‘It can,’ he said. ‘Though I think you’re right. It probably shouldn’t.’

He kissed me on the cheek and ran out the door into the black winter morning and he didn’t look back so he probably didn’t notice I’d stopped breathing.

By 7 a.m., I was driving up the M8. I had intended to hit Dublin around 10.00, just after the morning rush hour, but the traffic had been rainy day bad and it was well after eleven by the time I arrived at the convent.

I’d have to conceal my reasons for being there but the dishonesty wasn’t going to come as easy as it had of late. Lying to a graduate on work experience was one thing, but lying to a nun? After finishing primary school, I went to St Angela’s Convent Secondary on Patrick’s Hill. Most of the classes were taught by lay teachers, but not all. I found out fast that nuns are human lie detectors, Sister Attracta, the history teacher, especially. I had been studious, mostly, but on any occasion I hadn’t done my homework, unfailingly she had called on me to read my answer to the class. Still, it had been good training. I had learnt that, when lying, it was best to tell as much of the truth as possible.

I crossed the road and pressed the doorbell, my breath misting the brass plate on the door. It could do with a shine, I thought. But there were few nuns now, and most of those were geriatric, well beyond such duties. Many convents had closed, and there was a real risk that Sister Bernadette was dead, or had moved to a retirement home. I was about to press the bell again when the door was opened by a small, chubby, orange-tanned woman in a neon green velour leisure-suit. Times had changed, though surely not this much? But the woman was much too young to be a nun, I realised.

‘Good morning, I’m here to visit Sister Bernadette, if she’s available,’ I said.

‘I’ll check,’ the woman said.

She sounded like a local.

‘What’s your name, love?’

‘Nola Fitzpatrick.’

Almost nobody calls me ‘Nola’ – I don’t encourage it – and Sister Bernadette was unlikely to be on Twitter, but you never knew. I wasn’t prepared to give a false name. That was a step too far, but a rarely used diminutive might provide some cover. At least the nun was still around – if it was the same woman. It was a common name, after all. I was regretting that I hadn’t asked Tiernan more about Sister Bernadette.