‘I’m not sure,’ Ann said. ‘It was gradual, a kind of a moving away from me, from us. I noticed after the Film Festival that she was keeping a secret. She’d got one of those Ready To Go pre-pay phones for her Junior Cert results that September. She hardly used it at the beginning because very few of her friends had mobiles then, they were only just coming in, but Deirdre was an only child, we spoilt her, gave her what she wanted. Anyway, after the festival she was getting a lot of calls or she’d get a call on her mobile and would run out to the hall and take a call on the landline and talk for ages on that. Ringing mobiles was very expensive at that time so she used the landline for longer calls. Sean didn’t know the full extent of it, still doesn’t, no point. I gave her privacy, though of course I regret that now. But thinking back it could have been Gill, maybe. I answered it one time when she had left it out of her hand, gone to the toilet or something, and it was a male voice but she came back in and grabbed it from me before I had a chance to … And you asked about something that made me uneasy. I don’t suppose it means much but I remember that before and during the festival she was all talk about Jeremy Gill and his short film, and then after it she stopped talking about him. I did think it was strange, even at the time, that she suddenly didn’t want to know, said nothing about him ever again. I thought he was a reminder of how she had been before. But I see it differently now, that Sean might be right, that it could be him she was trying to forget.’

‘Tell me about the 12th of December 1998.’