Searching for somewhere to park, I noticed that there were extra cars taking up the usual parking spaces, along with two minibuses and a large truck. Negotiating my way around the square for a second time, I spotted a car pulling out and nabbed a space in front of the bank, alongside a huge motorbike. The bank’s doors were shut, and I reminded myself to call in to change my dollars in the morning.

I climbed out of the car and crossed the road to the square, my shoulders stiff from the drive. I intended to call briefly into the office to let Leah and Marina know I was back, then buy some food and wine and head back to my cottage in Malin. But once in the square, I found myself in a bit of a daze, mesmerised as I watched the bikes and cyclists in my orbit, calling out to each other and chatting as they worked. There must have been about fifty of them.

“Anyone got a spare spider?” a young blonde woman called; her bike upended.

I stepped back suddenly as the item was flung in her direction, right across my path. I didn’t know what a spider was, but it had the look of a lethal weapon, an elastic boomerang with hooks.

“Oh shit, sorry. Are you okay?” another voice said. I looked over to see an older man in full length cycling trousers and a red top smiling at me sheepishly.

Before I could respond properly another figure entered my eyeline and gave me more of a jolt than the spider had done, a man in a navy Garda uniform asking some cyclists to move a van that was blocking the square. My stomach flipped. Molloy.

But the shape was wrong, and a closer look revealed ginger hair beneath the hat. It was Garda Andy McFadden, Molloy’s second when Glendara station had last been open. He was red-faced and hassled, trying to explain something to the cyclists while waving his hands about in an attempt to create some kind of order out of the traffic chaos that had erupted in our usually quiet town.

I made my way over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. “You’re back.”

He spun around, allowing the cyclists to escape. But he beamed when he saw me, which was gratifying at least. “Aye. And so are you by the looks of things.”

“Just this second as a matter of fact. When did you come back?”

He lifted his hat and scratched his forehead, which was looking a little pink. “They moved me back from Letterkenny about a month after they reopened the station.”