'I've been wanting computers for years,' he complained to me as he hung up. 'No bloody money when you're the dog wagged by the Socialist tail.'

'There will never be enough money. Dead men don't vote.'

'The bloody truth. So what's the topic of the day?' he wanted to know.

'Sexual homicide,' I replied. 'Specifically the role DNA can play.'

'These dismemberments you're so interested in.' He sipped tea. 'Do you think they're sexual? I mean, would that be the motivation on the part of whoever would do this?' His eyes were keen with interest.

'It's certainly an element,' I replied.

'But how can you know that when none of the victims has ever been identified? Couldn't it just be someone who kills for sport? Like, say, your Son of Sam, for example?'

'What the Son of Sam did had a sexual element,' I said, looking around for my pathologist friend. 'Do you know how much longer she might be? I'm afraid I'm in a bit of a hurry.'

Shaw glanced at his watch again. 'You can check. Or I suppose she may have gone on to the morgue. We have a case coming in. A young male, suspected suicide.'

'I'll see if I can find her.' I got up.

Off the hallway near the entrance was the coroner's court, where inquests for

unnatural deaths were held before a jury. This included industrial and traffic accidents, homicides and suicides, the proceedings in camera, for the press in Ireland was not allowed to print many details. I ducked inside a stark, chilly room of varnished

benches and naked walls, and found several men inside, tucking paperwork into briefcases.

'I'm looking for the coroner,' I said.

'She slipped out about twenty minutes ago. Believe she had a viewing,' one of them said.

I left the building through the back door. Crossing a small parking lot, I headed to the morgue as an old man came out of it. He seemed disoriented, almost stumbling as he looked about, dazed. For an instant, he stared at me as if I held some answer, and my heart hurt for him. No business that had brought him here could possibly be kind. I watched him hurry toward the gate as Dr Margaret Foley suddenly emerged after him, harried, her graying hair disarrayed.