‘Not for us, I think. They have an Irish fella in custody there. Name of Carmody. He’s up for a serious assault on a chef in a hotel where he’s workin’ in Berlin. The Berlin police want a check on his background here.’

He pulled a length of flimsy from the pile and handed it to Swallow.

‘Here it is. That’ll keep wan o’ your lads busy for a while.’

For a moment Swallow toyed with the idea of handing the paper back to Cummins with an instruction to put it in the file that would go to the duty officer at G-Division later in the evening anyway. Then he decided that since he had to pass Exchange Court to make his way home to Thomas Street, he might as well take it with him.

He climbed the stairs to his office, and when he had wrapped himself in his overcoat he smoothed the sheet on his desk in order to read the message.

Königliche Schutzmannschaft

Kriminal Directorat

BerlinWaterstraße 11

To

Direktor von Detektiven

Polizei Kriminal

Dublin

Vereinigtes Königreich von Großbritannien und Irland

Herr Direktor,

In the matter of an injurious assault in the Hotel Oslo, the Berlin police hold in its custody a British citizen, Michael James Carmody. Prisoner states to be born in Dublin, United Kingdom in 1865.

Prisoner Carmody has been in Berlin since November. Prisoner by trade is assistant kitchen chef. He states he was employed at Dublin at the Dolphin Hotel and at New Vienna Hotel. States there are no criminal convictions in United Kingdom.

This department would thank you to confirm records for Prisoner Carmody for return quickly please. If necessary fotograph likeness may be sent to you through international postal.

Trusting yours cordially

Johann Pfaus

(Hauptmann/Kapitän)

Swallow read the message a second time with gathering excitement. Michael James Carmody might be spinning a false yarn to the Berlin Kriminalpolizei. But if he was telling the truth about working at the New Vienna, there was a gap in the details that Stefan Werner had given to him and Pat Mossop in November. There was no Carmody on the list of employees at his restaurant that he had furnished to G-Division.

And if this Kapitän Pfaus was right about the timing of Carmody’s arrival in Berlin, it was just days after the murder of Alice Flannery.

Saturday December 29th, 1888

Chapter 28

The Dublin Criminal Registry was housed in two cavernous brick-faced buildings on Great Ship Street, just outside the back gate to the Castle’s Lower Yard. Something in excess of 100,000 files had accumulated in its storerooms and corridors over the half-century since its establishment.