'I've done nothing more than check for a pulse to make sure she was dead,' Krawiec said. 'But there was no need really. You didn't need to be a doctor to see that. It would be a miracle if she were still alive after what he did to her.' The Pole crouched down, removed the stone from the corner nearest the red stain and held tightly onto the sheet. McEvoy finally felt compelled to shuffle to the sheet, wanting to look but not to see.

Beatty took hold of the corner at the opposite end and slowly they raised the length of the sheet by two feet creating a tent over her.

McEvoy slowly lowered himself to his haunches, his knees cracking, and viewed her battered body. Her face was barely recognisable as human. Instead it was a bloody pulp, hardly any skin still visible, the nose a messy crater, and the mouth a jumble of smashed teeth. The flesh had been tenderised and ripped from the bone, her skull visible in her bloody scalp.

'Jesus Christ.' He brought his hand to his mouth and fought the urge to vomit. He glanced quickly along her body, her ruffled and ripped clothes, the awkward lie of her arms, and turned away, closing his eyes and trying to will away the image of the dead woman. He wondered what it would be like to slip into the sea and float away, to drift off to a new life, to a more innocent place.

The two men lowered the sheet and placed the stones back in place.

'The man who found the body says he saw another man leaving when he arrived,' Beatty said. 'He was heading along the path towards Portrane. I've sent a couple of lads off to investigate, but he's probably long gone. There's another car park half a mile or so down there.'

McEvoy sucked in another mouthful of smoke, stood, and massaged his face with his right hand. 'Right, okay,' he said trying to re-engage with the situation. 'Where did he leave his card?'

'Back up at the shelter there. There's just the one.'

'That's all I'm expecting,' McEvoy said, turning back towards the path.

McEvoy slipped his phone into a pocket and headed up the laneway towards the psychiatric hospital, his body cold, his ear warm from Bishop's frustration and anxiety. The press conference had been moved back to one o'clock and he was still required to attend.

Opened in 1902, St Ita's had grown to become a massive complex of imposing red brick buildings serving the North Dublin area. At one time, Ireland had the highest institutionalised rate per head of population in the world, almost double that of practically everywhere else in Europe. It was still much higher than most countries despite wide-scale de-institutionalisation during the 1980s and 90s. The legacy was a network of huge asylums, set out in massive symmetrical patterns in green field sites, miles from anywhere.

He hurried along a narrow roadway towards the clock tower, trying to remember Kevin Linehan's instructions. He scuttled across some grass and pushed open a wooden door.

A heavy-set woman with poor make-up and uncombed hair looked up from a small reception desk. 'Yes?'

'Detective Superintendent McEvoy.' He held up his card. 'I'm here to speak to Michael Dempsey. The man who found the body on the beach,' he qualified.

'Oh. Yes. Terrible.' It was as if each word had to be processed separately. 'Terrible. He's just here,' she said, rounding the desk, her brain having finally found gear. 'We've given him some valium to sedate him. He was in a hell of a state.'

'He'll still be able to talk to me though, right?' McEvoy asked with concern, reaching into his pocket and setting his mobile phone to silent.

'Yes, yes, he'll be fine. Don't worry, we only keep the strong stuff for the permanent residents.' She pushed open an office door with a thin sliver of reinforced glass running from top to bottom.

A man was sitting on a wooden chair in front of a cluttered desk. His head was held in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees.

'Mr Dempsey?' McEvoy asked. 'I'm Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy.'

Michael Dempsey looked up with vacant eyes and tear-stained cheeks. His dark hair, flecked with grey, tufted up where he'd been holding it.

'Is it okay if I ask you some questions?' McEvoy asked, pulling a similar chair over towards him.

Dempsey barely nodded his head.

'What time did you find her?' he asked, sitting down.

'I dunno. Around quarter to seven?' Dempsey answered with a flat voice. 'She was still warm. I could feel it. I tried to find a pulse, but I couldn't. You could see she was dead.'

'And how did you find her?' McEvoy's right leg bounced on the ball of his foot. He tried to stop it first by placing his hand on his thigh, then by lowering his heel to the ground. Instead his foot started to scrunch in his shoe, desperate to relieve the tension in his body.

