Not that Declan has tried hard drugs. Well, nothing more than a couple of Es when he was out as a teenager. Like so many before him and since, alcohol is his drug of choice. Grass is just the chaser. Or possibly it’s the other way around. He’s not fussy.

He downs the pint of water as if he is taking on the lead role in the old black and white movie, Ice Cold in Alex and he feels better for it. He’ll get dressed and, despite the rain he can hear lashing outside, go down to his ma’s. Sunday dinner, again, will be eaten around the family table. If he is lucky, Niall will be on his way to Belfast soon and won’t be there to pass comment when his ma slips him the money for the electricity. Or to make any other snide remarks about what Ingrid Devlin does or doesn’t think of him.

Of all the things in his life that disappoint him – and there are many, right now – he is most disappointed in her, he thinks as he brushes his teeth and drags a blunt razor over his face. He never quite manages the fully clean-shaven look. The kind that Ingrid, it would seem, likes.

Yes, he is disappointed in her. He’d tried to be fair. He’d tried to warn her. He thought she’d listened when he told her about Niall. He thought she’d been kind and interested in him. But she is just like all the others. Once Niall walked in with his patter and his big car and his gym body, Declan might as well have been a ghost. He’s just a shadow of what could’ve been.

He slaps some aftershave on his face, feeling it sting as it catches a small nick, and he wipes the steam from the bathroom mirror. ‘Wise up, Declan,’ he tells himself. ‘That’ll teach you for having notions about yourself.’

He pads back into the bedroom then digs through his chest of drawers to find clean socks. A thought enters his head. If he could prove to Ingrid that Niall isn’t all he seems, you know, really prove it, it might make a difference.

He gets dressed as quick as he can, and not just because it’s cold, but because he has an idea. He grabs his coat, his keys, his wallet (for all the good it does him; there’s nothing in it but his electricity top-up card) and reaches for his phone – which he vaguely remembers leaving to charge in the living room. He’d switched it off last night before he started smoking. The last thing he wanted to do was get high and start messaging people to tell them exactly what he thought of them. And by people, he meant Ingrid.