‘They still won’t tell us much,’ he said eventually. ‘They have to “protect their investigation”.’ He shook his head. ‘The postmortem was done last night. Did you know, they don’t do them here? They had to take her up to Belfast. We can’t even be with her, or near her, and they can’t release her body. Not “at this stage of the investigation”.’ He made quote signs with his fingers. Parroted what he’d been told. ‘We can’t bring her home. Can’t make any arrangements. They can’t tell us when we’ll be able to.’

Julie sat down across the table from him then reached out and took Ronan’s hands.

‘And yesterday. Did you see her?’

I stood, back to the sink, watching them. A tear rolled down Ronan’s cheek, which he brushed away quickly before taking a shuddering breath. Here was this grown man. This guy we’d all seen as cool and funny and untouchable in so many ways, and he was broken in front of us. My heart physically ached for him.

‘Mum couldn’t face it. Da and I went in together. They had her well covered up, you know, up to her chin almost. We were told they did that so we didn’t see the worst of her injuries. I don’t know if that just made it all worse. If I’d seen them, maybe I wouldn’t be imagining all sorts of horrors now.’

Or maybe he’d be plagued by the real horror of what he’d seen, I thought, but I didn’t speak.

‘I was still hoping, you know, until the last minute, that it wouldn’t be her and at first … God, it didn’t look like her. I thought they’d made a mistake. Her hair was all wrong, too dark. And her face seemed … I don’t know. It just wasn’t an expression I’d ever seen her pull. But Da gripped my arm so tight and I felt him buckle then he let out this noise like I’ve never heard before, and I knew it was her.’

I watched Julie squeeze his hand, rub his arm with her other hand. Tears ran unchecked down her face.

‘We’ve seen dead bodies before, right?’ he asked, looking at Julie and then up at me.

And of course we had, many times. It’s part of our culture to bring our dead home, wake them over the course of a few days and nights, spend time with them, ensuring they’re never left alone until they make their final journey.