I was at my desk, staring out the window at the rooftops and the sky, and waiting, waiting. When the call came at last, I messaged Davy to let him know the news and said I’d talk to him more when I met him later. We saw each other most days. In my mind, I still wasn’t calling what we had going on between us a ‘relationship’. But the rest of the world probably would.

My feet took me down the stairs to MacSwiney Street, along Liberty Street and on to Castle Street. Had Deirdre walked this way on the last evening of her life? I thought about her all the time, and about Rhona, who would still be alive if I hadn’t visited her that one time.

By the time I got to the Roundy, other people knew the news too: it had come through on their phones. Early evening drinkers waved at me from sunlit tables, and gave me the thumbs-up. I’m famous now. I had had to give evidence after all. Cornered, Gill had gone on the attack – on Donnie and on me. I had spent three whole days in the witness box being cross-examined by his very expensive silk. Allegations of unprofessional behaviour were the least of it. He tried to target my mental state, brought up again the allegations he had made that I had threatened him and put him in fear, tried to suggest I had planted evidence.

And the jury had bought none of it. Their verdict was unequivocal: Donnie Bryant and Jeremy Gill guilty of murder and Esther Gill guilty too. The truth about the twisted dynamic that had bound the trio together for so many years would remain a mystery, but special supplements were planned for the weekend’s papers, a ‘tell all’ television documentary was in production, and a hastily assembled true crime book was almost ready to go to press. I had been asked to give interviews, to tell my side, to write my own book. Several ghost writers had offered their services. My star had risen in the office too, now that I was bringing in more high-paying work, and getting publicity for the firm. Dermot Lyons greeted me civilly whenever we met on the stairs or in the coffee-room. I had even been asked back on to the Film Festival Board.

I had declined all invitations.

But I had put out feelers to the Macbrides, had said that I would like to meet them. Word had come back, via Sadie, that Mrs Macbride wasn’t ready to meet me, and that she might never be. I knew about that kind of unready, knew it all too well, had known it since I was sixteen, when I had first found out about my mother’s suicide.