I said, “Does that mean you’re still in love with Jenny?”

“I haven’t talked to her in years.”

Which was a whole different question, but both of them could wait. “Maybe not. But you’ve seen plenty of her, from your little hideout. How did that start, while we’re at it?”

I expected Conor to dodge around that, but he answered fast and easily, like he welcomed it: any subject was better than his feelings for Jenny Spain. “By accident, almost. Things weren’t going great, the end of last year. Work had dried up. It was the start of the crash—no one was saying it, not then, you were a traitor to the country if you noticed it, but I knew. Freelancers like me, we were the first ones that felt it. I was pretty much skint. Had to move out of my apartment, get a shite bedsit—you’ve probably seen it. Haven’t you?”

Neither of us answered—in his corner Richie was staying still and melting into the background, leaving me a clear shot. The corner of Conor’s mouth twisted. “Hope you liked it. You can see why I don’t hang out there if I can help it.”

“But you didn’t sound like you were wild about Ocean View, either. How’d you end up hanging out there?”

He shrugged. “I had time on my hands, I was down … I kept thinking about Pat and Jenny. They were who I’d always talked to, if anything was bad. I missed them. I just … I wanted to see how they were getting on. I just started wondering.”

I said, “Well, that much I can get. But your average Joe, if he wants to reconnect with old mates, he doesn’t set up camp outside their back window. He picks up the phone. Sorry if it’s a stupid question, old son, but that didn’t occur to you?”

“Didn’t know if they’d want to talk to me. Didn’t even know if we still had enough in common that we’d get on. I couldn’t have taken finding out that we didn’t.” For a second he sounded like a teenager, fragile and raw. “Yeah, I could’ve rung Fiona and asked after them, but I didn’t know how much they’d told her, didn’t want to put her in the middle … One weekend I just figured I’d head out to Brianstown, see if I could get a look at them, go home. That was all.”

“And you got your look.”

“Yeah. Went up into that house, where you found me. I was only thinking I might catch them coming out into the back garden or something, but the windows in that kitchen … I could see everything. The four of them at the table. Jenny putting an elastic in Emma’s hair so it wouldn’t get in her lunch. Pat telling some story. Jack laughing, food all over his face.”

I asked, “How long did you stay up there?”

“Maybe an hour. It was nice; the nicest thing I’d seen in I don’t know how long.” The memory smoothed the tension out of Conor’s voice, gentled it. “Peaceful. I went home peaceful.”