But whenever Corinne’s texts quizzed Eva about her own life, what she was doing, who she was meeting, Eva couldn’t help but remember the incident in the field in France, that stupid photograph she’d sent, Corinne’s knowledge of it. The picture held sway over her now, and she resented the semi-playful way Corinne inferred the power she had over Eva because of it. I hope you’re being a good girl, one of the messages had said. Eva had angrily deleted it.

She knew now that it had been a colossal mistake. As soon as she had obtained a replacement iPhone, Eva had texted Ross to explain her silence – a long-winded, wordy message that she agonized over before sending – but after hours waiting for a response from him, then days, she realized the truth of the situation. That they’d gone too far and now he was regretting it, backing off from any contact with her. This suspicion was confirmed as soon as they’d returned to Ireland. On the first day, back in her bedroom, she’d heard voices down below in the garden. Looking out the window, she saw her father chatting to Ross over the fence. Straight away, she’d run downstairs and outside, using the pretext of borrowing her dad’s car, but as soon as she approached, Ross had backed away, saying: ‘Listen, Mark, good to see you,’ then disappeared inside his house without so much as a glance at Eva. The coldness of his gesture, blanking her like that, had cut her to the quick.

She noticed that he didn’t linger outside his house any more. She never saw him tinkering with his cars, and when he played with Jo it was inside the house or the back garden. Eva couldn’t escape the feeling that he was avoiding her.

The summer was almost over. One evening, after cycling home from tennis, Eva came into the kitchen where her father was getting ready to serve up dinner.

‘There you are,’ Mark said, two bright red spots high in his cheeks from the steam coming off the pasta. ‘How was your match?’

‘I lost, but it was close. Where is everyone?’

‘Your mum’s on the phone to Valentina. I’ve no idea where Beth is, probably in her room.’

‘Valentina? What’s that about?’

‘No idea. So, your new laptop arrived,’ Mark said as he strained the spaghetti at the sink.

To celebrate her offer of a place in UCD studying Engineering, her parents had ordered a new MacBook for her. Mark had also promised to look into buying her a small car of her own.

‘Oh cool! Where is it?’

‘It’s next door. You’ll have to go in and ask for it.’

‘Next door?’

The sharpness of her response made Mark look over.