‘I don’t know,’ she said wearily. ‘Who knows what any horse smells like? Ask me about fish. I can tell yez about smells offa different fish.’

‘But he didn’t smell of fish,’ Swallow pressed her. ‘You said “musty” to the other policemen.’

She shook her head.

‘I don’t know. Like I said, I was fightin’ for me life, wasn’t I?’

‘I think you were, Debbie. And fair enough, you saw him off.’

‘There’s nothin’ fair about it,’ she muttered. ‘Be the time I’m back on me feet, me stand will be gone. There’s a dozen other wans who’ll be sellin’ fish down Cardiff Lane and Misery Hill.’

‘We could help you on that,’ Mossop suggested. ‘Have you anyone else who could operate your barrow for a while?’

‘There’s me little sister, Lizzie. But them wans would run her off the street.’

‘Not if we told them they’d be fined for trading without a street licence,’ Mossop said. ‘They’d be very nice to her, I’d say, in those circumstances.’

‘Street licence?’ Debbie Dunne managed a croaky laugh. ‘Sure, none of us ever had them.’

‘Well, that isn’t a great surprise, Debbie. There wouldn’t be much chit-chat among the girls about the Dublin Street Trading Act. But maybe it’s time to enforce the law,’ Mossop ventured.

She hesitated for a moment.

‘Could yez do that . . . what you’re sayin’ like? It’d be great if I knew I could go back to me stand when I’m better.’

‘We could,’ Swallow said simply, ‘and we will, if you like.’

When they returned to the Castle late in the afternoon, Swallow went to report to Mallon at his office in the Lower Yard.

Crossing the yard, he saw Harry Lafeyre’s brougham standing outside the medical examiner’s storeroom. As Swallow passed the building, Lafeyre’s driver, Scollan, emerged through the door, struggling with a large cardboard box that he deposited onto the carriage floor. Scollan glowered at him.

‘Bringin’ these files up to Harcourt Street for the doctor. You’d not think paper could be so bloody heavy.’

Swallow hoped that Lafeyre’s instructions to his assistant were simply to fetch and deliver. Any further exploration within the medical examiner’s room carried the risk that the protection logs could be uncovered from behind the storage cupboard.

‘Ah go on, you big horse of a Limerick man,’ he cajoled Scollan. ‘If it was a crate of stout you were carrying away for yourself, you’d say it was as light as a feather.’

Scollan muttered something unintelligible as he locked the storeroom door. Then he hoisted himself to the brougham’s driving seat, flicked the reins over the horse’s back and started to trundle across the yard towards the Palace Street gate. Swallow breathed a quiet sigh of relief.