A couple of guys hadn’t so much come out as been flushed out by local gossip, mostly spread by Tullamore’s only openly gay man. Maybe he resented the competition because, once outed, none of them hung around for long.

As for those who made it to third-level education, most were already abroad. Every year, Ireland dished out 120,000 degrees/diplomas to people who then had to emigrate to get a job. We were the leading supplier of over-educated barmen, waitresses, labourers and cab drivers to the world.

I couldn’t begrudge Eve the merciless relish with which she imparted these grim allegories. As far as she was concerned, there was only one difference between her and the rest of us: her life went off the rails first, and very publicly.

‘Fintan tells me you’re sharing with Aidan Walker.’

I nodded.

‘Jesus, Aidan “Stalker” Walker. Is he still falling in love every week?’

‘Three times a week now, what with all the random women he encounters in London.’

‘How does he find time to write all those bad ballads? He still writes bad ballads, I presume?’

‘I can confirm that he still writes bad ballads. Though he’s been seeing the same girl for over three weeks now, so he’s got a double album of new material all about Ruth. Or is it Rachel?’

‘Rachel’s hard to rhyme. It must be Ruth. He could knock out a song a day with a name like that. Just think of the possibilities: truth, forsooth, youth …’

‘Phone booth. Bucktooth. Uncouth.’

‘He should call the album Now That’s What I Call Moothic.’

We both laughed again, hard. We used to laugh so much.

We recovered to find ourselves in that awkward post-joke void. I sensed Eve’s green eyes molesting me. She had something to ask.

‘Listen, Donal, I need a favour,’ she said sadly.

I stopped myself from saying, Name it.

‘There’s a photographer sniffing around the hostel, someone must have tipped off one of the papers that I’m staying there. They’ve agreed to move me to another hostel but there aren’t any free spaces at the minute. Could I stay at yours? Just for a few nights, until I get myself sorted?’

‘Of course,’ I smiled. Surely this meant she still had feelings for me?

‘Thanks, Donal. When I get back on my feet, I’ll buy you all the beer you can drink,’ she said, pointedly planting her empty glass on the table.

It felt good drinking with a woman who could keep up, even if it was costing me a fortune. But I needed to know what she had in mind for us. How would we move on from here?

I slung her the gin and cut to the chase: ‘What are your longer term plans, Eve?’

‘I don’t really know,’ she said quietly.

‘But you’re staying in London?’

‘I can’t go back,’ she said, slightly panicked. ‘I’m like the scarlet bloody woman over there. I could never live in Ireland again, not after all that’s happened.’

‘What about the bungalow?’

‘We tried to sell it but no one can afford to buy such a monstrosity. Some of the neighbours put in offers way below the asking price, because they knew we were desperate. Can you believe that? That’s why Mum and the boys had to go back to New York, to pay the mortgage.’

I wondered why she hadn’t followed them; then remembered that the Land of the Free doesn’t admit people with criminal records.

‘We’ve got a company that hires it out to tourists but we don’t get a lot of takers. I mean, who in their right mind would want to spend a week in a big damp bungalow in the middle of the bog?’

‘What about your dad? Maybe he could help …’

‘Do you honestly think I could bear to set eyes on that home-wrecking bitch Sandra Kelly? I’d rather sleep on the streets. She broke my mother’s heart.’

I felt confused: she had seemed happy enough to accept a favour from Frank three years ago, when we were planning our move here.

‘Don’t worry, Donal, I won’t be a burden on you for too long,’ she spat, her red fuse fizzing.

‘That’s not what I mean, Eve …’

‘I signed on today, and I’m seeing the probation people Thursday, so it might just be for two nights. Hopefully you can stand me for that long.’

‘Stay as long as you like, Eve,’ I said, ‘honestly. We’ve got so much to catch up on. And so much we didn’t get a chance to talk about before I left.’

I thought to myself: ‘Where could we even start with that?’

But Eve seemed to know exactly where she wanted to kick off our darker reminiscences. ‘You know the other night, when you mentioned Meehan?’

I nodded.

‘Tell me again, Donal. Everything you saw that night.’

‘God, Eve, are you sure you can handle …’

‘Tell me,’ she demanded.

She listened intently as I ran her through the sequence of events in graphic detail: scored as it was inexorably on my memory.

When I wrapped up, I asked, ‘What I saw, Eve, is that actually what happened?’

She nodded gravely.

‘Did he …?’

She kept nodding.

‘God, I’m so sorry.’

Eve looked at me with those big watery eyes: ‘You said you couldn’t hear anything?’

‘No, it was all in total silence.’

‘But you can hear everything when Marion comes to you?’

I nodded, surprised she could remember minutiae like this from our booze-fuelled night at the Archway Tavern.

‘The way you talked about it, you sounded really convinced that she is actually coming to you with clues?’

‘Even more so now.’

‘Why?’

I explained how my dual sighting of Marion on Sangora and Strathblaine Roads the previous Friday turned out to be pivotal to the case, exaggerating the impact, but not wildly. I next reiterated my absolute certainty that the identity of Marion’s killer lay on a door somewhere at number 21.

‘My God,’ she said, troubled, uncomfortable, ‘that’s so specific.’

Meehan flashed into my mind suddenly; the way he came for me as I lay in Tullamore General Hospital, hours after Eve had killed him. I couldn’t remember if I’d told her about this the other night. I decided it would do no good telling her now.

‘Will you ever go back?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Only to see Mum, probably after Dad croaks it.’

‘I heard what he said,’ she took my hand and squeezed it, ‘I don’t blame you.’

I explained that I felt no loss for Martin, just regret that we’d failed to find a way to tolerate each other, if only for Mum’s sake.

As we left the Wheatsheaf, Eve sensed my gloom and resurrected a running joke from the old days. No vocabulary on the planet has more words for being drunk than Ireland’s: clattered, flootered, ossified, mangled, locked, stocious, scuttered, manky to name just a few. As we staggered into the night, we traded them just like we used to, until one of us could think of no more.

I felt this connection to Eve that I doubted I’d ever develop with Gabby. We’d grown up together, in a way. She knew me inside out. Because of what happened to her that night, we had a bond that would never be broken.

She dozed off on the couch as I sank a Shiraz. The crook of my shoulder felt as if her head had never left it. When she stirred, I raised her gently to her feet and walked her to my bed.

‘So soft,’ she slurred as I laid her out. I pulled off her shoes and sandwiched her in duvet.

She rolled over and giggled. ‘Soft,’ she whispered again.

I watched her grind her face into the pillow and thought about lying down behind her, throwing my arm over her slender shoulder like the old days.

Retreating to the door, my mind raced: what did this all mean? Could we pick up where we left off? Why not? But what were we to do about the missing three years? Maybe we could start again, from scratch?

I didn’t know the answers, but decided that if Eve wanted to give our relationship another go, then I owed it to her – to us – to try. After all, external forces split us up last time. By getting back together, we’d find out ourselves, once and for all, whether we were meant to be. If it didn’t work out, then at least we’d know, for certain.