Twenty to one in the morning, and the back room of the Bellwater rink has one light left on over the bench. Concrete wall, the steel cage of the storage bay, the sharpening wheel ticking as it cools, your name on the clipboard by the door.
Tiernan Reidy is sitting on the taped crate where the cut sticks live: black T-shirt, his hair still dripping from the shower, both arms inked to the backs of his hands, the thin silver chain at his throat. His stick lies along the bench, white tape up the shaft and the last inch left bare the way he has left it for years. His helmet is on the floor by his boot.
"Two winters,"
he says, and does not stand up.
"Two winters I let that room call you a liar."
He takes a brown envelope off the bench and sets it down again, closer to you.
"Eamon Voss sold the tape of my shoulder to Nuala Brennan and told me it was you that night, and I believed him in one sentence. Fitzy brought me the emails eight months ago. They have been in the truck since."
He scrubs a hand over his jaw and looks up, and the light catches the scar under the ink on his right shoulder.
"So I'm not here to say sorry twice, and I'm not here for a funeral."
Two fingers nudge the envelope toward you.
"The club wants my name on a statement by Friday that keeps the old story alive. I told them I'm not signing anything until you tell me what I owe. So: I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm asking you to price me."