The Greenbergs had recently come back dramatically into Swallow’s professional life when two London criminals set out to rob the Capel Street shop. When he came on the scene with a uniformed constable, investigating the appearance of stolen gold coins in a number of city shops, Swallow had disabled one of them with a shot from his Webley Bulldog while the other fled.

The investigation into the attempted robbery at Greenberg’s of Capel Street had uncovered evidence relating to an earlier murder, that of Ambrose Pollock, a pawnbroker and furniture dealer, done to death in his shop at Lamb Alley, off Cornmarket. In turn, that had revealed the existence of a large-scale embezzlement of exchequer funds in the administration of the Land Acts that enabled Irish tenant farmers to buy out their holdings from their landlords. It was the success of that investigation, John Mallon had told Swallow, which ensured his promotion to the rank of detective inspector.

Catherine made no secret of her affections for Joe Swallow. It had been there even as a young girl, when the handsome, uniformed constable would sit, drinking coffee in her mother’s kitchen, his Roman-style helmet on the table. Later, when Swallow had become a G-Division detective, he would come to visit her father. They would drink Lebanese wine from the Bekaa Valley in Ephram’s upstairs study, looking down into Capel Street. If there was stolen property on the move around the city’s art shops or galleries, Ephram Greenberg knew about it, and usually who was behind it. And as young Catherine became more involved in the business she would sit in on the conversations that ranged beyond the provenance of stolen silverware into politics, philosophy, religion and more.

She was probably seventeen when Swallow realised he was an object of her romantic interest. He was flattered, but nothing could come of it. He was thirteen years her senior. Their faiths divided them, although she made it precociously clear that she was not interested in practising the Jewish faith or any other. And there was an economic divide. The Greenbergs were a wealthy family with an established business. Whatever about the G-Division inspector that he now was, he would have been a poor catch for her as the young uniformed constable he had been then.

He delighted in the painting class, for all the self-doubt about his talent. When he stepped through the doors of the college he entered a different world. Crime, intrigue, dark corridors and dark minds were left behind for a blissful two hours in the company of creative, energetic people. And so it was this afternoon. He felt a lightness in his step and his spirits lifted as he settled to his customary place.

‘Hello, Catherine,’ he grinned. ‘I suppose you’re going to dazzle us all with your homework as usual.’

She smiled.

‘I wish you wouldn’t make fun of me, Joe. I’m just a muddler and I know it.