Normally, it’s just people letting off steam. They shout and roar and send angry emails in a pique of their own grief and fear. People who are programmed to think all journalists are bottom feeders. Their anger fizzes out as quickly as it erupted. The death threats are more likely to come from bored keyboard warriors who only know how to talk the language of extremist Internet messaging boards. All bluff and bluster. But this … this is not like that.

Nothing about this story feels right.

Not Ryan’s reaction to my suggestions.

Not the way Declan Heaney had refused to say more after telling me he was sure that Jamesy Harte couldn’t have been Kelly’s killer.

‘We don’t need to talk about that any more, do we?’ Declan had said, pouring a second cup of tea out of the pot, hot tea leaking from the tin spout and trickling onto the table.

He didn’t make eye contact, but I knew he was done talking about Kelly and Jamesy and the aftermath of that horrific afternoon, and it would be unfair of me to pursue it further.

I’d reached across the table to rest my hand on his. He’d startled at my touch as if he wasn’t used to feeling the warmth of human contact. His hands were cold, thin, and his knuckles protruded like pebbles.

‘Of course we don’t. Well, not all the time, anyway,’ I’d said. It wouldn’t have done to go too far off topic for too long.

‘Dead on,’ he’d replied with a weak smile. ‘You know, sometimes it messes with my head too much.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ I’d told him, and that much was true.

‘And I’m fed up of listening to my own voice anyway,’ he’d said. ‘How’re you, Ingrid? Life seems to be treating you well.’

I’d smiled at him. Life was treating me well. It had its ups and downs, of course. But in the grand scheme of things – especially compared to Declan – I couldn’t, or shouldn’t, complain.

That’s what I’d thought earlier, anyway, before my car was attacked.

Maybe I’d have to watch my step a little with this one. Someone clearly wasn’t happy at having me snoop around.

Chapter Nine

Ingrid

Friday, 18 October 2019

I’ve had the nightmare again. The one I had throughout my teenage years. It’s been a long time since it bothered me, but here I am, shivering in my bed, my nightclothes damp with cooling sweat as scattered images jump about in my mind.

I woke myself up with my shouting. I’ve put the bedside light on. It’s past 5 a.m. and already I’m thinking I won’t go back to sleep. I don’t want to risk slipping back into that dream.