‘It most certainly has,’ he says wistfully. ‘Too long. Sure, it was another life. It’s like I was a different person then you know. Before …’ He speaks with sincerity, his eyes misty with emotion.

‘You been here long?’

‘Coupla years,’ he says with a shrug. ‘When I got out, they found me a place in Ballymena, but it wasn’t for me. I didn’t like it, so my social worker, you know, she helped me find a place here. It’s not much, but at least it’s near the water. I always liked the water.’

An image of Kelly’s broken body lying on the banks of the reservoir comes into my head. I push it away.

‘There was never any question of me going back to Derry,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing for me there. It’s not home, you know. It stopped being home a long time ago. Then when Mammy died …’

A tear, followed by another, rolls down his cheek. He brushes it away as if he is ashamed of it. It strikes me that shame seems to hang over him like a cloud. It lines his face. It spills out of his mouth with his words. Shame, for something he said he didn’t do. Shame that so many people have piled on top of him. Me included.

‘It broke her heart, you know. Me going to jail. The things they said about me. The things they said I’d done. How does a mother get over that?’

I set my phone to record as subtly as I can. He glances at it, looks up at me as if he is realising for the first time that this is an interview and not just two people chatting.

He takes a deep breath.

‘She wouldn’t visit me in prison. Did you know that? Said she wouldn’t be able for seeing her son behind bars. She’d rather not see me at all. I think she was worried if she did come, well, some people wouldn’t like that. She’d be run out of town. My poor mammy. She didn’t ask for any of this.’ His eyes, bloodshot, tired, blink at me. ‘The last time I saw her was at the sentencing. The last time I got a hug from my mother …’

He sips from his tea, looks out of the window, past the thick drops of moisture running down the inner panes. He doesn’t finish his sentence. He’s lost to the memory playing out in his head.

‘But you spoke to her? Or wrote?’