I walked to the sofa and sat on the arm. Davy got up from the table and went to the far side of the room. Facing me, and backlit by the city, he had a golden aura. He was wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt under an open blue and white checked shirt and his hair was still damp from the rain. And maybe sometime, or somewhere, I might have seen him looking better than he did right now, but if I had, I couldn’t remember.

I got up and walked to where Davy Keenan was standing. I stood in front of him and put my hands in his hair, and pulled his mouth towards mine.

17

Davy wasn’t in my bed when I awoke at 6.30 in the morning. He had gone to work, probably. He often had early morning personal training sessions. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to wake me. Or maybe he regretted what had happened. Maybe I did too, though it hadn’t felt like a mistake at the time. Being with Davy had felt natural. And something else, something I couldn’t identify. I stretched myself full length, arms above my head, and let out a moan. How was I going to get any work done today?

‘Finally you’ve stopped snoring,’ Davy said.

He was standing in the doorway. He had his phone in his hand and, though I couldn’t see his face, his body was lit by the phone’s glow. He was naked.

‘I don’t snore,’ I said, and threw a pillow at him. He sidestepped it easily.

‘Pathetic effort,’ he said. ‘Anyway, how do you know you don’t snore?’

He jumped back into bed beside me.

‘So I’ve just cancelled my 6.30 and 7.30 clients but I have to teach a circuits class at 9.00. Can you think of anything we could do to pass the time?’

‘How about a game of Trivial Pursuit?’ I said.

As we lingered at the table after breakfast, I explained, withholding names and all identifying information, that I was working on a case that involved a hurt being done to a young girl over ten years before.

‘Some kind of abuse, you mean?’

‘Something like that,’ I said. ‘You know I can’t tell you.’

I could have said more, but more revelations might have led to more questions.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I do understand. You’ll get there, I know you will.’

‘I hope so.’

‘When we were out at Muskerry Castle, was that to do with this case?’

‘It was.’

‘I’m feeling really bad about all that now.’

He wrinkled his nose.

‘I thought we were … I mean, if you’d said it was a work thing, I’d still have gone, of course I would’ve. But when I realised it wasn’t what I thought it was, I felt, I dunno …’

‘Used?’