Belfast, 21st September 1998

"Dear James," Abby wrote, as she sat at the cafe. "Why didn't you come? I know, I know, I didn't either. I don't know if it's because Michelle walked away when Andy was chatting her up, or because of Erin and Orla. You know Matthew - " Abby underlined the word, "know", then she crossed it out and replaced it with "knew". "Andy and Matt, and the others invited us over the water for the evening. I sent you a letter. Did you get it? But after then, I never saw you. It can't have been because I went to the grammar. But it was after your kissing Erin….

…I loved you, James. We had plans - I'm one half of those plans, here, now, in Belfast. I don't know where you are, or what you're doing.

"So yes, I said yes to Matthew, when he asked me out. Because Corinne's mum had heard it from Claire's mum, and told Corinne. Who told Stella. Who told me.

I wrote to you. You didn't write back, or call, or visit. I - "

I just want it out of my head, Abby thought, as the last of the tea began to evaporate and leave a ring at the bottom of the cup.

"I can't remember if I cried then, or was it then I went back to Stella's and we got drunk? I stayed the night and tried to fancy her brother, which should have been easy, given he's a footballer and six foot and blonde. But I could never…I didn't…I just wanted to be with you, James, and do the things a we did, talk about the future and peace and your budding media career and my obsession with rocks."

It was a lousy letter, and Abby read over it once more. Besides, where would she post it to? The Mallons'? London?

Still, Abby considered the possibility of posting it, and she took out of her backpack her purse, which contained many shop loyalty cards and her bank card.

There were still two red first class stamps inside the stamp book, bought at a time when Abby had decided that her letters were worth getting there a day early and 5p was the price worth paying for speed. She put them back into one of the sections and closed her purse, shoving it deep down into her bag.

With one glance at her self-pitying nonsense, Abby tore the letter to James width ways and screwed up the pieces, thrusting them into the cafe bin on the way out.

Neil Malone was just where she had left him, outside the geology building.

"I'm sorry for ditching you," Abby told him. The young man smiled and held up a hand.

"I wanted to get to the building; you got me there, hold up - have you been crying?" He raised a hand slowly, then stopped, as Abby met her own cheek with her fingers.

"Oh, no," she shook her head. "Just…a past that I want to leave in the past."

"A boy?"

"He was shot," Abby blurted out. "I was beside him. Nothing could be done."

Damn! Damn her chattiness and a kindly word. "I don't want to get into it," Abby added, clutching her backpack. More people were arriving now, and she was grateful that the topic had been dropped.

They walked into the building and had first day of light lectures and administrative exercises: checking classes, dates, names, places.

Footsteps behind Abby as she walked back to the Elms made her jump, but it was only Neil walking quickly to keep up with her.

"I…haven't had a good time recently," Abby told Neil, as they walked down "his" road, Malone Road.

"You don't have to tell me anything, Neil told her. "But you're not the only one."

Just had your girlfriend gunned down beside you on the Derry city walls, have you? Abby thought, bitterly, but the bitterness drained away when she saw his face.

"I've just come back from being away and my family don't want to know me," he told her, as the halls of residence came into view. "It's punishment for what I did - what I did for them. Here's a fresh start for me, too."

And the evening began, as did many evenings, of dinners and lecture notes and the one TV that that'd all chipped in for the licence fee for, and washing up rotas and nights out…

It could have been like that for the next four years, Abby thought, from the privileged position of the future, but for her volunteering for an archaeological dig to improve her geology in the context of history and anthropology.

Of course she had taken it, not least for the nominal grant she had got.

If Abby had known, would she have taken it?

But,of course, she hadn't, she only knew what she knew at the time. And in between September 1998 and August 1999, Abigail Smith and Neil Malone grew closer, not at first, but imperceptibly so.

Until it was August the following year and all the sorrow of the last two years, of James Maguire and Matthew Leighton were out of her mind, and the producers of a well known television programme about archaeology had chosen a tiny town in County Antrim to broadcast their three-day programme, Time Team.

Because there, over the course of a fortnight, with the choices she had made long ago, Abby Smith's world was about to turn on its head.