I’ve learned that her eating disorder never really went away.

Laura’s family lived in Ranelagh. She had gone to Ailesbury College, a private school for girls. Her mother had gone there, too. I used to see the Ailesbury College students in their leaf-green uniforms as I walked into college in the early morning. They gathered in cliques at corners and bus stops to smoke. The fifth- and sixth-year girls went out on Friday nights, usually to clubs in Stillorgan or Temple Bar. On Saturday mornings they would get out of bed and, still wearing their pyjamas, convene in Coffee Society in Ranelagh for a gossip session about the events of the night before. Laura was always at the centre of these gossip sessions, even if, in her careful way, she made sure that none of the gossip was ever about her. People told Laura things. Girls confided in her. Of course Laura fell victim to a certain amount of the coded viciousness that feminine beauty reliably provokes in other girls. But I never heard anyone accuse her of cruelty or malice. Girls wanted her attention. They wanted her love, her kindness.

It still strikes me as odd that I had never met Laura Haines, had never even seen her in the flesh, as late as May of 2003. I’d heard people talk about her, of course. In the strangely limited way in which people can be famous in south Dublin, she was famous. I had seen photographs of her, what they call candid snapshots, taken on nights out with friends, photos passed around the web by people who knew people who knew people. This is how I recognized her when I saw her outside Simmonscourt Pavilion that afternoon.

In May of 2003, Laura Haines had just started going out with Conor Harris.

They met on Senior Cup final day. The final that year was Brookfield versus St Michael’s. Brookfield took it with a miraculous conversion in the last minute. The biggest of the several celebrations that ensued took place in Kiely’s in Donnybrook, late that afternoon.

Conor was walking from the coach that had brought the team from Lansdowne Road. He had ended up accompanying the team in the coach because of his celebrity status. Laura was with a gang of Brookfield supporters, Ailesbury College girls who were dating Brookfield boys. Laura was single at this time. She had been single for three months. Conor Harris and Laura Haines found themselves in the same crowd on the same street in Donnybrook as they walked towards Kiely’s.

The street was full of people in the Brookfield colours, those strident reds and whites. Laura was wearing a red T-shirt and a short, white, ruffled skirt. She had a red plastic flower, a borrowed ornament, in her hair.

Laura and Conor began to talk on the street. They didn’t know each other’s names. This is perhaps the most amazing thing, that of all the people on that crowded street, it should have been Laura and Conor who found one another. They had dozens of mutual friends. People have said, in vibrant tones, that they were destined to be together.