One day, I’m gonna get that bastard.

Bang.

This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.

Bang.

We fucking showed that little cunt.

Bang.

26

Conor Harris and Laura Haines formalized their relationship at a subdued Friday night party in Fergal Morrison’s house in Milltown, less than a week after they had fallen into step beside one another in Donnybrook on Senior Cup final day. They were sitting in a corner of the huge conservatory where Fergal’s father kept the snooker table. Fergal was trying to teach his then-girlfriend, Caoimhe Murphy, how to play snooker, and some people were gathered around the small bar by the kitchen door. Conor and Laura sat in a broad wicker chair in the corner and kissed and talked.

‘So,’ Conor said when the conversation had reached the appropriate point. ‘Are you my girlfriend now, or what?’

They listened to the soft clicks and pocks from the snooker table.

Laura giggled. ‘I suppose I am.’

That was how it was decided.

I think, by this stage, Conor Harris had realized that he was obsessed with Laura Haines. In particular, he was obsessed with her body. Later that night, in the spare room of Fergal Morrison’s house, they saw each other naked for the first time. They didn’t have sex, though, not straight away. Laura said she thought a month would be the wisest length of time to wait before they fucked. When the Brookfield boys asked if he had managed to stick it in Laura Haines yet, Conor would smile and say nothing.

People were envious of Conor Harris and Laura Haines, but nobody felt comfortable describing them as a golden couple. While their relationship lasted, Conor seemed too intense and Laura seemed too withdrawn. They weren’t quite the perfect match that, later, people would praise Laura and Richard Culhane for being.

You saw Conor and Laura together, and you noticed the strained quality of the attention they gave each other. Conor was always leaning in to catch whatever Laura said. People thought he was doing it to mask what she said from everyone else. People thought that Conor wanted Laura all to himself, that he wanted to be the sole recipient of her spoken feelings.

For a while they were the sort of couple who spend every night out kissing in a corner.

But it wasn’t in either of them to be so private, so absorbed. They drifted back into the stream of sociability in less than a month. By Christmas 2003 they had stopped giving off that aura of a prior attachment that stops people chatting you up in nightclubs.

By now they were sleeping together on a regular basis. Laura’s house was often empty during the daytime. And then there were parties and weekends away. Laura was on the pill but they used condoms all the time. Nevertheless, in February of 2004, they had a pregnancy scare.

Laura’s period was three weeks late. She told Conor not to worry about it.

‘How can I not worry about it?’ Conor said.