JP

The café where I arranged to meet Harry McNamara a few weeks after Charlie’s death was an out-of-the-way neutral venue in a village just outside Dublin.

I arrived early, wanting to watch him when he came in, to study his face for traces of guilt.

My imagination could have given Stephen King’s a run for its money. Hazel had said that Charlie never went anywhere with the bloke because he couldn’t be seen out with her, so I knew he hadn’t been at the party she’d gone to that night. But was he the jealous type? Had it angered him, her cooling it off and going out without him? Had he gone after her? Maybe she’d rung him when she couldn’t get me. He’d collected her, but she’d got out of his car after an argument, only for him to drive after her and hit her. Perhaps, when she told him she was no longer interested, he tried to force himself on her, then had to kill her so she wouldn’t tell anybody.

That’s the kind of mad stuff that filled my brain. I couldn’t sleep for thinking about it.

Hazel hadn’t a notion what was in my head when she agreed to set up the meeting. She refused to tell me who Charlie’s fella was but instead said she would ask him if he would agree to meet me. He’d agreed.

I brooded over a coffee I hadn’t touched, watching the minutes pass on my phone screen, going over and over what I would say.

My first question would be how had he met her. I couldn’t imagine any situation in which the likes of this man would have encountered my sister. It had to have been an accidental meeting, and that tortured me – the thought that wherever she’d been that day or night, if she’d been somewhere different she might never have encountered him.

The wanker was late.

There were only two other customers in the café – a woman at a corner table eating a scone and a man who’d just come in and was ordering tea at the till.

I was so focused on the door that I didn’t notice the man from the counter approach.

‘John Paul?’ he said.

I stared at him. He seemed familiar. I scanned my memories until I had it.

‘I met you at the funeral, didn’t I?’ I said. ‘You were one of Charlie’s tutors?’

He nodded and sat down in front of me. He looked as bereft as he had that day in the church. God, I thought, he wants to talk to me about Charlie. I had neither the time nor the inclination to comfort a complete stranger about my sister’s death.

‘Sorry, I’m actually waiting for somebody,’ I said, thick as two short planks.

He looked around, confused.

‘Yes. I think you’re waiting for me.’

It took a moment.

‘You?’ I said.

He nodded.

‘You were having an affair with Charlie?’ I had to say it to believe

‘Yes.’

I sat back, stunned.

What?

I’d been so sure.

The man sitting across from me was harmless looking. A student-type – fair-haired, glasses, a beard covering what I suspected was a weak chin. He wasn’t ugly. He wasn’t anything, really. Nondescript. And he was married. What had Charlie seen in him? He was either very smart or very funny, because he wasn’t a hunk and by the look of his well-worn denims and cheap suede jacket, he wasn’t wealthy.

‘I’m ashamed that I haven’t contacted you myself before this,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know what to—’

‘Who are you?’ I cut him off.

‘What?’ He looked up. ‘I’m Chris. Chris Gaffney. I was … Charlie and I were … Shit. I’m making a hames of this.’

‘How old are you?’ The man could have been any age, an eternal student, somebody who lived in libraries.

‘I’m thirty-four.’

‘And you’re married?’

He looked down, shamefaced.

‘Yes.’

‘What were you doing with my sister, then? Isn’t there some sort of rule about teachers and students?’

‘I wasn’t her teacher. I convened her tutorial groups, but I’m a student too. I’m studying for my PhD in nursing. And Charlie was twenty-two.’

‘Still too young for you to be messing around with.’

He flinched, then placed his elbows on the table and sank his head into his hands.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ he said. ‘You don’t know the full story.’

‘Let me guess. You’re in a loveless marriage that you can’t leave. Charlie understood you, and you, in turn, cared for her deeply.’ I paused. ‘Please. I could write the script.’

He shook his head.

‘No. You couldn’t. I loved my wife. I never intended what happened with Charlie to happen. And when it did, I resisted it. But in the end, I knew I’d found the love of my life. Charlie was the best person I’d ever met. I’d have thought that no matter what her age. I split up with my wife weeks ago. Just before your sister was killed. I’d moved out and everything. It wasn’t fair to Niamh. I couldn’t keep pretending I wasn’t in love with somebody else. Charlie wasn’t answering my calls – she was pissed off with me because I’d left it so long, and she was right to be. But I’d done it. And I never even got the chance to tell her. God, she meant the world to me.’

He started to cry.

I was still in a daze, unable to get my head around him not being Harry.

One thing was certain. The man in front of me was absolutely devastated by Charlie’s death. Nobody could fake emotion like that.

I started to feel uncomfortable. I’d had one meeting all planned out in my head, and here I was in another, not knowing the point of it. And this bloke looked like he wanted to talk for hours.

‘You didn’t see her, then, the night she died?’ I asked lamely.

‘No. I tried to ring her, but she kept cutting the call short and then her phone was off. I’d have gone to the party with her – I’d have picked her up. I’m going mad thinking of all the what ifs.’

I believed him.

Despite myself, I felt a surge of sympathy for the man, but not enough to commiserate with him. He was older than Charlie and he’d held a position of power as her tutor. Charlie was a people pleaser, but she was also a kind girl. I couldn’t believe that she would have tried to tempt a married man away from his wife. That didn’t ring true for her. This chump must have chased her.

What kind of man studied for a PhD in nursing anyway?

We sat there for a few minutes, saying nothing.

‘You really left your wife?’ I said, breaking the silence.

‘Yes.’

‘And are you going to go back to her now?’

He looked appalled.

‘Heavens, no. It’s not an either/or situation. I’d fallen in love with Charlie. I still love Niamh, but not in the same way. I couldn’t go back, even if she’d have me. I don’t want to. Charlie told me once the most important thing she’d ever learned was that you had to leave the past behind to move on. She thought life was too precious not to live it to the fullest. She loved the bones of you, you know. She really would have wanted you to be happy, JP.’ He hesitated. ‘I know it’s going to be very hard, but you should try to move on.’

I bit my lip so hard I could taste blood.

The use of ‘JP’ had thrown me. Only Charlie called me that. She would have to be really close to somebody to refer to me that way. It stung.

And I couldn’t be happy. I couldn’t move on. All I’d been thinking about the night she died was myself. Now the only thought that filled my head was finding out what had happened to her, who’d done this to Charlie. To both of us.

I’d solved one puzzle – the man she’d been seeing. It wasn’t who I’d thought though, which meant I was back to square one. There had to be a reason Harry McNamara had turned up at her funeral. I wouldn’t stop until I’d figured it out.