There were exceptions to the strictness of their Catholicism, though.

Richard and Laura had had sex, of course, on that afternoon of 30 August 2004, in their customary missionary position. As they lay on Laura’s bed, the condom they had used still lay, wrapped in tissue paper, in the waste-paper basket in Laura’s en suite bathroom. Although for religious reasons neither of them believed in contraception, they would never have dreamed of having sex without a condom.

That’s what I’m talking about. I’m talking about people who were capable of entertaining two wholly contradictory beliefs at the same time, and of perceiving no contradiction.

‘What are you wearing tomorrow night?’ Richard asked.

‘What would you like me to wear?’ Laura asked. She coyly twirled the last unstraightened wrinkle of her hair.

Richard knew that this question was not seriously meant. Any answer he gave would have no effect on what Laura decided to wear. This wasn’t why he had asked her about it.

‘Have you still got that hoodie?’

‘What hoodie?’

‘The black one. The one your mum bought you.’

‘I don’t know,’ Laura said.

She went into the en suite bathroom and closed the door. Richard put his hands behind his head. He noticed Laura’s pale-blue towelling robe hanging from a hook on the bedroom door, the cuffs tucked into the pockets in maternal reproof.

Laura emerged from the bathroom and vanished into the wardrobe. When she came out she was wearing the star-spangled hoodie.

‘This one?’

‘... Yeah.’

‘Do you like it?’

‘It’s alright.’

‘I’ll wear it if you want.’

‘It won’t actually be that cold,’ Richard said.

‘Whatever.’

Richard said, ‘Come here for a minute.’

‘Watch the hair.’

Carefully Laura lay on the bed. Richard put his arm around her.

‘I love you,’ Richard said.

‘I love you too,’ Laura said.

This was the fourth time they had spoken these words to one another (Laura had kept count), and the second time Richard had spoken them while sober.

They lay in silence for a while, a prone vignette of intimacy and accord. Then Laura said, ‘I have a lecture.’

She got up and took off the star-spangled hoodie. Richard said, ‘You hear Steve-o ran into Conor Harris the other day?’

‘Oh yeah?’ Laura said. She looked around for her second shoe.

‘Yeah, said he was being a real cunt.’

‘Yeah well Steve was probably pissing him off,’ Laura said.

Early on the Wednesday morning of that week – the last week of Conor’s life – Stephen O’Brien had encountered Conor Harris outside Club 92 in Leopardstown. They had both been drinking. They had a two-line conversation that went like this:

‘How’s your ma, Conor?’

‘Fuck off, Steve.’

Richard Culhane hadn’t witnessed this exchange.

‘One of these days,’ he said now, ‘I’m gonna get that bastard.’

‘Come on,’ Laura said. ‘Help me find my other Converse.’

Richard looked up and out of the open window. The last layer of fleecy cumulus had invisibly dispersed. With an unwavering howl of effort, an airplane – at this distance a smoothly mobile point of reflected sunlight – clove diagonally in two the flawless sky.