'I was walking along the path, y'know, from the hotel. As I neared the far side of the bay I could see something lying on the rocks. I thought it was just something the sea had brought in, but when I got nearer I could see it was a body. See her legs and arms. She was face down in a pool of water.'

'You turned her over?'

'Yes. I checked for a pulse but it was obvious she was dead. Then I ran up here to try and get some help. I thought maybe they could save her. I think they thought I was one of their patients who'd got out.' He pulled a tight smile. 'I was kind of hysterical.'

McEvoy nodded, acknowledging Dempsey's anguish at finding the body. 'And they went down to the beach to help her?' he asked.

'Yes, three of them came down a doctor and two nurses. But there was nothing they could do.'

'Did you see anyone else when you were in the bay? Someone heading away from the body?'

'When I came in over the dunes I could see a person walking on the path on the far side; just for a second or two until he disappeared round the headland.'

'Can you remember anything about him?'

'He was a long way away. Just a small figure.'

'Right. Right, okay.'

'He was carrying something,' Dempsey continued, dredging up a memory. 'A walking stick maybe.' He paused. 'That could have been me,' he said, 'if I'd come along before her.'

'There's no way of knowing that,' McEvoy replied. 'He could have been waiting specifically for her.'

The man nodded and lowered his head into his hands.

'You did everything you could for that poor woman,' McEvoy said. 'I want you to understand that. Nobody could have saved her after what he'd done to her. You did everything right.' He levered himself up and headed for the door, closing it gently behind him.

Jim Whelan was waiting in the corridor. He was bald except for a ring of brown hair skirting across his ears and round the back of his head, a large nose dominating his face, hairs jutting out of both nostrils. In his late-forties, he was the oldest DI in NBCI and a man of very few words.

'Well?' McEvoy asked.

Whelan shrugged.

'No sign of the next chapter?'

Whelan shook his head.

'And what about Elaine Jones?'

'Ten minutes,' Whelan reluctantly muttered.

They made their way back out of the building, heading back toward the beach. McEvoy lit another cigarette, conscious that he only had two left, happy not to force Whelan into conversation.

There was a white garda transit van parked in the laneway blocking access from the hospital to the path and the beach beyond. McEvoy and Whelan eased their way down the side trying not to catch themselves on the barbed wire fence. In the field to their left a search team was starting to be organised.

Tape had been placed around the shelter and trails stretched down onto the beach from either end, flapping in the wind, held by rocks at the sea's edge. A man kitted out in protective clothing was dusting round the area the card was located.

Down on the rocks, an orange, rickety looking tent covered the body, three uniformed guards trying to hold it in place, stop it blowing away. Off to one side, just outside the cordon, two men struggled to erect a gazebo. Cheryl Deale was talking to the Polish doctor. A uniformed guard and dark haired woman dressed all in black were walking across the beach, heading for the crime scene.

'We need that van moved,' McEvoy said.

Whelan nodded assent and turned away seeking the driver.

McEvoy headed right, cutting down a steep path onto the beach. Turning back on himself, he clambered across the rocks towards Cheryl Deale. He could tell from her body language that she was giving the doctor a grilling. As he neared he could hear their conversation on the wind.

'So no one moved the body other than the person who found her, right?' It was an accusation as much as a question.

'No, no,' Krawiec said. 'He said he rolled her out of the pool. All I did, we did,' he corrected himself, 'was make sure she was dead.'

'So the people who've been near that body are yourself, two nurses, someone else from the hospital ...'

'Kevin Linehan,' he interrupted.

'The person who found her and some local guards,' she ended.

'Yes.'

'You might as well have had a fuckin' party. Lads, will you get a fuckin' move on,' she barked at the two men trying to put up the gazebo. 'It looks like Carry on Policing to those fuckers up there.' She gestured to the helicopters still circling.

'DS Deale,' McEvoy said, making her jump.

'For fuck's sake,' she snapped, turning to him. 'I'm on edge enough as it is.'

'How's it going?' he asked.

