I haven’t returned to my job as a doctor. Not yet, anyway. At the moment I’m getting great pleasure in helping out at the old folks’ home near my parents’ house. I don’t live with Mam and Dad anymore. I have my own apartment, living my own life, learning responsibility again. I see them every weekend, though. Mam is still making my favourite dinners and Dad checks with me that my bills are paid. It’s not their fault. They know me as one thing: Faye, the one who needs all the help she can get.

I managed to salvage a friendship with my sister, though it doesn’t really satisfy me. Being friends with Tara has spoiled me and keeps my standards high. I’m beginning to think every relationship I ever have will be measured by that one. I get the odd message from Tara which is nice. She’s loving her life in Australia and is expecting her first baby next year. I called in to see her dad once, just to say hello. He wasn’t there, though.

There will be no investigation into our connection to the ‘Cabhrui’ site. Sean the solicitor assured us the evidence was too weak. Tara’s mam had done enough to make it look like she ended her pain without anyone else’s help.

It took a lot of time, but I’ve learned to forgive myself for being so stupid. For not seeing the signs that are so obvious now. How Andriu manipulated me from the start. How he tried to tear me and Tara apart.

Talking to Fionn has helped me see that I hadn’t the tools to deal with such a nasty person. Sometimes experience is the only tool that works, he says.

Andriu is in jail now. I don’t have the finer details because I don’t care about him or what becomes of him. I do think of Avril Ryan, though. How she saved me from him. A woman that I have never even met. If Tara and I hadn’t given Andriu our phones on the night of Electric Picnic, Avril Ryan would still be alive. If Andriu hadn’t given Tara a lift to pick up the Nembutal for her mother, Avril Ryan would never have seen him. She would still be alive.

I often think of her arriving at Huntley Lodge thinking she was coming to meet me. How brave she was being, helping someone she didn’t even know. I shudder to think what went through her head when Andriu Fitzpatrick opened the door.

The sky is darkening by the minute. I can no longer see the writing on the pages in front of me, so I close the book. She’ll be here shortly.