My eyes are closed but my mind isn’t. I can’t stop thinking about Faye. All that she was to me. I wish she would come to the wedding. It upsets me to think she found it so easy to cut me out of her life, to forget our past, our friendship. I keep going over it in my head. How she stood beside me that night, telling me to be brave. I could not have got through it without her.

My mind is still twisting when the bedroom door opens, casting a ray of light across the dark room.

‘Are you asleep, Tara?’ Lucas whispers.

‘Not yet.’

He walks over and sits down on the bed. He pushes my hair off my forehead and kisses me.

‘Are you happy, Tara?’

‘Yes, I’m happy, what makes you ask that?’

‘You seem a bit down lately. Are you sure everything is okay?’

I look at Lucas and smile. ‘I’m okay now.’

‘Because you know if you don’t want to go ahead with the wedding I can—’

‘No, Lucas, no. Don’t say that. It’s not you. I love you. You’re what’s keeping me going.’

‘Is it the move, then? Are you having second thoughts about living in Australia? Because you know we can stay here, Tara. I could continue working in the Dublin office.’

We’ve been over and over this. Lucas trying to convince me to move to Australia then telling me I don’t have to if I don’t want to. He still wants to marry me. He loves me and he doesn’t need to be worrying about whether I want to move to Australia or not. The thought of another year here frightens me more than any move.

‘Lucas, I can’t wait to move to Australia, believe me. It’s the most exciting thing I want to do… after marrying you, of course.’

I’m yawning when Lucas leans in to kiss me. He seems happy with my explanation for now but I’m going to have to show a bit more excitement if I’m to convince him it’s the truth.

He can’t see that someone who’s been dead for three years, someone I never even knew, is having this negative impact on my life. But it’s going to be hard. I keep asking myself: did I have something to do with Avril Ryan’s death? Something I don’t know about yet? I get the feeling those detectives think I did.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I love seeing the moon in the sky even though the sun is already shining bright above my head. It makes me think this day is going to be special.