Last Saturday evening a teenage girl who lives nearby was walking down Clonavon Terrace, a small residential street around the corner from McDonald's in the centre of the town of Ballymena, when she was allegedly approached by a pair of 14-year-old boys.
Precisely what happened next remains unclear - and remains the subject of intense debate - but just 48 hours later, and for days to follow, the town in County Antrim would be ablaze after rioting as bad as anything seen since in Northern Ireland since the end of The Troubles.
What we do know - that the two boys are alleged to have sexually violated her against her will in what is thought to be a garage in an alleyway behind Clonavon Terrace - is outweighed by what we don't: her age, the precise location, her account of what they said and did, the role of a third boy later arrested too.
But one fact is not in dispute: when those two boys - who, unlike the girl, did not grow up locally - appeared on an attempted rape charge at Coleraine Magistrates Court on Monday morning, they were accompanied by a Romanian language interpreter.
This single fact appears to have provided the spark to ignite Ballymena in flames.
