The first Ros-place was bleak, the road blue with recent rain. It consisted of a single-track road with sodden moorland and dry-stone walls on either side, before the sea suddenly appeared, rough and ferocious. There were only a couple of houses. Matty slowed, saw an old woman shuffle past the window in one, and a small school bus in the driveway of the other. It was a relief to get back onto a larger road again.

The next was an unromantic outpost, still not what you’d imagine from Maureen’s description. Matty walked the length of the main street, and up into the side roads, feeling like a stalker. Bought some fruit in the shop, and asked. Asked in the garage, and the florist, and was first into the pub when it opened.

No one knew the name. It didn’t feel right. If Joe lived in a little place like this, everyone would know him. The owner of the pub would definitely know him.

The third place was on a lumpy peninsula pushing out into the Atlantic. No shop, no pub, just a scattering of houses, each with its own long strip of rocky land descending to the sea. Matty drove slowly, tried to guess which house could be his, which car or van, looking for a Ronan’s Interiors or something on the side of the trade vehicles, feeling hopeless.

Up ahead, there was a woman with two tiny dogs at her feet, taking in large plastic sacks from her car. Matty wound the window down, asked.

‘Not that I know of,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know everyone. Not been here that long.’

There was a long slab of sand the colour of bleached wood. Surfer’s waves. The wind whipped away the cigarette smoke. Matty tried to imagine Joe here as a teenager – smoking too, lying down in the dunes, skidding around on a motorbike – or living here now, and couldn’t. It was freezing. Joe hated the cold. Always turned the heat up, ignored Rosa’s arguments above saving money.

He’d never been here and he didn’t live here now. He was so far away, intangible. Not even a voice now, because of what had happened in the parking bay. The imaginary Joe too shocked to speak.

The road south. Matty went past the sign in the direction of Brigid’s. Could keep driving, across the border, except that it might be a manned one, and they could do a check on the licence name, find there was no insurance. Drive to the nearest Irish airport. Passport looked at, an official sliding their eyes over to a list of names. Drive out into the empty, wide world, with no one who cared in it.

Brigid’s kitchen smelt of roast vegetables, herbs and baking bread. She straightened from the oven, her hair in wisps around her face. ‘There you are.’

‘Hey.’ Matty felt shattered. Broken apart and put back together wrongly.