‘If it’s all right with you I’ll release the remains to the family. They want to notify the undertakers. I’ve got a busy afternoon at my rooms. I’ll ask Scollan to take care of the details. Would you like to travel with me to the Castle?’

There was nothing more Swallow could learn at the hospital. Later in the day, he reckoned, he would visit the dead girl’s home and extend official condolences. By then the door-to-door and other standard inquiries would have been completed. He had arranged a crime conference at Exchange Court for five o’clock. Before that he had to brief his boss, John Mallon, chief superintendent of G-Division.

It was early days in the investigation, he told himself. He knew very little about the victim’s circumstances. Usually, in his experience, when one got to know even a little about a victim’s life, a motive and a suspect would appear fairly quickly. But he had a feeling that this was not going to be an easy process in this case. Murder was often a relatively easy crime to solve, but so far nothing was clear about the ending of Alice Flannery’s life.

Chapter 5

Swallow decided to treat himself to a large Tullamore and a steak and kidney pie in Deegan’s of Parliament Street before presenting himself to John Mallon at his office in the Lower Yard. He and Shanahan had gratefully accepted Lafeyre’s offer of a lift in the comfort of his brougham as an alternative to a drenching ride across the city on the open police car.

One of the perquisites of office for the chief superintendent of G-Division was the provision of a house in the Lower Castle Yard. It hardly competed with the splendour of the State Apartments in the Upper Yard, occupied by the Lord Lieutenant and his entourage in ‘the season’, when the Castle hosted balls, ‘drawing rooms’ and receptions. There was a world of distinction in rank and status between the Upper and the Lower Yards. Apart from housing the State Apartments, the Upper Yard also accommodated working offices of the powerful civil servants who ran the administration of Ireland for the Crown. Nonetheless, the chief superintendent’s house was well-appointed and spacious, and it had recently been redecorated to Mrs Mallon’s taste.

After breaking the ‘Invincibles’ conspiracy in the wake of the Phoenix Park murders of Chief Secretary Cavendish and Under-Secretary Burke five years previously, John Mallon could do no wrong in the eyes of the Castle authorities. If Elizabeth Mallon wanted new wallpaper in her parlour, she could have it.