‘Father Cavendish, I’m Detective Inspector Swallow. This is Detective Sergeant Mossop. We’re investigating the murder of Alice Flannery. I’d appreciate a few minutes of your time to help us in our inquiries.’

Close up, James Cavendish had sharp blue eyes. For a moment Swallow thought he was about to protest that he had other things to do or that he had to be away urgently for some reason, but then he smiled confidently and stepped down from the footplate. He might be thirty, Swallow estimated, but he could pass for younger. Women would find this priest attractive, he reckoned.

‘Of course, if I can help I will. I’m going back to the parochial house. We can talk there. Would you like to share my carriage? Or have you got your own transport?’

‘Thank you, Father. We have our own car here. We’ll follow you to the parochial house.’

It was curious, he reflected, this priestly preference for retreating to their own redoubt for any conversation where they might be put under any pressure. Monsignor Feehan had expressed the same preference two days earlier.

Cavendish’s carriage covered the distance back to Rathmines at a trot. The police driver pulled in behind it when they reached the parochial house, and Swallow and Mossop dismounted swiftly. Cavendish dropped lithely to the ground once his driver had opened the carriage door. He led them into the house and took them to the same parlour where they had interviewed Monsignor Feehan.

A housekeeper appeared at the door as they were about to sit on the same hard-backed chairs they had occupied two days previously.

‘Will you want your dinner soon, Father?’

‘Thank you, Mrs O’Reilly. If you’d just keep it warm for me, I’ll be with these gentlemen for a short while. Perhaps they might like some tea? It’s been a bitterly cold morning.’

‘I don’t think so, Father,’ Swallow responded, against his inclinations. The idea of hot tea with sweet sugar was tempting after the cold of the cemetery at Mount Jerome, but something told him that it was wiser to be strictly formal with Father James Cavendish in spite of his veneer of congeniality.

‘Just for myself then, please,’ Cavendish told her. ‘A shocking thing, the murder of young Alice, and so close to her own home. So close to this church. Now, tell me how I can be of assistance.’

Swallow was direct.

‘I need to tell you, Father, that I am interviewing you under caution because certain evidence has come to light in the course of our inquiries. I am advising you that you could be suspected of involvement in a criminal matter, and that while you are not obliged to say anything, what you do say will be recorded and may be used in evidence. Do you understand this?’

The young priest paled. He blinked rapidly. It seemed as if he wanted to speak, but was unable to.