I couldn’t remember not hating everything he stood for. Councillor Lynch and his late-night muttered meetings, locked in the sitting room with the local IRA sympathisers, or the ‘beardos’, as Fintan called them. Earnest hirsute inadequates, who called themselves soldiers but were no more than deluded messengers and bog-hole diggers who only ever fired guns at funerals, fighting a war in which they never had to face their ‘enemy’ – whoever they were. Irish people with a different religion? The Brits? No mention of the fact that England was home to five of Martin’s six siblings, and that all of his nieces and nephews were either English or American.

I used to sneak down and listen to their talk of ‘consignments’ and ‘units’ and ‘comms’ and fantasise about grassing them up to the Gardai. Or, better still, the SAS. Then see how these hardy Soldiers of Irish Destiny shaped up.

To top it all, Councillor Martin squared it in his mind to go public in the Tullamore Tribune as pro-IRA AND pro-life. The local paper loved Councillor Martin ‘the Grinch’ Lynch: if he wasn’t a psycho, he’d be comedy gold.

I closed my bedroom door and waited. I heard the bathroom sink emptying, the latch on the door rattle, the door crash open. Footsteps, slow and deliberate, got closer, closer. Then they stopped outside my bedroom door. I shut my eyes and held my breath. What was this to be? Maybe he was going to wish me luck? Or maybe he just felt like dishing out one last battering before I headed off to live with the enemy.

Whatever was coming, I wanted it over with, so I coughed a cough that said: ‘Ready and waiting.’ I saw the handle turn. I looked up to the Heavens and squeezed my eyes shut again. Seconds ground past. Then – thump – I heard his feet walking away.

His car engine gunned. The drive’s gravel crunched and I took a look out of the window and watched him drive off without so much as a glance up.

‘Hard man Martin,’ I said.

I went into the bathroom for a piss and saw his undrained beard shavings carpeting the white sink, infinite black stars against a blinding white sky. I ran my finger through the veil of jet black specks, hoping that I wasn’t genetically doomed to become a bitter, unhappy man.

Mum walked with me into town to catch the bus. I don’t know if she cried when it drove off. I never looked back.

Reluctantly, my face parted from Gabby’s towel. I found the poem she had mentioned in a Larkin tome and popped the handwritten note inside so I could read it surreptitiously. For a genius, the syntax of Dom’s undated, unsigned message sucked.

Dearest Gabrielle, how are you? I had a dream about you last night. You looked beautiful. We were in our favourite spot. Do you remember our favourite spot, the bench at Tooting Lido?

I got so close to you the other day that you smelt my aftershave. You said to your friend, ‘can you smell aftershave?’ and it was mine. She smelt it too but you have the better senses.You acted like you didn’t know it was mine. But I know you knew. You seem to know when I’m watching you.

Then, in more frenzied, clearly rushed writing.

Oh you look so secure don’t you?

Is this because of your PIG friend?

Why are you doing this to me, you fucking BITCH?

Do you miss me? I miss you. I need you.

I am coming for you!

He underlined the last sentence with a manic flourish. I noticed that some of the black ink had run down the damp, lower portion of the card, like a black tear. A thousand tiny cold feet scurried across my back. Dom must’ve watched me from somewhere outside, added this poison postscript to his love note, delivered it and ghosted off while I was dashing about chasing shadows. Maybe it was Dom who whacked me from behind in the alleyway? That’d be his style, the chicken shit.

Suddenly my back hurt where I’d been struck. I felt rattled, out-manoeuvred.

I wondered if it had been a man like Dom who stabbed Marion Ryan to death. Men like him possess that persecuted righteous rage required for sudden violence against someone they profess to love. As Gabby said, he didn’t start out like that. But what if nothing halts their escalation?

I snapped the book shut, fearful now that Dom Rogan would eventually harm Gabby if I didn’t do something about him. But what could I do? My only hope was to catch him in the act of breaking in here. I walked to the patio door and checked the back garden, willing him to appear.

‘Is everything okay?’

Gabby stood at her bedroom door, bag in hand, as still and alert as a startled deer.

‘Sorry, miles away,’ I smiled, busily seeking out a positive note on which to reboot our conversation.

‘I went to see Lilian yesterday. I’ve agreed to help with her dissertation.’

‘I know! She called me. I meant to say thank you. She is so excited. And who knows, it might actually help.’

‘So I’ve kept up my end of the bargain.’

She nodded, her closed lips resigning at the corners.

‘Have you started looking for somewhere to live yet, Gabby?’

Her skin flushed.

‘You haven’t told your parents about Dom stalking you, have you?’

She shook her head.

‘Or that you need to move out of here?’

‘How can I?’ she said softly, addressing the floor. ‘It’s so embarrassing.’

‘So what excuse have you given them for staying at theirs?’

‘I … they think I’m having some floors replaced.’

I breathed a long disapproving sigh. I liked this Donal: uncompromising, direct, manly. Why could I never pull it off outside of work? I fingered Dom’s deranged love note, now an unlikely bookmark. Part of me wanted to show it to her, dispense the short sharp shock she clearly needed. On the other hand, I didn’t want to scythe down the green shoots of her recovering confidence. I needed to prod her in another way.

‘You’ve got to tell them. And you’ve got to get on with finding a new place to live before he puts two and two together and turns up at your family’s place in Maidstone.’

‘He wouldn’t?’

‘If he finds out you’re staying there, then of course he will. And what are you going to do about this?’ I asked, pointing at her mail on the table.

‘Oh yes, of course,’ she flustered, shoving it awkwardly into her handbag.

‘No I mean … Look, Gabby, because of my job, I’ve dealt with this kind of situation before. You shouldn’t get your mail automatically forwarded to your new address.’

She looked at me, confused.

‘Someone as determined and conniving as Dom could easily wheedle that information out of a Royal Mail employee.’

‘Oh, gosh, I hadn’t even thought of that. That’s okay though, I’ll pop back every couple of days to pick it up.’

‘Oh no,’ I blurted, ‘you can’t do that. I’ll pick it up for you. It’s no bother. I pass here every day anyway.’

She looked unsure.

‘And you’ll be doing me a favour. There’s been a new directive at work about protecting victims of domestic abuse or stalking,’ I lied. ‘I really need to follow all the guidelines so it’s important that you don’t come back here alone.’

‘Okay. Thank you,’ she said uncertainly, rummaging in her handbag and producing keys.

‘You really mustn’t come back here alone,’ I said, way too urgently, ‘and you really need to get a new place sorted, right away. When you do, I’ll bring your post over to you.’

She nodded, somehow sensing that I was holding something back.

‘I’ll lock up,’ I said brightly, ‘and then I’m giving you a lift to the train station.’

As soon as her seatbelt clicked, I started the engine. I zapped on the headlights and swung the car round, part one of a tight three-pointer. As I crunched it into reverse, a figure appeared in the headlights next to that white works van I’d fallen against earlier. Clad in camo and a bear hat, Dom Rogan stared directly at me and smiled, tapping some sort of instrument against his open palm. I glanced left: thankfully Gabby was busy repacking mail into her handbag. I knocked off the headlights, completed points two, then three, wincing in expectation of some sort of attack. As I flicked on the headlights and sped off, I realised it was time I took the initiative with Dom Rogan.