‘The night was quiet. We had double beats out, as you know. No suspicious activity beyond a couple of fellows found with crowbars outside a shop in Stoneybatter. The cold probably kept the anti-social elements indoors.’

Swallow gestured to the plaster cast taken in the mud at Blackberry Lane.

‘What do you make of the shoe?’

Doolan held the cast up and turned it.

‘Size nine. Adult. Almost certainly male. Smooth sole without any hobnails. Not a working man’s or a farmer’s boot. Not an army boot either.’

‘Any gaps in the alibis from the neighbours?’

Feore glanced up from the murder book.

‘Nothing from the neighbours, but we found a hole in young Dan Flannery’s story.’

There was a murmur of interest around the room.

‘The brother?’

‘Yes. He said in his statement that he worked in Coyle’s of Rathmines until after midnight, stacking crates in the cellar and bringing fresh stock upstairs to the bar. Then he turned up at the station in Rathmines at two o’clock in the morning to say his sister hadn’t come home.’

He turned a page in the murder book.

‘But Constable Caviston checked with Tom Coyle, the publican. He says it was earlier, more like half past eleven, when Dan left. Coyle’s senior barman says the same thing. Coyle says that young Dan took off fast as soon as he started calling last drinks. He says he’d been doing that for the past few nights. Coyle had ticked him off and he offered to come in earlier the next day to get the stocks right.’

Another murmur passed around the room.

‘We’d better have a few words with young Dan then,’ Swallow said. ‘There might be an innocent explanation for it, but there’s a discrepancy of half an hour between what he’s telling us about his movements and what his boss is saying. He could easily have been at Blackberry Lane at the time of the attack.’

‘Will we go out or have him brought in?’ Mossop asked. ‘They’ve still got the girl laid out in the house. Whatever the story, it wouldn’t be decent to have a squad of bobbies descend on a household in mourning.’

Swallow nodded.

‘You’re right. Just go out to the house on your own and tell him to come in here with you. Don’t bring any uniformed men with you. We’ll not arrest him unless he makes us. Tell him he’s coming in to help with inquiries, but put a couple of men along the Rathmines Road in case he tries to make a run for it. Bring him in here for, say, one o’clock. I’ll do the interview with you. In the meantime, I’ll go across and bring Chief Mallon up to date.’

‘What do I say to the mother?’