‘The thing is, Ingrid. When he turned back, he wasn’t crying at all. He was laughing. This mad, like hysterical or something laugh. But I swear he changed in that moment. Sometimes, I wonder had he changed long before that and I just hadn’t noticed.’

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ingrid

I ask Declan what he means. Tell him it was probably just shock making his brother laugh. We’ve all done it in horrible situations. Emotion bubbles up one way or the other – and not always the right emotion.

‘It’s hard to explain,’ he says. ‘But I’m his twin and I just felt as though everything was different after.’

‘Well, it was a massive trauma,’ I reply. ‘You were only children. It was bound to change you.’

‘Hmm, maybe. But I don’t know. It’s hard to remember, but I’ve a feeling we were on different paths from before then. He became very serious. Angry even. Always clashing with me da. Before that, it had been fun. Us up there all the time, pretending we were explorers and the like. You must remember that, Ingrid. How we all played in the summer up there. We never showed you our den, though. No girls allowed,’ he says with a wink. ‘It was like our own wee world.’

I do remember, although after Kelly had died, I don’t think I ever went near the place again. I was a timid child – scared of my own shadow, my mother said. But it had never been my shadow I’d been scared of. Before Kelly died, the bogeyman was just a myth; afterwards, he became real. And bad things really could happen.

But before then? Yes, like most of the children from the estate, we had decamped to the country park around the reservoir on the seemingly endless hot summer days. We built dens. We played until the light started to fade and we never really worried about our safety. We lived in an innocent bubble – strange, really, when you think of the political landscape of Derry at the time. The Troubles sputtering to a violent, dark and scary end.

‘Well, Niall didn’t want to play those games any more. Said they were for babies. He didn’t want to hang about with me so much, either. Wasn’t cool to have your brother as your best friend, ye know?’ Declan raises his eyebrows and looks at me. ‘Maybe he knew I was going to end up with nothing to offer the world anyway and wanted to cut his losses,’ he sniffs before looking around the room. ‘Look, if I open the balcony door here and hang my head out of it, could I have a wee smoke? Just a couple of puffs? Feeling a bit jittery, ye know.’

I can’t say that I’m scared of what he might do if I say no, but I don’t want any trouble.