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consider; but then we got a positive sighting from a former workmate of Annie’s that put her on a number 44 in Ranelagh. All the
     indications are that she was going to Enniskerry.
    Just before four o’clock on the afternoon of Friday 26 March 1993, Annie McCarrick joined the queue at the bus stop in Ranelagh, opposite the Ulster Bank. She had walked
around from Chelmsford Road after getting off the number 18. She was wearing her dark tweed jacket, a pair of jeans, and oxblood-coloured boots. She carried her tan-coloured shoulder bag. Also
waiting for a bus was Éimear O’Grady, who was ahead of Annie in the queue. She recognised Annie from their time working together in the Courtyard Restaurant in Donnybrook the previous
month.
    The number 44 arrived, and Éimear got on. She sat downstairs, because she was only going a short distance to her home at nearby Milltown Court. She saw Annie get on the bus after her and
go upstairs. This is something that happens thousands of times on public transport every day—one person recognising another. Little did she know it, but Éimear’s sighting of
Annie going upstairs on the bus was to be of immense importance and led to the Gardaí concentrating the bulk of their subsequent investigation on the Wicklow Mountains. Éimear
O’Grady got off the bus a short time later, unaware that she was now the last person to positively identify Annie McCarrick. Within hours, Annie would be murdered.
    The positive sighting of Annie on the number 44 bus gave the Gardaí encouragement that they might be able to trace her movements after she got on the bus. However, all their inquiries to
establish where she went after that led nowhere. The driver, Paddy Donnelly, couldn’t remember Annie being on the bus. None of the passengers who came forward could remember her getting off
the bus at the terminus in the centre of Enniskerry, or at any stop before that. One detective remembered the frustration felt by the Garda team.
    Annie was a striking-looking girl, and she stood out because of her accent. She was tall, and when she disappeared she was wearing a distinctive jacket and cowboy-type
     boots. And yet nobody saw anything. We knew from Éimear O’Grady that Annie had got on the number 44 bus, and this would correspond with her telling her friend Anne that she was
     planning to go to Enniskerry. But after that we don’t have any positive sighting of her. We know she had to get off the bus somewhere between where Éimear got off the bus at
     Milltown and the last stop at Enniskerry. All our instincts say Enniskerry. But there is no-one to positively identify her there.
    Three miles east of Enniskerry is the seaside town of Bray; to the west lie the Dublin Mountains and hundreds of acres of forest. Less than a mile south are the Powerscourt
Estate and Gardens— a popular venue for visitors. If Annie McCarrick did get the bus all the way to Enniskerry, she would have got off in the centre of the village, which is shaped like a
triangle, with three converging roads and a monument in the centre. If she did get the number 44 to Enniskerry she would have arrived there before five o’clock. As day began to turn to dusk
there would still have been at least a good hour of daylight left on that March evening. Did she decide to wander south towards Powerscourt waterfall? This would have been a logical journey for a
young woman out enjoying the Co. Wicklow countryside. It would bring her along a fairly busy road, which heads on towards the Great Sugar Loaf. But this is speculation. No-one has ever reported
seeing Annie McCarrick heading out of Enniskerry towards Powerscourt. Even more frustrating, noone has ever reported a positive sighting of Annie in Enniskerry.
    As the Gardaí appealed for information, a woman came forward to say she had served someone matching Annie’s description at the post office in Enniskerry that Friday evening; she
thought she had sold the woman three stamps for