I blinked and I swore, even though I knew it was impossible, I saw her lift her head and stare directly at the camera, directly at me, with such hurt in her eyes that I wanted to look away but couldn’t.

It was the flash of a memory, maybe. I was the person who’d taken the picture after all, back then. It pinched at me. Her face. That expression. In the background of my schooldays. I’d paid no notice then. Had looked away. Had continued in my selfish teenage bubble.

I flicked through more photos and again and again I saw that lonely figure in the background. The person not laughing. The person not posing. The person we were happy to ignore, but not out of badness. The person looking at me occasionally in those pictures with something akin to sadness on her face – or was it disgust?

Laura O’Loughlin. Seeing her face, I remembered her in a way I hadn’t at the mention of her name. I felt my stomach sink. I recognised her. Remembered her. Remembered the things we’d said and done. Or hadn’t said or done. We’d been so silly then. Immature. Bitchy at times, but no more than other teenage girls.

I blushed at the memory of it now. Ashamed. I remembered Clare snatching Laura’s beloved book from her, mocking her by reading the passages out in an exaggerated posh voice. Everyone had laughed. Even Laura had cracked a smile. Hadn’t she?

She’d been less happy when Clare had declared the book rubbish and threw it in the bin. But Clare hadn’t damaged it. Laura had been able to retrieve it just fine. She’d stuffed it into the bottom of her bag and laughed along. I remembered that, sitting in my living room that morning. I remembered her laugh and I remembered that I’d thought it was a bit cruel of Clare. Out of character for her, too. I remembered that I wanted to say something to her about it, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember if I had.

Jane Eyre … that was the book. I think. Or Wuthering Heights, maybe. Something suitably gothic and brooding. No Judy Blume or battered copy of Flowers in the Attic.

I don’t think I’d given her a second thought in years. I probably hadn’t given her much thought while at school, but now our lives were linked. Our fates linked too, maybe.

I lifted my phone and typed her name into Facebook; even though she was dead, I wondered would her Facebook account, if she had one, still be there? Maybe I’d see her as she looked now, maybe it would ring some more bells. I scrolled through a number of accounts until I found a Laura O’Neill from Derry.