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night sky.
    â€˜What are you doing here, Kant?’ The general’s sharp voice interrupted his thoughts.
    The reporter cleared his throat. ‘ You asked me, sir, to bring you any reports of missing or murdered women. You said there was something important you wanted to discuss.’ He removed a folder from his jacket and passed it across the beer-stained table.
    â€˜Of course, I remember,’ said the general. He gathered up the reports and began reading them.
    At one point, the general’s puzzled gaze hovered over Kant, and then he returned to the papers. He looked back through them as if searching for something he might have missed. He rubbed his forehead and said nothing. The furrows of his brow deepened.
    After a long pause, Kant asked, ‘Sir?’
    Stapleton turned his tired eyes to the reporter. He took a long mouthful of gin.
    â€˜Something distracts me,’ he explained.
    The general’s discomfort ignited Isham’s interest. ‘Perhaps Mr Kant would care to share his little list with the rest of us,’ he said.
    Kant began to describe the gist of his findings, including the dead body he had viewed that evening in the hospital morgue. He spared no details, and for the first time the entire table directed his attention at him. Isham watched him, smug and amused, while the other spies listened with an air of bestial expectation.
    â€˜The dead woman, 24-year-old Susan O’Brien , had been a prisoner at Dublin Castle but was reported to have escaped on Sunday evening. Less than 24 hours later, her body was found lying face up in a forest south of Dublin. The police know very little about what happened to her. Her clothes were torn and her body badly mutilated. The unusual thing was that her eyes had been attacked in a very brutal way and her eyeballs removed. The police have no clues as to who murdered her, or why. At the minute, they are simply trying to figure out how. They’ve found no evidence of footprints or wheel marks in the snow around the body. Just the victim’s footprints and the paw marks of what might have been dogs or foxes. It is no exaggeration to say that the entire occurrence of her death is a complete mystery to them. ’
    Kant went on to describe how the body of another woman had been found in similar circumstances the week before. ‘Police believe the unidentified victim had been led to the forest clearing by a lust murderer. But, yet again, the perpetrator left no evidence of his presence. Her eyeballs had also been gruesomely removed.’
    â€˜What colour was her hair? ’ asked the general.
    â€˜Red and long,’ replied Kant.
    â€˜The full Celtic mane,’ remarked Isham with a little smile.
    Stapleton stared hard at his corporal.
    â€˜I’ve also included in the file a series of newspaper clippings describing a number of missing women,’ Kant continued. ‘Several of whom had been suspected of helping the IRA.’ He ran through the names. ‘Aileen Keogh, a nurse at Mount St Benedict School, arrested for possession of an incendiary device. Rosaleen O’Neill, an artist’s model, captured driving a car load of IRA members. 16-year-old Mary Bowles who had been sentenced for trying to hide an IRA machine gun from Crown Forces. Madeline Mullan, arrested for keeping a military patrol under surveillance. All of the women vanished while being held in custody at Dublin Castle.’
    â€˜You mean they escaped and went on the run,’ said Isham. ‘They didn’t just disappear like rabbits down a hole in their cells.’
    â€˜According to the prison guards and the police there were no clues as to how they escaped from custody,’ said Kant. ‘No evidence of a conspiracy to free them. Their families have mounted a prayer vigil at the prison gates, demanding news of their whereabouts.’
    There was a long silence. Kant snatched a glance at the general, who had closed his eyes and was