I can hear the rain battering off my window when I wake. The wind is howling, a vague hint of the banshee about it. I remember being terrified of that mythical Irish creature when I was small. It was one of the kids on the street, possibly even Niall or Declan, who first regaled us with stories of the wail of the banshee – a creature whose cry, carried on the wind, heralded a death.

The first time I’d watched the Disney movie Darby O’Gill and the Little People I had been frozen to the spot with fear by the appearance of the ghostly woman, ordering Darby to his demise.

‘You hear her, like a really loud wind in a storm, it means someone you love is going to die,’ I’d been told, and I’d lived in fear of every stormy day, every whistle of wind through the trees. How loud was loud enough to be the banshee? For a long time, I ran for cover every time I heard the wind roar.

The night Kelly died, the air was still.

I get up, pull open my bedroom curtains just as a fresh squall of rain and hail batters the window, startling me. It may be daytime, but it is still dull and grey outside. The kind of day that looks as if night could call at any second without any regard of the actual time. Cold radiates through the windowpanes, even though they are double-glazed. I shiver and close the curtains again.

I climb back under my duvet, reach for my phone and log in to social media. The word, it seems, is out. The death on the railway line is officially now a murder inquiry and the police have identified the victim as Jamesy Harte.

Ryan, or someone in The Chronicle, put the story live on the website at 7 a.m. and has shared it on Facebook. Even though it’s still early on a Sunday morning, a steady stream of comments have started to flood in. There is something so incredibly inhuman and cold about the number of people responding simply by clicking a Facebook emoji. The laughing-crying smiley face seems to be getting the most mileage.

The comments are filled with vitriol and triumphalism.

Make whoever did this first minister in Stormont. That’s how you deal with paedos.

Won’t be missed. Shoulda been strung up years ago.

Ha-ha! Hope he felt every second of it. Dirty bastard.

Thoughts and prayers with the Doherty family today – shame they had to wait twenty-five years for proper justice.

Yeeeooo! Best news I’ve heard all year.

Life should mean life. He never should’ve got out of jail.

May Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary have mercy on his soul, and the souls of those who did this.

– Mercy? He never offered wee Kelly any mercy. I hope he’s burning in hell right now.