The gawkers had thinned down to a half-dozen. There were uniformed Guards from Donnybrook and Harcourt Street up and down the banks now. Feeney, a doctor on the coroner’s panel, was sitting in his car reading by the interior light, his legs out the door. He had wire-rimmed framed glasses with a tint and styled hair, something Minogue regarded as flagrant vanity in a man trying to walk away backwards from fifty.

“Got ahold of the lock-keeper,” said Malone. “Says the lock hasn’t been opened since the day before yesterday.”

“Unnk,” said Kilmartin. He cleared his throat. A frogman surfaced and grasped a rail by the lock. The slick black head gleamed and the goggles flashed as he shook his head.

“Can hardly see a bleeding thing down there,” said Malone. “Even with the lights.”

He had already relayed the frogman’s description to Missing Persons, Minogue knew.

“Well,” said Kilmartin. “Have to get her out. Let’s decide.”

“Open the lock a few inches, I say,” said Minogue. “Let her out slow.”

“Why not cut the hair?” asked Kilmartin. “And not risk flushing evidence down?”

Minogue didn’t know. He wished Hoey were here.

“We could secure her and open the gates a bit,” said Malone. “Pull her back then, like.”

“‘Loike,’” said Kilmartin. He alone smiled. Malone kept looking at the frogman’s head.

“All right,” said Kilmartin then. “Best idea I’ve heard yet. Go tell ’em to set it up.”

Minogue checked with Callinan. Still no shoes or handbag. Both officers watched Malone take the rope from the diver’s hand. Callinan scratched his armpit.

“Yiz are going to pull her out, is it,” he said.

“Send yours down to the bridge. See if anything goes through when we open it.”

Callinan joined the dozen Guards in shirtsleeves gathered by the lock. They stood shoulder to shoulder with the gawkers who remained, watching as the lock-keeper, a middle-aged man with no neck, white hair and a black moustache which had strained plenty of drink earlier in the night, readied the boom.