Marie pats her back, kisses the top of her head the way Alex had kissed me. They rock together, keening and sobbing, and Marie whispers over and over again that of course she knows that Ciara did nothing. Sure, Ciara doesn’t have a bad bone in her body. She would never …

‘I wanted to make it right between us,’ Ciara cries. ‘I thought we would have time. I thought he would’ve …’ She descends into floods of tears again.

It feels as if they are putting on a show for the police’s benefit. There had been no obvious indication before now that Ciara had wanted to make anything right with her father. Like me, she was tolerating him out of a sense of duty. This display does nothing to reassure me that a narrative that will ultimately point the finger of blame in my direction is being played out in front of me.

I can’t bear to listen to them or watch their spectacle unfold any more, so I go to the kitchen, where I’m surprised to find Kathleen alone, her mug in her hand. No police officer is near.

‘That big tall fellah has gone to make a phone call,’ she says. ‘I’m surprised he left me alone. If you’re making a fresh cup of tea, I’ll have one. This has gone cold.’ She gestures to the murky beige liquid in the cup in front of her.

I hadn’t been planning on making a cup of tea at all, but I fill the kettle and switch it on anyway.

‘I just keep running everything over and over in my head all the time. Trying to make sense of it,’ she says, her voice cracking as she struggles to keep her emotions in check. ‘I can’t help but wonder what they found … what they saw …’ Her sentence drifts off.

I don’t answer her. I simply make her tea and stir in a sugar before sitting it in front of her.

‘I should’ve come home earlier,’ she says. ‘I should have, as soon as we knew he was sick. Sooner even.’

‘Sure, we didn’t know how sick he was. Not until the operation.’

That operation had changed everything. When his treatment had turned from curative to palliative. When we knew we were in the end game, we had a limited time to say all we needed to say and do all we needed to do. She came as quickly as she could after that.

We sit in silence for a bit, our thoughts doing enough talking for us.

‘Things are very strained between you and Ciara, aren’t they?’ Kathleen asks.

I shrug. I don’t know what she wants me to do. I can’t deny it.

‘It’s been a very stressful time for everyone. You know things have always been challenging between us. Between all of us.’

She nods. ‘I thought once you two girls grew up, you’d see some sort of common ground. It can’t have been easy for Joe, dealing with his illness and the two of you at each other’s throats.’