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breathing heavily. He eyed him closely, and wondered had th e general consumed too much drink? In fact, everyone at the table looked as though they had drunk too much. He took in the emptiness of their glaring eyes, the snow swirling in the darkness of the bay windows behind them.
    The general roused himself with a growl and ordered more gin. ‘ I want you to investigate what happened to these women, Mr Kant. Use your journalistic contacts and dig deep. Find out how they disappeared from prison.’
    Isham leaned towards the general with a sardonic grin. ‘There’ s more to this. You haven’t dragged Mr Kant here out of concern for a few fugitive IRA women.’
    The general cleared his throat. ‘Of course, there’s more.’ He raised his glass to his mouth and a little gin accidentally sloshed over the rim. ‘There’s another name I must add to the list.’ He hesitated. ‘A young woman called Lily Merrin. She was one of my secretaries at Dublin Castle. She went missing a week ago during her lunch break. And hasn’t been spotted since.’
    â€˜Have you reported this to the police?’ asked Isham.
    Again, the general’s brow appeared to tremble . ‘The local constabulary is not equipped to carry out such a sensitive investigation. They’re Irish and stupid and riddled with informers.’ He sighed. ‘Their main talents appear to be collecting gossip and burning down houses.’ He turned to Kant. ‘I want you to find out what is happening to these missing women, and in particular Merrin. Quietly. Without drawing too much attention.’
    Kant’s neck and cheeks were itching. ‘Anything could have happened to these women, sir,’ he suggested. ‘They may have emigrated to America, or eloped with someone. Perhaps they had a domestic or family problem.’
    â€˜I still want to know.’
    â€˜Merrin had access to intelligence files in Dublin Castle,’ said Thornton. ‘ Perhaps she’s another IRA spy on the run.’
    The general’s face coloured with anger. ‘I order you to keep a decent tongue in your mouth when speaking about this woman. Her loyalty is beyond doubt; she is from the very best Anglo-Irish stock. Her father was a general in the British Army, and her husband died at the Somme.’
    Kant felt another urge to scratch his neck.
    Isham grinned and winked at the others. ‘Army men always worry more about their mistresses than their wives. If you only knew the number of times I’ve wondered what my Poppy is up to.’
    The alcohol began to do its work, and the conversation strayed onto the subject of Irish girls. Kant stared at the circle of faces boasting of the women they had enjoyed. His head ached and the smell of gin and whiskey crawled up his nose. He was struck by the flushed ugliness of his drinking companions, the coarseness of their conversation, their spurious tales of lust and conquest. Their gloating eyes alienated him. God damn them for their boasting and lying, he thought. They made Dublin sound like the most whorish city in the world where the laws of supply and demand governed every encounter with its female inhabitants.
    His chief problem was how to tell the general that he had shared a hansom cab with his missing secretary on the day she had disappeared, that he had seen her inconsolable with fear. He looked at his hands, one gripping his glass, the other the hat on his knee. His tale would go against him very badly, he realised, since he could offer no innocent explanation as to why he had been trailing her that afternoon.
    The part of the day he preferred to recall was that moment of unexpected intimacy in the darkened cab. It had a dramatic quality that foreshadowed the rest of the afternoon, the two of them safe and enclosed in the silence with just a crack of winter light creeping under the curtained windows, his neck and scalp tingling where she had just touched