven’t named him. And wasn’t that in Coleraine or somewhere? It could be anyone. I’d heard he was in Scotland.’

I shook my head. ‘He never left the country,’ I explain. ‘He’s been living in a bedsit in Portstewart. He’s not known as Jamesy any more. He’s Jim. I met him there for an interview just last week.’ I can hardly believe that’s all it has been. So much has happened. ‘I spoke to him last night,’ I tell Niall. ‘He was so upset with me for the article in the paper. And he’d heard about Liam. He said Liam was part of the whole plan to set him up.’

Niall’s skin pales further in front of my eyes.

‘So, do you think he was behind what happened last night at the Dohertys’?’ he asks, wide-eyed.