‘The time capsules,’ he says. ‘Remember, you made me and Niall do them before the new millennium.’

‘The ones you were disgusted to do because you were fifteen and thought you knew everything there was to know about everything?’ she says, raising one eyebrow.

‘Aye. Those ones,’ he says, probably a little too harshly. He sees the way she winces at his tone, feels immediately guilty. ‘Sorry, Ma. But it’s important.’

‘What on earth could be so important about them that you need to storm in here at just gone ten on a Sunday morning and start pulling my house apart?’

Declan bites back the urge to shout at her. God knows she has been shouted at enough in her life. Memories wash over him of a different time. A different kind of household, where angry voices were a regular feature.

‘It’s just something I remembered that I need. To prove a point to someone.’

She eyes him suspiciously.

‘Declan, you’ve not got yourself into some sort of mess, have you? Because I don’t know how much more of that I can take. You’ve been doing well, don’t be going down that road again. All that trouble …’

The worry lining her face makes him feel guilty for everything he has put her through, but she has to understand it’s not all of his own making. Things happened and things changed him. Things he has never been able to talk about, because if he did it would blow the whole family apart. He couldn’t be responsible for that.

‘I’m not in any bother, Ma,’ he tells her. ‘Honestly. It’s just something I want to get my hands on. You know, Ingrid being around here and all this talk of Kelly Doherty, it’s just made me remember some stuff, you know. From back then. Not bad stuff,’ he hastens to add. ‘But I want to look over a few things anyway.’

‘It’s a bad business. No good will come of it,’ she says. ‘And Jamesy Harte dead. Murdered, they say.’ She blesses herself. ‘So much heartbreak.’ She shakes her head. ‘Look, your da will be home from Mass after eleven, if he doesn’t stop to chat to some of his cronies. I’m sure he’ll help you look.’

‘I don’t need to be bothering him with this,’ Declan says, because the very last person he wants involved is his da.

Not, at least, until he is sure what he’s going to do. And he needs to see Niall first. Needs to confront him.