‘How terrible,’ Maria said. ‘May the Lord have mercy on her.’

He forked a mouthful of mutton and washed it down with the porter.

‘Tom tells me you were off at the Mansion House rally to hear Davitt. I didn’t know you were planning to do that.’

‘I wasn’t. Harriet insisted I should go. And I thought you might want me to keep an eye on her anyway. She gets carried away on these issues.’

That was certainly true of his young sister, he knew.

‘Did Davitt say anything significant?’ he asked unnecessarily. In the morning, at Exchange Court, he would read the G-men’s report of the meeting.

‘Mostly the usual things one reads about in the newspapers. You know I don’t have a lot of interest. But he’s a very powerful speaker. He seemed to be very upset about the authorities’ attempts to undermine Mr Parnell.’

Swallow’s mind flashed back to the set of protection logs that he had earlier secreted away in Harry Lafeyre’s room in the Lower Castle Yard.

‘He’s not wrong,’ he said. ‘They’re out to do him down. A terrible mistake, I think. If Parnell falls, what comes behind him will be more violent and ugly than anything we’ve seen so far. In one way that would suit Davitt. But I think he understands that Parnell could secure the bigger prize—Home Rule for Ireland.’

She was silent for a long moment.

‘Is it not time to get out of it, Joe? All this intrigue and politics and danger. I have a good business here, but it needs a man’s hand in it too. You and I could build it into a really prosperous enterprise.’

She sounded weary.

‘You know I don’t reject the idea, Maria. We’ve talked about this.’

‘I do. We’ve talked before, of course. But things have changed.’

She looked him fully and deliberately in the eyes.

‘I’m pregnant. I’m expecting our child.’

Sunday November 4th, 1888

Chapter 10

Swallow had fixed the crime conference for ten o’clock. That gave tired G-men and their uniformed colleagues a chance to have a lie-in at home or to get to an early Mass, or service, depending on their inclinations and their confessional affiliations. But when he arrived at Exchange Court five minutes before the hour, every man was present. Pat Mossop and Mick Feore were cross-checking details in the murder book. Johnny Vizzard and Stephen Doolan were examining the plaster cast of the boot recovered from the field beside Blackberry Lane. A dozen G-men and a few of Doolan’s constables sat around on forms and chairs.

Swallow took a chair at the top of the parade room. The policemen fell silent.

‘Any developments?’

Stephen Doolan tapped the reports from the telegraph room on his desk.