We stayed in O’Neill’s that night till all the students had gone home and the barman started hoovering our feet. We stretched every pint as long as we could, we talked about safe easy everyday stuff, we made each other laugh. Before we walked home—separately, in case anyone spotted us, me keeping an eye on Rosie from a safe distance behind—we kissed good night for a long time, up against the back wall of Trinity. Then we stood still, wrapped around each other, pressed together from cheeks to toes. The air was so cold that it made a high fine ringing sound somewhere miles above us, like breaking crystal; her breath was hoarse and warm on my throat, her hair smelled like lemon drops and I could feel the fast shake of her heart trembling against my ribs. Then I let go of her and watched her walk away, one last time.

Of course I looked for her. The first time I was left alone with a police computer, I ran her name and birth date through it: she had never been arrested in the Republic of Ireland. This was hardly a revelation—I hadn’t expected her to turn into Ma Barker—but I spent the rest of the day on a hard edgy high, just from inching that first step along her trail. As my contacts got better, so did my searches: she hadn’t been arrested in the North, hadn’t been arrested in England or Scotland or Wales or the USA, hadn’t signed on the dole anywhere, hadn’t applied for a passport, hadn’t died, hadn’t got married. I repeated all the searches every couple of years, sticking to contacts who owed me favors. They never asked.