I shake my head. ‘No. It doesn’t add up. I don’t think he’d have been capable of arranging something like that. And he sounded too upset, too angry, when he called me.’

Niall pauses. ‘So, how do you know the body on the tracks is his? They haven’t named anyone on the news. It might be someone else.’

‘I have a source in the PSNI and he’s very reliable. He confirmed it to me.’

Niall nods, pinches the bridge of his nose.

‘Niall,’ I say and take a breath. ‘My source told me foul play is suspected.’

Niall just stares at me, blinking occasionally. ‘Murder?’ he eventually asks.

‘That’s the approach the police are taking. I imagine there will be a press conference about it soon enough.’

Niall exhales slowly, rubs at his eyes. His leg jiggles up and down as if he is filled with nervous energy. He takes a breath and looks directly at me.

‘Well, I hope right now Jamesy Harte is rotting in hell. Where he belongs.’

I let his words hang in the air for a moment or two.

‘So, you definitely don’t share Declan’s conviction that Jamesy was set up?’

Niall laughs, a short, sharp burst. ‘No, I absolutely don’t share my brother’s view on that. Jamesy was always creeping around us kids. There was always something not quite right about him. I know you felt it, too. None of us would talk to him when we were on our own. Our parents wouldn’t let us. You remember that?’

I nod, but it’s only the vaguest of memories. Everything from then has become blended together, an amalgamation, I assume, of what actually happened, and what I’ve read and heard since. Our memories are strange creatures, so easily distorted and manipulated.

I barely register he is still speaking, tuning back in only to hear, ‘Her things were found in his house. There’s no reasonable excuse for that. I don’t know what other proof you need.’

Niall shakes his head. ‘Ingrid, if you’d seen what I did, on the banks of the reservoir that day, you wouldn’t feel one iota of sorrow for that man. It took me years to be able to close my eyes and not see her lying there. I was just a child myself. No child should have to see that.’

His voice is trembling, so I reach out and take his hand. I expect him to pull it away, for some reason. I’m not even sure why. But he doesn’t move and that comforts me. We were all so young. We’ve all carried this with us for so long now. But Niall and Declan have carried it more than most.

‘Would you like me to show you where she was found?’ he asks after a few minutes of not quite comfortable silence.