He handed back to Alice and she told the audience that they were going to show Jeremy’s prize-winning short Another Bad Day at the Office before his new feature. There was more applause and another ovation as Gill and Alice exited the stage. I stayed and watched the short film that I’d last seen on YouTube a few nights ago. Now that I knew, or thought I knew, about Gill, it was deeply disturbing.

As the credits rolled, I left the dark theatre. Leaning against the wall at the bottom of the staircase outside the door to the stalls, I felt nauseous. I was thinking about Rhona Macbride, the short film’s teenage star. Seeing her talent and youth light up the big screen had crystallised my vague feelings and latent suspicions. What had he done to Deirdre? And what if it wasn’t just Deirdre? What if Gill had hurt Rhona too? And what if he hadn’t stopped with Rhona? What if he had never stopped?

I walked out of the Opera House, on to Emmett Place, and turned left on to the quay. I crossed the road and walked west along the river to the Shandon footbridge. On the far side was the stepped path that led to Shandon steeple, the four-faced liar it was called, though I could never remember why. A raw north wind was blowing and the water was high and restless and choppy. And as I stood, gripping the handrail, above the spot where my sister had walked to her death, I felt bereft. More than that, I felt utterly powerless.

16

It took sleet to rouse me from my lonely vigil. I looked skyward and stuck out my tongue to taste the icy slush. How long had I been standing there? Ten minutes? Twenty? It was time to move. I turned away from the river. With each step I took, the bridge lit up beneath the handrails. Not magic, it was the architect’s joke. It made me smile, usually.

I crossed the Coal Quay and passed the Bridewell Garda Station – which reminded me that I needed to call my friend Sadie O’Riordan to arrange a meeting. I had the Carneys’ permission to talk to her now. But I couldn’t do any more on the case tonight. I had hit a wall. In the days before Sunday, at a time like this, I would have called Davy and we would have gone for something to eat or watched a film together and I’d have talked a little, never much, about what was bothering me. He had a way of listening that made everything seem okay again. But I was starting to see that my friendship with him was an unfair bargain. I called him when it suited me, avoided him when it didn’t.