‘Ah, not really. We can keep some sort of grip on things. Maybe save Ireland from the foolishness of the English. That’s why we stay with this job, I often think.’ He laughed. ‘Apart from the great wages, that is.’

Swallow echoed the laugh.

‘All for the empire upon which the sun will never set.’

‘Indeed,’ Mallon smiled. ‘And you know why that is?’

‘Tell me.’

‘Because God couldn’t trust the English for what they’d likely do in the dark.’

‘I’ll drink to that, chief.’

Maybe, Swallow thought to himself. Maybe Mallon was right. It was a whole rotten mess. Nigel Kelly should be in a prison cell awaiting trial and then facing the rope for the murder of Nellie Byrne. He and Maria should be facing into the light of spring and then the warmth of summer, anticipating the arrival of their first-born child. A young woman called Alice Flannery should be building her dream of being a cook in a restaurant or a great house. Instead, she lay in a cold grave in Mount Jerome.

It would be so easy to walk away from it all.

‘By the way,’ Mallon said, ‘there’s developments in the Debbie Dunne case too. The bobbies in Irishtown had a walk-in. A lunatic navy deserter, living down by the Grand Canal Dock in a shed, just rolled in to them and confessed to it. He says he thought she was a lady of the night. God gave him an order to do it, he says. Harry Lafeyre has sent him for a mental examination at the Richmond Asylum.’

Strange, Swallow thought. Two murders and one near-murder, all in one small city over a few short weeks. A terrifying pattern of violence, it seemed. And now, when it was all broken down, it was no more than a series of unconnected criminal acts, committed by unconnected perpetrators, motivated by the basest instincts. Such was the nature of his work, he reflected. Individual human crises and tragedies would arise to be dealt with every day. A policeman’s lot.

‘All part of the rich tapestry of life,’ Mallon said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘Wouldn’t you be thankful to Jesus that we’re not dealing with anything like that Ripper business in London?’

Swallow took a sizeable draught from his whiskey.

‘You’re right, chief. But maybe Stephen Doolan wasn’t totally off the mark talking about that “Dolocher” fellow attacking women around Dublin forty years ago. There’s always characters living on the edge of sanity. They can be set off by anything. Even a newspaper report of a killing somewhere else.’

Mallon shrugged.

‘Who knows? Maybe the doctors in the Richmond will get inside the mind of this navy deserter fellow.’

He rose from his chair and walked to the window, drew back the curtain and stared out into darkness of the Lower Yard.