Of course, like Richard Culhane and Laura Haines, he regularly went to the Wesley Disco in Donnybrook. The Wesley Disco is mainly frequented by people in first, second and third year of secondary school. After the Junior Cert. it becomes uncool to go to the Wes. Most of Conor’s blow jobs in the bushes probably happened after a night at the Wes.

‘Were you at the Wes on Friday night?’ would go the typical conversation among Brookfield third years on a Monday or Tuesday morning.

‘Yeah, I was there for a while.’

‘You score?’

‘I got a handjob from this chick.’

‘Oh yeah? She hot?’

‘She was a fuckin’ dog, man.’

Laughter, high fives.

Girls don’t wear their underwear to the Wesley Disco. They take their thongs off in the bathroom at the beginning of the night. When they see a guy they like, they walk up to him and hand him the thong.

Scoring random girls had a certain cachet but Brookfield boys are respectful of the institution of the girlfriend. Conor was more sceptical than most about the idea of committing to a girl.

Nonetheless, Conor had several girlfriends. The one that made the deepest impression, before Laura came along and obliterated everyone else, was a girl from Belfast called Naomi Frears. Naomi was the girl Conor took to his Debs.

The Debs is a social ritual of immense importance in the Dublin private-school system. Schools nominate committees of students every year to set them up. By tradition, the Brookfield Debs is held in the Killiney Court Hotel, which is perched on a hill above the DART line and overlooks Killiney Bay.

Naomi Frears was a St Anne’s College, Foxrock, girl. (Joke: What does a St Anne’s girl do first thing in the morning? Goes home.) Conor met her in Russell’s in Ranelagh one night after a Senior Cup game. He picked her up at her house before the Debs. He brought flowers and chocolates for Naomi’s mother. That was the way it was done.

Before they left for the Killiney Court Conor and Naomi posed for the traditional Debs photograph in the living room of the Frears’ house in Goatstown. Here is the photo in its gilded frame: Conor looks awkward and pimply in his rented tux, Naomi is small and frail in a short black dress of some velvety material. They both smile with unaffected pride.

This was the most widely disseminated photograph of Conor during the months of the controversy and the trial.

In the picture he looks like a big man. But he wasn’t as tall as Richard Culhane and he wasn’t as strong as Stephen O’Brien.

I look at this picture often, because it seems to capture a moment of tranquillity, of justified complacency. It shows two young people who have no idea what is going to happen to them and no conviction that anything will ever change. I look at this picture often because I know what happened later that night.

Everyone gets very drunk at a Debs. Although the girls have spent weeks getting ready and the boys have spent two hundred quid on a tux and some flowers, the purpose of the evening is to get as drunk as you can as quickly as you can.