So the family left for Inishfall, taking with them everything they meant to us. Katherine had to tell Namwali that her services would no longer be required. She cried as she did it. Namwali’s final paycheck was accompanied by a substantial bonus. The women, in tears, embraced and wished each other luck. When Namwali had gone Katherine was consumed by self-pity. Was this how bad she had become, that she sought comfort in the arms of a black woman, a woman to whom none of her friends would even speak?

Eventually they had been on the island for so long that Peter told Gerald Clinch to arrange for the Sandycove house to be rented out. I think an American family lives there now. Clinch had asked for surprisingly little money, because he knew he was offering tainted goods.

Two weeks after the Culhanes departed in their overloaded car for Inishfall, Laura Haines ran into Elaine Ross and Rebecca Dowling outside Karen Millen on Grafton Street. They chatted for five minutes about their Ailesbury College days. To Laura this felt like talking about a book she had read a long time before. Then they went to the Avoca Café for coffee.

Elaine asked Laura what visiting Richard in prison had been like.

‘Depressing,’ Laura said.

‘He must have been, like, so grateful,’ Elaine said.

Laura said nothing.

Rebecca said, ‘Did you see they have a sale on in Topshop?’

Elaine said, ‘I mean, I heard even his parents wouldn’t visit him.’

‘Where did you hear that?’ Laura said tonelessly.

‘I just heard it,’ Elaine said. ‘You know Naomi Frears is going out with Kevin Kerrigan now? How weird is that?’

‘She spoke at the funeral,’ Laura said.

‘Oh yeah,’ Elaine said.

There was a silence. Then Elaine said, ‘And have you seen him recently, like? Richard, I mean. I mean I wonder how he is.’

‘He’s down on Inishfall,’ Laura said. ‘I’m supposed to go and see him soon.’

‘Oh,’ Elaine said. ‘Well listen, good luck, alright? Tell him we were asking for him, like.’

The girls embraced and said goodbye.

That weekend Laura caught the InterCity Express to Kerry. It was early on the Saturday morning and the train was almost empty. From the window of her carriage, somewhere past Kildare, Laura saw a rugby pitch. Under the thin, raked shadow of the posts she could make out a long white sweep of speckled frost.

Peter Culhane met her at the station and drove her out to Inish-fall. As they crossed the concrete bridge the tide was in and the beaches of the island were invisible beneath the inundating sea. Laura looked at Peter as he drove. He was badly shaven – as though he had let someone do it for him instead of doing it himself – but his eyes were bright and clear. He drove with his hands reassuringly loose on the steering wheel. Laura knew she was looking at the last remnants of Peter’s patrician competence. By force of habit he was still an erratically charming man. But he didn’t speak to her until they arrived at the house.