Later in the day, after that information had been passed to the RIC, who policed the countryside out of Dublin, the sergeant at Roundwood, a small village in rural County Wicklow, made the connection, identifying the sister. A constable had been despatched to the smallholding in the Wicklow Mountains, where she lived with her sheep-farmer husband and a string of children. When the constable stated his business and disclosed his grim news she told him that she did not want to know about her sister and showed him the door.

The funeral Mass was swift and without trimmings. The elderly celebrant mumbled his way through the Latin prayers. There was no distribution of Communion and no homily. Swallow surmised that the decision not to distribute Communion was dictated by the assumption that many among the congregation, and certainly all of the working girls, were sinners and not in the state of grace. At the end of the Mass the priest descended from the altar, hurriedly sprinkled the coffin with holy water and retreated to the sacristy.

The only funeral attendee of professional interest to Swallow was Charlie Vanucchi, the acknowledged leader of the Dublin criminal fraternity since the death of Ces ‘Pisspot’ Downes, who had run her crime ring from her house on Francis Street. She had earned the unflattering soubriquet from her lethal use of a chamber pot on her mistress’s skull when the lady discovered her stealing silverware from her fine house on Merrion Square.

In the custom of policemen who need to see and note any significant attendees, the G-men took a vantage point from where they could survey the entire church. Vanucchi nodded agreeably as he passed their pew. The unmistakably Neapolitan features of the young man by his side marked him as being another family member. He wore the same fine woollen coat as the older man. Swallow noted that they wore similar, finely crafted shoes.

‘The youngest of the brood,’ Mossop whispered unnecessarily in Swallow’s ear. ‘Tony’s supposed to be the best pickpocket west of Liverpool.’

The working girls from around Montgomery Street and Gloucester Street had collected enough money to give Nellie a decent burial at Mount Prospect cemetery at Glasnevin, sparing her the indignity of a pauper’s grave. The day was cold but dry. After the elderly priest had concluded the graveside obsequies, which were as perfunctory as the requiem Mass earlier, Charlie Vanucchi and his son walked across to where Swallow and Mossop stood on the gravel pathway. There were no unnecessary introductions.

‘What brings you here, Charlie?’ Swallow asked. ‘I didn’t know you were connected.’

‘I’m not, Mr Swallow. Nellie was good to Ces.’

‘Nellie? Good to Ces?’

Vanucchi shrugged.