'But look at the state of it,' Gemma cried. 'It's all crumpled. And your shirt's all wrinkled.'

'It'll be fine,' McEvoy said half-heartedly. 'The cameras will be on the chief super. I'm just wallpaper. Have you got everything ready for school?'

'Yeah,' Gemma intoned as if McEvoy had asked a stupid question. 'At least my stuff is ironed.'

'I'll have my jacket on, no one will see.' McEvoy placed two pieces of bread into the toaster and glanced at his watch.

'It'll be better if your shirt is ironed and you don't wear a jacket.' She dropped the spoon into a near-empty bowl and let the book fold shut. 'Come on, give me the shirt and I'll iron it for you.'

'You're not ironing my shirt. We'll be late.' McEvoy took the butter from the fridge.

'You can't appear on television dressed like that! That suit's too big for you.'

'No one's going to notice the suit. They're there to hear about the murder I'm investigating.'

'They'll judge you on appearances. Everyone's judged on appearances. It's the age we live in. Come on, take it off.' Gemma pulled at her father's suit. 'It'll only take a minute.'

'Gemma, we don't have time for this,' McEvoy protested, thinking, where the hell does she get this stuff 'the age we live in.' 'Did you do your homework?' he asked, trying to deflect the conversation.

'We didn't have any.' She pushed him away. 'I'm going to go and get one of your other shirts from the wardrobe.' She headed for the door. 'Mam wouldn't have let you go out like that!'

The kitchen door closed shut.

McEvoy went to shout after her but stopped. He took a deep breath and then trailed after her. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs. 'Be careful with that iron, okay? And remember to unplug it.'

'I know what I'm doing,' Gemma shouted back. 'Go and finish your breakfast, we don't want to be late. Next Saturday we're going to buy you two new suits. Nice ones.'

McEvoy headed back into the kitchen. He dropped a tea bag into a cup and filled it with boiling water. Then he plucked his toast from the toaster and dropped it onto a plate. He started to butter each slice. He was being looked after by his soon-to-be 12-year-old daughter. 'Jesus,' he muttered to himself, 'I need to get my feckin' act together.'

McEvoy stared out at the line of traffic snaking out in front of him, sucking on his plastic cigarette. 'For God's sake,' he muttered to himself. In recent years the city had, for periods of the day, become a giant car park. He remembered a traffic cop who'd told him that Dublin was officially the slowest moving city in Europe. The average speed was around five miles an hour. That's what happened if, in the space of a few years, a couple of hundred thousand people moved to the city and you doubled the number of cars using an old road system without building new roads or vastly increasing public transport provision. He glanced at the time on his mobile phone and then tapped in a number. After five rings it was answered.

'Hannah Fallon.'

'Hannah, it's Colm,' he said into the hands-free system. 'Any progress?'

'Not really. There's nothing on the sword. No prints, no hairs, no anything. There probably was a maker's mark but it's been carefully polished off. We've been trying to find a way of recovering it, but nothing so far. To tell you the truth, it's remarkable in its plainness. No decorations or obvious identifying features.'

'Any chance I can take it to the press conference? Be better to show it than a photo. Someone might have sold it or had it stolen.'

'Shouldn't be a problem. We've nothing else to go on. The bag was free of prints, as was the note. It was printed on a laser jet of some kind. We might be able to match it to a specific machine, but not unless we find it. We're waiting for the other samples to come back from the lab.'

'How about the cards?' McEvoy edged his car forward 10 yards.

'Probably home-made. You could appeal to see if anyone produced them for him.'

'I think we'll keep them to ourselves for now. We don't want to start a panic. Anything else from the centre?'

'No. My feeling is, whoever killed her almost certainly didn't hang around. He killed the girl, cleaned up, and then snuck out into the night. The rest of the team are already on their way back out there. They're going to work through the rooms more thoroughly. I'll be heading there shortly, I've got to tidy a few things up here first.'

'Can you check out the room of Dermot Brady for me,' McEvoy instructed. 'I want to make sure he's clean.'

'You think he did it?' Hannah asked.

'I've no idea,' McEvoy replied. 'I doubt it, but we'd better make sure.'

