I turn my head swiftly to him. ‘It was up at the reservoir. I know that.’

‘But you don’t know where exactly. I know none of us were ever allowed up there again. Not for a long time, anyway. The Dohertys, they didn’t want people knowing the exact spot. They didn’t want it being made a shrine. Said that wasn’t how she was to be remembered.

‘I wanted to leave flowers there, but my ma said no. But it might help you,’ he says, nodding towards my research on the wall. ‘For your book. It might help you get a sense of it. Properly. It hasn’t changed that much over the years. Surprisingly. A lot up there has changed, but not that spot.

‘I go there still, the odd time. I used to go more. I get a comfort of sorts from it. I suppose that makes me sound a bit weird.’ There’s that stiff, brittle laugh again.

‘I suppose we all do what we need to do to get through it,’ I say. ‘Maybe it would do me good to see it. Give me a better sense of things.’

‘Do you ever feel guilty about it?’ he asks.

‘About Kelly’s death? Yes. Don’t we all?’

That’s what makes this all so emotional for me. It could have been me, or any of one of us out playing and collecting apples and nuts that night.

I had been wearing a white dress, too. It wasn’t a first communion dress. I was too old for mine to have fitted me even if I had wanted to wear it. I think it was a summer dress. And a tinsel crown. A star on a stick, wrapped in tinfoil, just like the one Kelly had.

‘I sometimes wonder if we could have done more to protect her. She was younger. Maybe we should’ve watched over her more. Kept a closer eye on her. Isn’t that what community is all about? So yes, I do feel guilty. I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling that way.’

‘But, Ingrid, we were only children ourselves. We can’t carry the weight of that around forever. It’s enough that her life was destroyed.’

He stands up, walks back to the wall and runs his fingers down through the index cards again. He seems unduly agitated by the news.

‘This really is fascinating, Ingrid. You have everything here,’ he says, his tone falsely bright.

‘Not quite everything,’ I say.

‘No, I suppose not,’ he says. ‘But I suppose once news spreads about Jamesy, you’ll know more. God, I hope they’re not thinking of bringing him back here to bury. People will be lining up to dance on his grave.’

I look at him, shocked at his words.

‘They will, Ingrid. He doesn’t deserve to be allowed to rest in peace.’

Chapter Forty-Three

Ingrid

Sunday, 27 October 2019