He doesn’t give me a chance to respond. He bows his head and directs his attention at one of the two computer screens in front of him. As far as he is concerned, the conversation is over, but he’s wrong. It’s just on pause. It will resume the next time he slips his arms around my waist and pulls me to him, moaning in my ear that he needs me.

I stalk back to my desk and sit down. Trina, one of my fellow reporters and the closest thing I have in the office to a real friend, gives me an ‘Is everything okay?’ look.

I shake my head, roll my eyes. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ I mouth, and she nods.

The newsroom is, unusually, deathly quiet. Everyone is hard at work, or hard at pretending to work. Even Tommy, our junior reporter who is usually up for a bit of banter, has his head bent low and his fingers are battering his keyboard with unnecessary force. I catch Jim, our very old school and nosy subeditor, glancing up at me, but he looks downwards as soon as he spots I’m looking at him. I know they were all listening. Now I’m seething.

How did Ryan know I was in Creggan, or that I was talking to Declan Heaney? I take my phone out of my bag, where Declan’s number is now stored along with a recording of our chat in the café. I knew I’d only scratched the surface with him and if I got to speak to him again, I could get more out of him. I just had to be patient. And defy Ryan.

I’m not denying that Declan is a damaged individual. He’d not been shy about telling me how he has struggled to cope, and hasn’t always made the right decisions, or even good decisions. He has an acute reminder in the shape of his overachieving twin brother that his life could have been very different. I’ve arranged to meet him again next week to chat some more. His story is powerful. It makes for good emotive copy. It illustrates how Kelly and her family were far from the only victims that day.

I don’t understand why Ryan isn’t crawling all over this.

I log in and check my email to find a note from Lisa on reception.

Councillor Duffy called. Can you call him about an interview with the Doherty family.

He said you’d know what it was about.

I allow myself a self-satisfied smile.

Chapter Seven

Ingrid

‘You won’t over-sensationalise it, will you?’ Councillor Lorcan Duffy asks me.

He’s been appointed as media go-between for the Doherty family and is taking his role exceptionally seriously, even if his understanding of how the media works is limited.

‘Of course I won’t,’ I say, and it’s true.