JP

I don’t know if it made me a worse or a better person that I considered staying with Olivia and keeping her in the dark about my original intentions.

She’d grown on me over the few short weeks, with her funny little chats and her self-deprecating ways, even though she was really intelligent and very pretty when she let herself be.

I knew I couldn’t, though. And as awful as it would be to break it off, it was better than the alternative – to maintain a relationship that had started on a lie.

More importantly, I had to deal with the fallout from my sister’s death. I just didn’t have room for anything else.

‘But why?’ she asked, her whole face miserable when I told her, tears glistening in her eyes. ‘I thought we were getting serious?’

‘So did I,’ I said, staring out at the sea. I couldn’t even look at her, coward that I was. I’d met her at the Bull Wall pier, somewhere nice and public from where I could make a quick exit. ‘I’m sorry, Olivia. It’s not you. It just isn’t a good time for me now. I’m getting over somebody else. That’s where my head is at.’

‘But if you’re enjoying your time with me, what does it matter?’ she asked. ‘I can handle you being on the rebound if you’re actually happy with me, John.’

‘Don’t say things like that. You’re worth far more than to be somebody’s rebound, Olivia.’

She reached her hand out tentatively, felt my arm.

‘Please. Give us a go.’

I shook her off, burning with shame.

‘No. I’m sorry. I really am. I can’t do it.’

I walked away. She had the dignity, God love her, to let me go.

I was a complete and utter bastard. Had somebody treated Charlie the way I treated Olivia, I’d have battered him. I felt like crying at my own behaviour.

I checked her out in 2012, before everything kicked off, to see where she’d ended up. She had lost her job at the end of 2007, just like she’d predicted. Her Facebook page showed her in Australia, where she was shacked up with some fella. She made good for herself in the end.

I never stopped being grateful for her help. I was convinced, because of her information, that I had the reason McNamara had come to Charlie’s funeral.

He hadn’t been having an affair with my sister. He’d been driving his drunk wife home that night and had smashed his car into Charlie.

The Guards were running a Crimecall special that August, the ten-week anniversary of my sister’s death, to refresh people’s minds about the details of the case and to try to get more information.

I knew where I’d be when it was on. Standing outside Harry McNamara’s house, waiting to confront him when the show was over.

He’d be watching. How could he not, when the programme was directed at him? And when he opened the door to a knock that evening, I’d be there. Her brother, ready either to drive him to the cop shop or to kill him.

But first I wanted to get all my ducks in a row.

If he’d driven into Charlie, his car had to have been damaged in some way. That would be the confirmation I needed. Her blood would have been on his bonnet. He’d have brought it in somewhere, a place where they would deal with him with discretion, a dodgy garage.

And I knew all of them in Dublin and pretty much throughout Ireland.

I was going to track down his car and make sure that when I spoke to Harry, I’d enough evidence to hang him by the balls.