Mary Brosnahan alighted from the train at Pearse Street station. Although she was going to be late for Miss Black-she could see Miss Black's tight little mouth saying 'nine sharp'-Mary was not one for running. Her only sister, Francie, had had a stroke three years ago and Francie was only fifty-three, three years younger than Mary.

Mary pressed into the Friday morning crowd which was flowing toward the top of the stairs. Behind her, the station began to vibrate and thunder with the starting train's efforts to push itself on to the south suburbs of Dublin. Mary had known these same trains for thirty years. Like most other Dubliners starting into the 1980s in their greying city, Mary had insulated herself with a benign cynicism. No matter what they said, the new electric trains were a pipe dream concocted to catch votes. Never happen, not in a million years.

While Mary was on the train she had caught sight of the headline on the Independent. Now it appeared to her again in the stacks of papers by the foot of the stairs: "Kidnapped RUC man found dead." Another one, she thought.

Mary's attention was then taken up with negotiating the murderous traffic in Pearse Street. She pressed the button for the pedestrian light and waited. Momentarily, she recalled the headline again and the photograph of something (clothes? a sack?) lying in a ditch, with policemen and soldiers standing around. As the light changed, she scurried through the crowd and made her way toward the back gate of Trinity College.

Mary worked as a skip in the college. Her job was to house-clean the students' rooms and other residences. She had been doing this for fifteen years.