Work had been full-on. I’d wondered if half of my colleagues had any competency at all, because none of them seemed to be able to manage when anything out of the ordinary happened.

That day, one of my more annoying colleagues, a graduate called Dean, had stood over me huffing and puffing. He’s the kind of person who has all the academic skills needed to score him a first-class honours but none of the common sense required to function in the real world. He’d been feeling under pressure to get the intranet system he was working on for a local firm up and running. And he’d been quite happy to pass all that stress on to me.

By the time I’d arrived at Aberfoyle Crescent, to be met with an atmosphere so thick with tension you nearly needed an oxygen tank to breathe, I was already on my last nerve.

Heidi seemed quite close to being on hers, too. Ever since Joe had taken ill, she had been put upon to care for him. I’d watched as, with every visit, she became less and less happy.

She withdrew more and more from me and as much as I tried to reach her, there was something untouchable between us. A sadness of sorts.

I saw it on her face when I came back to the house on that night. She was fidgety. Uptight. Despite the cold weather, she went to stand outside. Said she needed air and I followed her. Wishing for that elusive cigarette. Maybe a glass of wine. Maybe a time when Heidi and I could just be a part of our own little family again without all this noise around us.

‘You seem tense,’ I said.

At least she smiled – that kind of twisted ‘you don’t say’, but there was a warmth to it. I wrapped my arms around her and told her I loved her. I could feel the thunder of her heart against my chest and I wished I could take away all her stress – to see her happy again.

I figured it might help if I offered to do a little more to help with Joe, though there was something about him that made me feel uncomfortable. I put it down to his self-assuredness, his arrogance. I knew the type well.

There was something sly about him, too. He gave off bad vibes, although I could never quite put my finger on why. What I did know was that Joe McKee liked to be in control as much as he liked to be the centre of attention. I’d seen enough of him over the years to figure that out.

Still, I’d be polite and I’d do my bit because God knows Heidi didn’t need any more stress. It was bad enough to have Ciara and Stella, not to mention Kathleen, hovering around. That was a whole other complicated dynamic right there. There was no denying the tension that existed between them and Heidi.