‘They’re digging deep to get any dirt there is on Parnell,’ Mallon said. ‘The government is supposed to be disinterested and impartial, of course, but it’s clear they’re doing all they can to support The Times’s charge that he’s working hand in glove with the Fenians, and that the more violence there is, the more political leverage it gives him.’

‘But we know that’s not true, chief. We’ve never got a shred of evidence to support it. If it wasn’t for Parnell there’d be a lot more young men enrolling with the Fenians.’

‘Of course.’ Mallon’s tone was exasperated. ‘It’s their bloody stupidity that angers me. They think they have to destroy Parnell. I’ve tried to explain, again and again, that he’s the best buffer we have between order and chaos, just as you’re saying. As long as we have him in position, moderate opinion has a place to express itself. If he’s brought down, the extremists will move in to fill the vacuum.’

Swallow drank from his Bushmills. It was good, but he still preferred the mellow Tullamore.

‘So what do Kelly and Waters want of us?’

‘They want the originals of the protection logs.’

G-men were assigned to Parnell’s protection every time he came through Dublin. They monitored his movements from the moment he would step ashore from the cross-channel steamer, returning from Westminster. They watched his house on Merrion Square, logging the people who came and went and the times they did so. When he visited elsewhere, they logged the address and the arrival and departure and any visitors. Swallow had done his share of it before promotion, carefully copying details into the logbooks at Exchange Court at the end of each shift. But every G-man knew that what was officially designated as protection was also surveillance. Every detail of Parnell’s life was recorded and passed up the security chain to the officials in Smith Berry’s office. And every G-man who did the Parnell ‘protection’ shifts with any regularity knew that he was frequently accompanied by Mrs Katharine O’Shea, the estranged wife of his parliamentary colleague, Captain William O’Shea. Her home was at Eltham, in Kent, which she shared with Parnell and two of the three children they had together. Their first, it was known, had died in infancy.

‘They’re going to try to bring him down over the relationship with Mrs O’Shea,’ Mallon said. ‘They’re a married couple to all intents and purposes. She and Captain O’Shea have lived apart for years, but she’s legally his wife and the relationship with Parnell is adulterous. He’ll be hard pressed to deny it. But Smith Berry believes that our protection logs would be irrefutable evidence.’

‘Why can’t they get their evidence in England?’ Swallow asked. ‘As I understand it they live together with their children fairly openly at Eltham.’