'How does it look? We look like total fuckin' amateurs. Have you seen anything as ridiculous as that?' She pointed at the orange tent the three local guards were still struggling to keep upright. 'Plus, as usual, the whole thing is as contaminated as fuck.' She'd given up trying to keep her language in check, running with the stress. 'Garda Plod, Stupid and Fuckwit have been stamping all over it.'

'Look, just calm down, will you,' McEvoy said. 'Raging about it isn't going to help.'

'I know,' she conceded. 'For fuck's sake, Brendan,' she shouted as one of the legs fell off the gazebo. She turned back to McEvoy. 'Whoa, whoa. Where the hell do you think you're going?' she barked at someone over his shoulder. 'Stay on the other side of the tape.'

McEvoy turned on his heels. The guard and the woman walking across the beach had reached the tape. The woman looked embarrassed at the order. She was wearing black, flat-heeled boots, her slight body wrapped up in a black, knee length, woollen coat, a red scarf covering her neck and chin. She had black hair and eyes, her eye lashes long, her skin a light olive. The guard didn't seem bothered one way or the other, his hands rooted in his pockets, his gaze out to sea.

'Look, I'll come and talk to you later,' McEvoy said to Deale. 'If you find anything significant give me a call.'

He headed over to the woman. 'Detective Superintendent McEvoy.'

'Kathy Jacobs,' she replied with a soft Scottish accent. 'You were expecting me? I'm the criminal profiler.' She held out her hand, giving him the once over, his oversized suit in need of a dry clean, and loosely knotted tie, flapping in the wind.

He shook her limp digits. 'You were meant to go to Harcourt Street,' he stated, without welcome.

'I thought it would be better to come straight here,' she replied unapologetically. 'Get myself familiar with things.'

'Look, I'm sorry,' he said, breaking eye contact, unable to cope with the dark depth of her eyes, 'I don't really have time to go through things with you right now. I'm busy.' He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

'That's okay,' she said, unconcerned. 'I'll hang around. I'd like to take a look at the body and maybe I can get to talk to you later.'

'If that's what you want,' McEvoy conceded, uncomfortable with her calmness, her eyes that one could drown in. 'But you'd better have a strong stomach; she's in a hell of a state.'

'Don't worry, I've seen some pretty horrific things in the last few years, Superintendent. Things as bad as anything here.'

He glanced at breakers crashing, the foam snaking up the beach. 'I've got to go back into Dublin for a press conference at one o'clock. I'll be leaving around 11. You can travel in with me then if you want,' he offered. 'Or you can stay out here. It's up to you.'

'I'll travel in with you, if that's okay. It'll give us the chance to talk.'

'Right. Good. Well, if you'll excuse me, I have to get on. We still don't know who she is.'

'Colm,' Jim Whelan called from near the shelter.

McEvoy looked up. Whelan held up a plastic bag containing a sheet of paper.

'I'll be there now,' McEvoy replied. He turned back to Kathy Jacobs. 'You might as well come up for this. It looks like we've found his next chapter.' He set off back up to the path.

His mobile rang. He checked the screen before accepting the call. 'Barney?' he mumbled. Somehow a newly lit cigarette had found its way between his lips, subconsciously taken from its box and lit. He plucked it free.

'How's it going?' Plunkett asked.

'Slowly. He battered her to death. Took her face clean off. Look, I'm glad you rang. I need you to find out if Dermot Brady's got some connection to St Ita's.'

'I'll get on it now. You think he might have been a patient?'

'That's what I want to find out. How're we getting on with his Mountjoy list?'

'They've all been accounted for. Most of them are still in prison. A couple overseas.'

'Another dead end.' He reached Jim Whelan. 'I've got to go. Did you ring for something?'

'Only to see how things were going.'

He could tell that Plunkett wanted to say something else, but he'd not given him the opportunity. If it was important he'd ring back. 'Right, well, I'll speak to you later.' He ended the call.

Whelan held out the note.

'Where did you find it?' McEvoy asked, taking it.

'On the fencing.' Whelan jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

McEvoy pulled the evidence bag tight and read through the two clear bags, reciting the text for Kathy Jacobs' benefit.

The Rules

Chapter Six H: Hindering the Investigation C.