It had been a short honeymoon, Swallow told himself ruefully as he boarded the nine o’clock morning train that would carry him and Maria back to the city.

It was freezing after the warmth of the hotel, with an icy coating on the carriage windows. As they boarded at Kingstown Station he could see a hoar frost on the granite piers of the great asylum harbour. Behind him, a white dusting of snow topped the peaks that ringed the city to the south, Sugar Loaf, Three Rock, Two Rock, Djouce.

Swallow’s immediate instinct, when he saw the G-man bring Mallon the dispatch, had been to leave Maria’s side and cross the room to get details of what it might contain. But Mallon glared at him and made a sign to stay where he was. His responsibilities as groom superseded his duties as a policeman this evening.

The party had wound down with a sense of anticlimax. The G-man’s message, Swallow gathered as the news filtered out through the room, brought details of yet another attack on a woman in the city. He heard Mossop mention Gloucester Street. That was in the red-light district, just north of the river. This time, it seemed, the victim had not been as lucky as Debbie Dunne. Dr Lafeyre would be needed to examine the body of the city’s second murder victim in a week.

Mallon, Mossop and Feore had abandoned the celebrations and travelled to the scene as swiftly as their cab could make it along the unlit and partly paved road that led along the coast, through Blackrock, Booterstown and Merrion, back into the city.

Lafeyre and Lily followed shortly. Lafeyre’s intention was to leave Lily to her rooms at Alexandra College and then to visit the murder scene himself. ‘Duck’ Boyle took the view, not wholly unreasonably, that since the case did not concern his E-Division, he would stay on at the Royal Marine for a few more drinks, the cost of which could be added to the wedding party account.

Rooms had been reserved for the bride and groom and some of the elderly guests, including the friars, Maria’s uncle, Swallow’s mother and her brothers.

‘You and Maria should take the night here in the hotel,’ Mallon had told Swallow. ‘Whatever needs to be done, we can do it. We’ll see you at Exchange Court in the morning.’

‘What details do we have, chief?’ Swallow asked. He had temporarily detached himself from his bride to accompany Mallon and the others down the staircase to the waiting cab at the hotel door.

Mallon glanced at the flimsy sheet, torn from the ABC telegraph machine at Kingstown DMP Station a few minutes earlier.