She settles herself, sniffs and plonks an anaemic-looking scone on a side plate along with two pats of butter then brings the lot over to me. The tea is as dark as tar as I pour, overflowing and running down the spout, spilling onto the table. I hate strong tea, but I don’t ask her to remake it. I just add as much milk as I can without turning it cold and sip gingerly from it, the ashy tang of the scalded leaves burning my tongue.

I hear the door open letting in the noise from the street and an influx of cold air. I turn my head and look to see a man. Tall, thin and wrapped up against the cold. He stares at me and I feel uncomfortable in his gaze. This isn’t Jamesy Harte. Or at least it’s not the Jamesy Harte I remember from my childhood, or from the pictures I’d looked at on the train.

‘Ingrid?’ he asks, his voice soft.

There’s a familiarity to his tone that I can’t deny.

‘Jim?’ I ask, just as he had instructed.

No one calls him Jamesy any more, apparently. Not to his face. ‘People hear my name and they’ve already made up their mind about me,’ he’d said.

He nods, a flash of nervousness crossing his face, before sitting down opposite me. I realise he’s as scared as I am.

‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’ I ask him and he nods.

But I don’t want the waitress, no matter how nice she is, to come to our table, so I get up and go to the counter and order it there, waiting for it to be ready and carrying it back myself. With a shaking hand, I place the tea on the table, then I sit down. My mouth is dry and I can feel my body tense up. A moment or two passes. I’m at a loss for words. What do you say when you come face to face with your nightmare?

I sag with relief when the door opens again and a sodden family, loud and complaining about being out in the cold, bundle in and start to discuss what to order at the top of their voices. I feel marginally less nervous when there are more people around and I pull myself together enough to speak.

‘Thanks for agreeing to see me,’ I say as I try to find something recognisable from my childhood in his features. ‘You’ve changed.’

‘Well, so have you, young Devlin. All grown up now.’

He speaks in the same slow way he did on the phone. As if the words are struggling to come from his mouth. I can see his knuckles are white as he lifts his teacup, tension evident in his grasp.

‘Well, it’s been a long time,’ I tell him.