She dried her face with her sleeve. ‘I probably shouldn’t go into it.’

‘Why not? This is hardly the time to take the high moral ground.’

More tears snaked down her face. ‘It was Noel O’Grady.’

‘Noel O’Grady didn’t kill Father Galvin.’

‘I don’t think so either, but you can’t be certain.’

‘Yes, I can.’ The words were out of his mouth, hanging in the air between them, before he appreciated what he’d said.

Nina’s face clouded with confusion.

Tom was standing on a ledge. He could choose to jump. Or he could walk back. How sweet it would be to take control. To say, ‘Here’s why I know.’ There was more. In that moment, he could almost understand why people chose violence. Why nothing else felt adequate. He took another pull of his cigarette and flicked the ash into the empty fireplace. Tom knew he couldn’t hurt Nina. Neither could he tell her what he’d seen on the night of Father Galvin’s death.

People kept secrets for all sorts of reasons. To protect themselves. To protect others. To avoid the consequences of telling the truth. After all this time, the consequences for him would be grave. Why hadn’t he said anything before now? people would ask. ‘I was twelve years old,’ he would reply, ‘and I couldn’t be sure.’ That wasn’t enough, though, was it? Nobody would accept that.

Then there was the other question, the one that nagged and niggled: if he had raised the alarm, might it have been possible to save Father Galvin? What if, rather than slinking back to the shed, he had screamed and roared? What if he’d run into the house and fetched someone? Would the priest still be alive? But those questions were for him, not Nina.

He stepped back from the edge.

‘I don’t see O’Grady as a killer, that’s all,’ he said. ‘Okay, he was a buffoon, a blowhard, but that doesn’t make him a murderer. If he did have money troubles, his brother could’ve given him a dig-out. Besides, it’s kind of convenient, isn’t it? Blaming the dead man?’ He put out his cigarette against the fireplace.

‘Maybe.’ Nina swiped at another tear. ‘You’ve got to believe me, Tom. This isn’t what I wanted.’

‘And you can be sure it’s not what I wanted. I still can’t understand why you’ve done this to me.’