McEvoy walked down the short, magnolia-painted corridor towards Elaine Jones' office in the Department of Forensic Medicine in Trinity College. A brass plate outside a door announced 'The Office of the State Pathologist'. He walked past it, bypassing the secretary, and knocked on a heavy wooden door.

'Come in,' the pathologist instructed.

He gently pushed open the door and poked his head through the gap. 'You ready for me, Elaine?' he asked.

'As ready as I'm going to be,' she replied, tiredness in her voice. She was sitting behind a large, mahogany desk, inlaid with green leather. Three piles of neatly stacked papers were lined up on one edge, a laptop was open in front of her, her fingers hovering over the keys. She was wearing a tight black, full sleeve top, black trousers and black flat shoes. An amber necklace was draped round her neck, dipping into her cleavage. 'It was a long night and another early start. Come in. Stop hovering.' She beckoned him into the office.

McEvoy pushed open the door and crossed the room towards her, extending a hand across the desk. 'I'll try not to keep you long, I'm needed up at garda headquarters for a press conference.'

She slid her hand into his and shook it limply. 'When are we going to become continental and do the whole cheek kissing thing? We're embracing everything else European.' Her eyes sparkled, but she couldn't quite shake the exhaustion from her voice.

'What would the nuns think of that?' McEvoy replied. 'The guilt would crush us.'

'The nuns should lighten up. Only the Irish would invent a style of dancing where you keep your arms by your side and you don't touch anyone. And don't give me "it's a catholic thing" answer. The Spanish are catholic and they practically sleep with each other when they dance.'

'If you want to start a campaign, Elaine, then I'll sign your petition,' McEvoy offered.

'I want you to kiss me on the cheeks each time we meet, not sign a petition. Come on, you can start now.' She pushed herself up off the chair and leant forward across the desk.

McEvoy shifted awkwardly on his feet, unsure of whether this was part of the banter or whether she was being serious.

'Come on,' she goaded. 'I'm not going to bite. It's a social greeting, not an infidelity.'

McEvoy reluctantly arched his frame across the table, feeling like an idiot, his frame dwarfing hers. He gently kissed each cheek, as she did his. He stood back and sat heavily into a chair.

'And I expect the same every time I see you,' she said to him.

'Er, right,' McEvoy said, blushing, uncertain of how to deal with the way the conversation was unfolding. 'What can you tell me about Laura's death?' he asked, trying to get things into a familiar frame of reference.

'Well, we did the full autopsy out at Loughlinstown late last night. The body's still there. It'll take a while for some of the tests to come back from the lab, but my estimate is she died around eleven o'clock, give or take an hour either side. And it was the sword that killed her. It punctured the back of the throat, cutting off her tonsils and severing her spinal cord just below the base of the skull before exiting. She was almost certainly conscious at the time, but would have been killed instantly.

'The rest of the body wasn't touched. She had a few small bruises and a couple of cuts but they were old, certainly from a couple of days before she was killed. And there's no evidence of sexual activity, although she was naked when she was killed. There were a few small droplets of blood on her body that the killer hadn't cleaned off fully. They wouldn't have splattered the way they did if she'd been clothed or if they were dripped on later.'

'So he must have persuaded her to undress,' McEvoy added.

'That would be my conclusion. There doesn't appear to have been any struggle. We don't have the clothes to know whether he ripped them off her, but if he did, that would have probably left some marks. And there's no skin or blood under the fingernails. She probably removed them herself under the threat of the sword.'

McEvoy shook his head, disgusted at the world. A final humiliation, probably knowing that she was about to die or be raped.

'The killer had done a pretty good job of cleaning the body,' Professor Jones continued. 'It was probably more than she'd done for herself for a while. I doubt her hair had been washed for a few weeks. Maybe longer.'

'Probably had nowhere to wash,' McEvoy said. 'It's not like the corporation provide facilities to the homeless.'

'But the homeless organisations, hostels and halfway houses do,' Professor Jones countered. 'She obviously chose to steer clear of them. She either wanted to avoid too much contact with others or she was past caring about her appearance or health. My guess is the latter. And she was staying in a room with an en-suite shower for heaven's sake, yet she'd ignored it. My reading is that she was beyond caring; given up on life. She only weighed 42 kilos 6 stone in old money which for someone her height and bone structure is massively underweight. She either couldn't find enough to eat, or didn't have the will to eat.

