Sarah stood alone in the darkroom, absorbed by the ghostly images that emerged from the developing fluid like bodies drowned in a pool. Elation grew in her as the pictures materialised, gradually rising in clarity until she could see the spinning figures, the lined faces and gnarled hands, the curl of cigarette smoke hanging over eyes that had seen too much sorrow. These were good. Very good. She had been afraid to hope, but now she lifted each enlargement from the tray with the plastic tongs, rinsed it off and hung it up to dry, and knew that the photographs told a story. The men and women were sitting round a table in a shabby kitchen, on the margins of despair, propping one another up with bravado and cigarettes, smiling bravely into the lens, their fingers nicotine-stained as their lives were tainted by other dependencies. She had taken the pictures last week, in St Joseph’s Shelter, the refuge for alcoholics and drug addicts on the Liffey, up near the railway station at Sarsfield Quay. Sarah had been working there as a volunteer since that first time last winter when she had gone to help at the soup kitchen. It was strange how one random, seemingly unimportant decision had given her life a sudden twist.

She had seen the poster on the college noticeboard one afternoon.

Volunteers wanted to help at a City Centre Dinner for the Homeless on Tuesday, 26 November

It was a day when she had been feeling exceptionally lost. She was sharing a flat with Tim, but as a houseman in a casualty unit he was seldom at home. When she did see him, he was so tired that he was incapable of being good company. Her dreams of shared student parties with new friends and Tim’s colleagues from medical school had fizzled out, through a combination of her own crippling shyness and her brother’s punishing hours. Looking at the college noticeboard, she decided that she should make a contribution to people less well off than herself, and perhaps she might make friends among the other volunteers at the same time.

Two nights later she arrived at the parish centre on Merchant’s Quay. A Franciscan priest in a brown robe and open sandals steered her towards a young man laying tables in the hall.

‘This is Sarah Mackay, Mike. Will you show her what to do?’

‘Sure, Father Connolly.’ The young man counted out another place setting before looking up.

‘Can I help you with those?’ Sarah asked. ‘Or is there something else?’

His smile lit up a dark, rather serious face, making him less forbidding. He scanned her briefly, taking in the cut of her wool dress, the blue beaded necklace and pale suede boots she had inherited from Camilla.

‘Well now—’ He put down his pile of cutlery, then pointed to an empty table. ‘I suppose you could—’