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there's no danger.'

    'There are six men in the city who know I'm here‐‐and you...'

    A little more nervously she whispered back, "Don't worry yourself, there's no narks here, not in this street... not since the McCoy girl ... they shot her." It was an afterthought‐‐Roisin McCoy, soldier's girl friend, part‐time informer, found shot dead under Divis mountain. Big outcry, no arrests.

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    Tm not saying anything.'

    'I didn't come to talk, and it's freezing, half out of the bloody clothes.'

    He pulled her down, close now against him. the nylon of her nightdress riding up over her hips and her breasts. She pushed against him, screwing her nipples against the black hair of his chest.

    'Not much, are they?" she murmured. "Couple of bloody bee stings.'

    The man smiled, and the hand that had grasped her wrist to the point of half stopping the blood flow now stroked and rubbed urgently at the soft white inside of her thighs. She reached down and felt his stomach back away as she took hold of him, limp and lifeless, pliable in her hand. Slowly, then frantically, to match her own sensations she stroked and kneaded him, but without success.

    Abruptly the man stopped his movements, pulled his hand away from the moist warmth.

    'Get out. Bugger off. Get out.'

    Theresa, nineteen years old, four of them spent on the mill weaving line, had heard and seen enough in her life to say, "Was it that bad ... London ... was it...?'

    The interruption was a stinging blow across the right side of her face. His cheap onyx wedding ring gouged the skin below the eye. She was gone, out through the door across the passage to her bed; there she lay, legs clenched together, fascinated and horrified at the knowledge she had.

    In her half‐sleep she heard the whisper of voices and the footsteps m the stairs as the man was taken to his next place of hiding.

    In the Cabinet Room the Prime Minister was showing little patience for the lack of a quick arrest. He had heard the Commissioner say that the case was static in London now, and that the main police effort was to establish how and where the man had entered the country. The boarding house in Euston where he had slept the night before the shooting had been searched, but nothing found. As expected the gun had yielded no fingerprints, and the same process of elimination was being used on the car. Here it was pointed out that the police had to identify the fingerprints of everyone who had handled the car over the previous six weeks or so before they could begin to come up with a worthwhile print and say this was the killer's. It would take a long time, said the Commissioner, and involved drivers, Avis staff, garage personnel. Nothing had been found on the basics‐‐steering wheel, door handle, gear lever. He reported >n the new security measures surrounding Ministers, pointed out that they were nearly if not totally a 23

    waste of time if politicians did not co‐operate, and urged no repetitions of the situation by which the murdered Minister had been able to decide for himself that he no longer wanted protection. He finished by putting the proposition that the killer had no contact in Britain, and had operated completely on his own. Reservations for tickets in Dublin, Heathrow and Amsterdam had all been made over the phone and were untraceable. He fell back on the theme that the solving of the crime would happen in Belfast, and that yesterday a Chief Superintendent from the Murder Squad had gone to Belfast to confer with the RUC.

    Frank Scott, the Chief Constable, reported nothing had come in on the confidential phones, and as yet there had been no whisper on the Special Branch net. "Now we know he's in the city we'll get him, but it may not be fast‐‐that's the situation." It had been left to him to report the finding of the Amsterdam duty‐free bag.

    'That's what you said two days ago," snapped the Prime Minister.

    'And it's still the situation." The Chief Constable was not