'She could find the will to drink though. She was drunk when she died. And from the look of her liver, I'd say she's been getting drunk almost every night for a good while. Drinking to get paralytic drinking, not a social tipple. She probably had little comprehension of what was going on.'

'But enough to know to strip off and do what the killer wanted,' McEvoy noted. 'The sword must have sobered her up. Most drunk people wouldn't have been so compliant; they would have needed coaxing into understanding the situation. In my experience, drink tends to make people a bit thick. He would have had to push her around and threaten her to get her to do what he wanted. She'd have probably fought back.'

'Well, she seemed to have, her faculties about her,' Professor Jones replied. 'Maybe it's from living on the street? You get drunk to keep the cold out and forget, but you have enough of an instinct to be alert to any danger? Or she might have just given up. Resigned herself to death. Did what she was told and waited for the world to end.'

'Possibly. That or she knew whoever her attacker was. Knew that it was best to comply or maybe she trusted them.'

'Would you trust someone who was carrying a sword and asking you to take your clothes off?' Elaine raised her eyebrows signalling sarcasm.

'No, but if she was drunk ...' McEvoy stopped, his head dropping. 'None of it makes any sense. The killer's note says this was a random act to a random person. But the person he killed shouldn't have been there, she put up no resistance, and her namesake is in the cemetery where the business cards were found. It just doesn't add up.'

'Her namesake?' Elaine asked.

'There was a Walter Schmidt buried in the cemetery.'

'Could be just a coincidence,' she reasoned.

'That was my feeling, but ... look,' he said, changing his tone, becoming more business-like. 'I'd better get on and get to this press conference. When you get the rest of the test results in let me know if there's anything interesting in them.' He pushed himself up off the chair.

'You'll be the first to know,' she promised. 'Look, I hope you don't mind me saying this, Colm, but you could do with a good feed yourself. And a good night's sleep as well. You don't look your usual self and that suit's hanging off you.'

'Don't you start as well, Elaine. I've already had this conversation with Gemma this morning.' He opened the door.

'It's only because we care about you. You need to look after yourself. You'll be no use to anyone if you go off work sick.'

McEvoy ignored Elaine's concern and let the door close behind him. He made his way out of the building onto a drizzle soaked Pearse Street. Elaine was right. He looked terrible. And what's more he felt it. He hadn't eaten or slept properly in months, from well before Maggie's death. He just couldn't muster an appetite and insomnia regularly kept him awake until the early hours. He seemed to stagger round in a tired stupor he couldn't shake off. He fished his plastic cigarette from a pocket and wedged it in his mouth, checked his mobile for the time and messages and picked up the pace to his car. He hoped the worst of the traffic had passed or he was going to be late.

McEvoy stared across the top of the 20 or so journalists and cameramen at a fire extinguisher at the far end of the room, tuning out the statement Chief Superintendent Bishop was reading. He felt out of place on the podium; he was a street cop not a television presenter. He'd been on the media training course, but all it had done was confirm his suspicions that the press wanted a good story, not the truth. They wanted to become partners in the investigation. To nose around and do their own detective work, often messing up lines of police enquiry at the same time and tainting the possibility of getting an impartial jury. They would offer friendship, but were quite happy to stab you in the back if things didn't work out well, pointing out the failures in the investigation, critiquing the approach taken, and telling you how it should have been done with the benefit of hindsight.

Movement to his left caught his eye and he swivelled his head to see the press liaison officer pull the sword from a bag. The officer held it out, balanced between his two palms. Cameras clicked and flash bulbs popped. Several of the photographers moved position, trying to get a better shot.

'Please, ladies and gentlemen,' Bishop said. 'We can set up a blue screen afterwards so you can get a better shot. Please settle down.' He waited for the room to quieten a little. 'We need help in tracing this sword. We need to know who it belonged to. As you can see it is quite plain and any distinguishing features have been erased. Is it a family heirloom? Was it sold recently? Or was it stolen? Any information can be given in confidence to our officers on our hotline.'

Bishop paused, waiting for the majority of journalists to stop scribbling. 'Well, that's it for now. Any questions? Yes, Claire.' He pointed to a short, thin woman in her mid-thirties.

