And there was our motive, the oldest one in the world. In a strange way, it was comforting, knowing that I had been right, way back at the beginning: this hadn’t blown in off the wide sea like some killer gale and crashed into the Spains at random. It had grown out of their own lives.

I could feel Richie practically thrumming, beside me, with how badly he wanted to move. I didn’t look at him. I said, “You thought it was Jenny he wanted. He was going out with you to get closer to her.”

I tried to soften it, but it came out brutal all the same. She flinched. “I guess. Sort of. I think maybe partly that, and partly he was hoping, if we were together, we’d be like them; like Jenny and Pat. They were …”

On the page facing the group shot was a photo of Pat and Jenny—taken the same day, going by the clothes. They were side by side on the wall, leaning into each other, faces turned together, close enough that their noses brushed. Jenny was smiling up at Pat; his face looking down at her was absorbed, intent, happy. The air around them was a hot, sweet summer-white. Far behind their shoulders, a slip of sea was blue as flowers.

Fiona’s hand hovered over the photo, like she wanted to touch but couldn’t do it. She said, “I took that.”

“It’s very good.”

“They were easy to shoot. Most of the time, when you’re taking a shot of two people, you have to be careful with the space in between them, how it breaks up the light. With Pat and Jenny, it was like the light didn’t break, just kept going straight across the gap … They were something special. They both had a load going for them anyway—they were both really popular at school, Pat was great at rugby, Jenny always had a load of guys after her—but together … They were golden. I could’ve watched them all day. You looked at them and you thought, That. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Her fingertip brushed their clasped hands, skated away. “Conor … his parents were separated, his dad was over in England or somewhere—I’m not positive, Conor never talked about him. Pat and Jenny were the happiest couple he’d ever known. It was like he wanted to be them, and he thought if we went out together, we might … I didn’t put all this stuff into words at the time, or anything, but afterwards, I thought maybe …”

I asked, “Did you talk to him about it?”

“No. I was too embarrassed. I mean, my sister …” Fiona ran her hands through her hair, pulling it forward to hide her cheeks. “I just broke it off. It wasn’t that big a deal. It wasn’t like I was in love with him. We were just kids.”

But it must have been a big deal, all the same. My sister … Richie shoved back his chair and headed across to switch on the electric kettle again. He said easily, over his shoulder, “I remember you told us Pat got jealous of other guys fancying Jenny, back when you were teenagers. Was that Conor, yeah?”