‘Nah, apart from the accident with the boilin’ soup. There was a big pot where the chef used to boil the vegetable soup. It was too heavy. She tried to carry it from the range and she fell. It went all down her leg and burned her. She screamed somethin’ terrible. Then after that she started havin’ trouble with Werner.’

That explained the disfigurement of Alice’s skin that Lafeyre had noted in his post-mortem examination of her body, Swallow noted silently.

‘Tell me about that. What happened?’

‘She was off work for maybe a month, in and out to the infirmary there on Jervis Street to get the burns dressed and that. Then she comes back to her job. She says she’s entitled to have it back. Werner’s gone and taken on another girl, someone from the country, and he doesn’t want Alice back. He says he doesn’t need her and her job is filled. But she says she knows her rights and she’s entitled to her job so she’s stayin’ on.’

‘How do you know about this?’

‘Well, first they were havin’ this argument for all to hear in the kitchen. Then he said she was disturbin’ things and he took her to th’ office. But sure, when she came out an hour later she said she had the job back an’ she told a few of us abou’ it. Said she knew her rights and she knew the law. So in th’ end Werner gave in. He told her she could stay if didn’t make any more mistakes. Like, he was makin’ out that it was a mistake, her fault, when the big pot o’ boilin’ soup kem down on her.’

‘So there was trouble between them?’

‘Bloody sure. She got back to work, which was what she wanted. But she must have been fierce unhappy at it. He criticised her all the time, makin’ out she was doin’ things wrong. She told him she was a good worker, and then she said she wanted compensation for th’ accident.’

‘Compensation?’

Carmody grimaced.

‘Yeh. I told her it was a stupid idea. If somethin’ happens at work, that’s your problem, isn’t it?’

‘But she didn’t agree?’

‘Nah, she thought she could get money outta Werner because o’ wha’ happened.’

‘So how did Werner deal with that?’

Carmody shrugged.

‘She told me he offered her a few quid to just clear off and go somewhere else. But she said she wouldn’t be bought off so easy.’

It was just possible, Swallow reasoned, that Carmody was close to the truth of the matter. Alice Flannery was an assertive young woman, insistent on her rights. If she became an irritant to Werner it might not be beyond the bounds of imagination to think that he could have arranged to have her taken out of circulation. Or perhaps to have her taught a lesson, which then went too far.