Two months after finding the letter, Matty had gone to the sunbathing area outside the Men’s Pond. Sat on a jacket for most of the day, smoking, keeping an eye out.

Weeks of doing nothing, stupefied, after the visit to Italy. He had left. He’d never been dead. He had left.

Clive had come eventually. The Angel of Death, living quietly in his posh house north of the Heath, continuing his day job of taking souls up to heaven. Or not, as it turned out. He was wearing pink trunks.

Matty had gone over. There’d been people who waved or offered a few words over the years, and Clive had always given a nod and a gentle smile before going back to his book. The pink was new, though.

‘Do you remember me asking about my dad, ages ago?’

‘Blimey,’ he’d said, closing his book, his hand as a bookmark. ‘You’re taking us back a bit there.’

‘Yeah, I know. I wondered if – you seemed like you might have known something. You said I’d see him again.’ It had meant something different, all those years ago. Heaven, angels, afterlife.

Clive had given a searching look. ‘He never came back, then?’

‘No. Thought he was dead.’

‘The Irish guy? Is that right?’

‘Yeah?’

‘We’d talked about Ireland a bit, I think. I’ve family there, in the distant past.’

‘Do you remember where? Where you talked about?’

‘I don’t. Sorry. Memory’s taken a battering in recent years.’ A benign smile, and he’d opened his book again. Matty had stared at the red and orange decoration on the cover, the Indian man with his pointed gold hat. Clive had looked up again. ‘He did talk of it fondly, I think. Ireland. Said he’d probably end up back there one day. Ever been?’

‘Once. Long time ago.’ Not enough to know it. To know one half of yourself. The two years in Italy had been plenty to see that it wasn’t right, women never alone but in pairs, girls only ever in skirts, Jesus looking at you from every street corner and every mantelpiece. Ireland – Ireland didn’t mean anything, not really.

You could find some people on the Internet now. That’s how it started, Matty in a cafe, slowly typing in letters on a new website, the addition of each letter causing more dread. But he wasn’t there, only a couple of other Ronans. His lot were travellers, after all. They probably wouldn’t have made it onto a site like this.

The next thing was harder, working up the courage to phone directory enquiries, except that of course you needed the address to get a number.

‘Look him up. Proper phone book, innit,’ said Heather. ‘Narrow it down. Like a hit list.’