An initial-boundary value problem with a Caputo time derivative of fractional order α ∈ ( 0 , 1 ) \alpha \in (0,1) is considered, solutions of which typically exhibit a singular behaviour at an initial time. An L2-type discrete fractional-derivative operator of order 3 − α 3-\alpha is considered on nonuniform temporal meshes. Sufficient conditions for the inverse-monotonicity of this operator are established, which yields sharp pointwise-in-time error bounds on quasi-graded temporal meshes with arbitrary degree of grading. In particular, those results imply that milder (compared to the optimal) grading yields optimal convergence rates in positive time. Semi-discretizations in time and full discretizations are addressed. The theoretical findings are illustrated by numerical experiments.