‘I did nothing at first. I was in shock, I guess. Then I went back to my room and woke up Adam, told him what happened. I don’t think I did anything else.’

‘You don’t think?’

‘I get confused, you see. Not as often as I used to. But when I saw Nick and I realised he was dead, everything sort of fell apart.’

‘How long had you been on the beach when you found the body?’ Rachel asked.

‘Fifteen minutes, maybe? I almost didn’t see him. There’s a row of concrete buildings, like little huts? I think they’re for the fishermen. He was lying between two of those. I saw his feet and thought it was a homeless person, or maybe someone camping on the beach. But he wasn’t moving and there was something… I don’t know. I moved closer to get a better look and then I saw who it was. I thought I was seeing things. I know that sounds crazy but I was so tired. I’ve had cognitive processing issues since the crash which make me get muddled up sometimes.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It manifests itself in different ways,’ Clodagh said. ‘I’m not allowed to drive, for example. Which is a pain because I have to get taxis everywhere or rely on Adam for lifts. It gets bad when I’m following instructions. Like, I’ll be cooking dinner and I’ll suddenly forget, midway through, what I’m cooking. I can see all the ingredients but, no matter how hard I try, I don’t know what I’m meant to do with them. It’s not as bad as it sounds. There are things I can do to get around it. I make sure I always have the recipe in front of me so if I forget what I’m doing, I do some breathing exercises to stop myself panicking and then I make myself follow the recipe step by step, until the memory comes back.

‘But there are other problems as well. Like this morning? When I saw the body, I thought it was there for a reason. That I’d known he was there all along and that’s why I’d got up and gone to the beach in the first place.’

‘Do you think that’s possible?’

A silence, so long Rachel thought she might have to repeat her question. But eventually Clodagh spoke.

‘Not now. No.’

‘Why would you have thought it in the first place?’ Rachel asked.

‘Because last night, Nick sent a text asking to speak to me. He said he had something important to tell me. But when I went looking for him, I couldn’t find him.’

‘Have you got your phone with you?’

Clodagh took a mobile phone out of the pocket of her jeans, pressed the screen a few times and slid it across the table to Rachel.