Free The Irish Scissor Sisters by Mick McCaffrey

Control in Townsend Street and asked them to contact the gardaí. While they waited for them to arrive, the ten fire-fighters at the scene set up lighting equipment on the canal because the light was starting to fade. They also made sure that nobody went anywhere near the canal. Ballybough Bridge is very busy throughout the day and night and a public footpath runs adjacent to the canal. A row of terraced houses at Sackville Gardens and Summerhill Parade overlook the canal where the remains were discovered and within view is the canal end stand of the magnificent Croke Park stadium, the home of the GAA.
    Garda Alan Greally was on the 2 p.m. – 10 p.m. shift at the Communications Centre in Harcourt Square. He received a call from the Dublin Fire Brigade around 7 p.m. informing him of the presence of a possible body under the canal bridge. He logged the call onto the Command and Control system – little realising that incident number 050890972 would become one of the highest-profile Garda investigations in decades.
    A patrol car based at Fitzgibbon Street was immediately sent to the scene, along with vehicles from the station’s District Detective Unit and local Crime Task Force.
    Garda Kieran Brady was the driver of the patrol car and was on duty with Garda Niamh McGrath. The pair were ordered to Ballybough Bridge and arrived at 7.05 p.m. They were greeted by members of the fire brigade and Garda Brady was shown the body parts. He immediately contacted Fitzgibbon Street on his mobile phone and told Sergeant Christy Morrison about the body. He then spoke to James O’Connor, who told him how he’d come to see the floating remains.
    A large crowd of onlookers had gathered at this stage and Garda McGrath was controlling them. Garda Brady reversed his patrol car onto the canal bank to prevent them getting access to what would soon be declared a murder scene.
    An unmarked car from Store Street, driven by Garda Ronan Judge with Gardaí Marc Pender and Justine Reilly then arrived. The three guards could see something suspicious floating in the water about fifty metres from where the body had been found but could not identify it as a part of a body. They sealed the road at Summerhill Parade and controlled the watching crowds.
    The scene was now officially under the control of the gardaí, and within minutes detectives and uniformed members began arriving at Ballybough Bridge.

    As Linda crossed the bridge on her way to convince her mother to help her to dig up Farah’s head, she couldn’t believe it when she saw all the police around the banks of the canal. She instantly knew that Farah had been found and ran to Richmond Cottages to tell Kathleen. The two women started crying as they sat in the front room. They were in a panic over what would happen now. They decided to walk down to the canal the next day to check if the guards were definitely there for Farah. They hoped that a murder or something else had happened but it was too much of a coincidence. They both knew deep down that the game was up. They knew that somebody had spotted Farah floating in the water as they walked along the canal.
    On 31 March they left Richmond Cottages and walked towards Ballybough Bridge. There was a cordon up, about 120 feet from the water, so they couldn’t see much. They edged forward as far as the police tape would allow them to go. There were dozens of uniformed gardaí around and plainclothes detectives were speaking to the forensic team, who stood out in their white suits.
    Gardaí had no idea, as they were removing the body of a man who had been chopped up into eight parts and dumped in the Royal Canal, that two of the people responsible for the grim murder were standing there watching them. Charlotte and Kathleen had also been back to Ballybough Bridge before Farah was found. They had walked up there a few days after the murder and gone under the bridge to see if they could see any body parts – the mother and daughter had been relieved