‘Yes we are,’ Brendan said.

He meant a great deal by this remark. He meant that Conor’s funeral would not just be an opportunity to mourn. It would also be an opportunity for the Harrises to show how deeply angry they were, how committed they were to finding justice for their murdered son.

He also meant that funerals had always seemed to him the occasions of a needless public martyrdom. He wanted to grieve in private. But the world wouldn’t let him.

‘He was murdered, Eileen,’ Brendan kept insisting. ‘I don’t care what anyone says. Our boy was murdered.’

Each time he said this, Brendan seemed to find new impetus for his anger.

If you don’t have real strength, he had learned, anger will often suffice.

The night before the funeral, Brendan had wheeled out the recycling bin and set it on the kerb. He wanted to keep busy. He wanted to immerse himself in the domestic, the housebound. Standing in the driveway, he looked around at the neighbouring houses, at the dormant, shiny cars. He saw the small red security lights that ticked on the dashboards of the jeeps and SUVs.

Security, he thought. We’ve lost it, now. We are no longer secure.

Newspaper reporters and TV crews had been asked to stay outside the church, but during the Mass there were occasional flares as someone took a picture. I had expected the day to have an air of celebration about it, a sense of novelty perhaps, but the scrutiny of so many strangers, the intrusion of so many into what should have been a private event, seemed to make everyone more grave and solitary. It was a heavy occasion: the warm air was heavy, and people walked heavily as they made their way to the church.

The funeral made the six o’clock news as part of the coverage of the ongoing investigation into Conor’s death. There was a stylized solemnity to the image of his coffin being carried out of the church by six pale, shaven college boys, their heads bowed, their eyes lowered. He was one of us, their faces seemed to say. We take care of our own, even in death. Many people found this the most difficult part of the day. The image showed up on TV every evening for a week.

At this point the gardaí were working on the theory that a rugby-school rivalry had been the cause of the fight that killed Conor.

The church, crammed to overflowing, was stuffy and hot. The Harrises sat in the row nearest the front. Close behind them was their extended family: brothers and cousins, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles. Directly behind the extended family were Conor’s Brookfield Leaving Cert. class, wearing dark suits and red-and-white scarves, respectfully tied. The boys looked unnaturally sombre, sitting in silent ranks on the wooden pews. It was, I suppose, a class reunion of sorts for them, but they had grown up to be sharply conscious of the need to suppress their natural levity at times of crisis such as this.