It took a day for it to sink in. A day reading and rereading the report. He’d had previous convictions, though it didn’t say what. But there was the suggestion between the lines that police might think he’d been killed because of them and weren’t looking for an English camper-van driver. The weight pressing down on Matty’s chest lessened slightly, something floating to the surface.

That day, a small garbage truck came, and emptied the outside bin.

One morning, the light fell on the lough in a new way, made it gleam. Matty’s heart hurt.

Hours were spent listlessly in the house, feeling the water almost as a presence. It was watchful, and calling. Matty read, turned on the TV, steered clear of the cat, skipped between three lunchtime news programmes. Slept. Watched the lough again from the window. Tapped fingers in hip-hop beats on the sill.

It wasn’t far away.

On the map, it looked like you could take single-track roads, with probably very few houses.

In front of the bathroom mirror, Matty peeled the dressings off, turned from side to side. The face was still drastically conspicuous. Puffy and indigo-coloured around the eye, as if something was brooding under the skin. The cuts were beginning to scab, but still looked lustrous. New plasters.

The roads were quiet, the air rushing and clean after the stuffiness of the house. Down one hill, and then along the scenic road taken once before, feeling like Elliot in E.T. – except that Brigid’s bike was a large shopper, not a BMX. Alien and escapee mixed together. Riding one-handed, carefully and constantly engaging the right-hand brake. The ascent on the way back would be tougher, and even more painful.

Sporadic houses were set far back from the road. There were two deserted cottages, one thatched, and one much newer, a sash window ajar. Further down, coaches and minivans were parked in rows, a tourist vehicle company, and a sheepdog came haring out, its bark outraged. Matty veered around it, heart high and loud. The dog kept barking even when out of sight. No cars.

Once the decision had been made to go to the lough, there was a thirst, an unnameable need to get there. Matty had gone into Brigid’s bedroom for the first time, dabbed some of her foundation over the bruises. Grabbed sunglasses from Shifty’s glove compartment, packed optimistically last month, and nicked one of Brigid’s coats.

Fields and a mass of trees kept the water at bay, before the road finally curved alongside it. A small parking area. Matty let the bike fall into the grass, ribs taut from the ride. A long, slim jetty protruded directly outwards, matching the concrete colour of the lough. There were small oblongs carved out of it, mossed at the edges. It was a perfect get-in.

Too soon to swim. It would hurt. And no wetsuit.