Feet clip-clopped down uncarpeted steps and a scrawny woman, with fine dyed blonde hair pulled into a thin ponytail, opened the door. She looked a lot older than thirty or thirty-one, which was all she could have been if she was in Deirdre’s class. Her pale skin had a matt dullness to it, and a deep cleft had developed between her over-plucked brows.

‘Sorry,’ the woman said. ‘I was upstairs doing a few bits while I’ve peace.’

I introduced myself, and handed her my business card.

‘You’re Jessica?’

‘God yeah, sorry, that’s me, I should’ve said.’

She smiled, and put her hand to her forehead.

‘Come in out of the cold, for God’s sake.’

She showed me into the front room, which had been turned into a play area. The floor was almost entirely covered with a jigsaw-style rubber play mat, littered with plastic toys and picture books in varying states of repair. The Very Hungry Caterpillar had survived best, but I feared for The Gruffalo: the front cover had come loose and was holding on by a hangnail. I thanked Jessica for seeing me at such short notice, and sat on the sofa.

‘Did Ann say anything about why I wanted to see you?’

‘Nothing, only that it was about poor Deirdre’s death and that you were looking into the background. That’s about it. C’mere, I never asked if you wanted a cuppa?’

‘I’m grand, thanks, Jessica, I’m only after it. You knew Deirdre well, I hear?’

‘When we were kids, we were best friends, in the same class all the way up. But I didn’t see much of her after we left school. And when we were there, she was out sick a lot, scraped through the Leaving, nervous breakdown, but you know that, I suppose. I tried to keep in touch, called in occasionally. Believe it or not I hadn’t even seen her for a few years before she died. But strange as it sounds, you know, I think we would’ve grown apart no matter what, even if she hadn’t got sick. We were on different roads. She was heading to university from nearly the day we started primary. I was only dying to finish school myself. I went to the College of Comm after, did a book-keeping and secretarial course, and never looked back. Met Paul, had the smallies and, sure you know yourself, moved on, like.’

She frowned.

‘Between work and the kids and Paul, I hadn’t a minute. Still haven’t.’

She paused again.

‘With everything, I had no time left for Deirdre.’

‘I never forgot about her, though,’ Jessica added, willing me to believe her. I didn’t. I reckoned that plenty of time had gone by when Deirdre was alive that she never crossed Jessica’s mind. And that she thought about Deirdre a whole lot more these days.