'Do you have any idea who the girl was? Or why she was killed?'

'The girl went by the name of Laura. She was homeless and living on the streets of Dublin. Once the family have formally identified the body we'll be releasing full details. We'll need help in trying to retrace her last few days.'

'Do you know why she was killed?' asked a balding and overweight man, who sat on the right of the room.

'It's not very clear at present,' Bishop replied. 'It could be simply that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

'So she was a random victim?' the man continued.

'We don't yet know that. We don't know if the victim knew her killer. It's part of the investigation.'

A tall thin man, with short black hair and a goatee beard, stood up at the back of the room. 'My sources are telling me that there was a note left at the scene, along with several business cards, that state that this girl's murder is the first in a set of killings.'

Bishop and McEvoy shared a look, trying to decide how to deal with the question.

'We do have a note and some business cards,' Bishop said hesitantly, 'but at this stage there is no indication of their veracity. They might simply be a decoy to confuse our investigation.'

'Does that mean that you think this is a one-off murder?' the journalist continued. 'Perhaps by a family member or someone she knew?'

'It means we have an open mind on things while we sift through the evidence. It's too early to jump to any conclusions.'

'But what if it was the first of a set? What are you doing to protect the public?'

'We're trying to catch the killer,' Bishop hissed a little more harshly than he intended. He changed his tone. 'I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, that's it for now. Barry here,' he motioned to the press liaison officer, 'will set up the blue screen for photos of the sword. He also has copies of the statement and can arrange for you to receive further statements via email.'

'Can you tell us what the note said,' the journalist called out, starting to make his way to the front of the room.

Bishop stood and walked behind McEvoy, down the couple of steps from the podium and out the door. McEvoy retrieved his jacket from the back of his chair and trailed after him.

Bishop stopped a few feet down along the corridor and turned, his face flushed red. 'I'm going to kill the stupid bastard who told that fecker about the note and cards. I want his name, okay?'

'There's 80 to 100 men working the case between our lot and the locals. Gossip travels through the ranks and into the pubs. It's just the way it is,' McEvoy tried to reason.

'Well, it's time that changed,' Bishop snapped. 'Come on, let me walk you to your car and you can fill me in further on where you're at.' He turned and set off again without waiting for a reply.

McEvoy rolled his eyes and sighed silently, then took off after Bishop, falling into step at his side.

McEvoy leant against the door of his blue Mondeo, Tony Bishop standing on the other side of the wing mirror, his gold braided cap wedged under his arm.

'So what are you going to do now?' Bishop asked, his face still flushed red.

'I'm going to get hold of Barney Plunkett and see how things are progressing. Then I'm going to go and find Laura's homeless friend, Karen, and see what she knows.'

'Whatever resources you need, just ask, okay? If he starts a killing spree then we're going to come under a lot of pressure from the public, the media, and from the politicians. I'll do my best to protect you, but you have to play the game my way.'

'What's that mean exactly?' McEvoy asked cautiously.

'It means that you keep me in the loop on everything. You ask my advice on anything sensitive or any key decisions. You leave the press work to me, which is something that you probably want to avoid in any case. And you bring me in when you need to talk to anyone important or you've snared the bastard. In return I'll watch your back and give you the resources you need.'

McEvoy nodded, but stayed silent. What Bishop meant was he'd do all the donkey work, be the brunt of any criticism, and the chief super would get the limelight and a share of the glory at the end. If he messed up, he'd be cut loose to fend for himself.

This was why he was never going to make chief super. He just didn't have the political ambition to play institutional politics and climb the greasy pole. He was more interested in the job than the career. At least Bishop was being open. Half the time the bargain was assumed but left unsaid, meaning you never really knew what was going on or who to trust.

'Well?' Bishop prompted.

'Sounds fine to me,' McEvoy said, feeling like a cheap fool. He needed a cigarette. His hand played with the still sealed packet in his jacket pocket.

'Good,' Bishop said. 'I'll let you get on.' He turned on his heels and headed back to the building without looking back.

McEvoy opened the door and sank into the driver's seat. He sat for a few moments trying to collect his thoughts and calm himself a little before taking his mobile phone from his pocket. He pulled up a number.