Free Blind Arrows by Anthony Quinn Page B

pocket and placed the sheaf in front of O’Shea. The manager read a few of the pages. A look of apprehension darkened his features.
    â€˜Why do you think an insurance firm might be able to help you?’ he asked.
    â€˜Some men from this office visited Merrin’s boarding house room a few days ago. I don’t believe they were there by accident.’
    O’Shea sighed and leaned back in his seat, letting the sheaf fall onto his untidy desk. ‘This is a sensitive case, Mr Kant. We run a business here, but that doesn’t stop us from using our own investigative services to protect our clients’ interests. The woman you are looking for worked for the company a while back. She was in charge of some important financial documents, which have since gone missing. Understandably our clients have been breathing heavily on our necks, demanding their return.’
    â€˜Then you’re not the only one anxious to find her.’
    O’Shea’s features grew lively with interest; his nostrils flared slightly. ‘Do you know her whereabouts?’ He glanced at the sheaf on his desk. ‘We thought she might have ended up in hospital or prison.’
    â€˜She went missing a week ago. There’s been no sign of her at work or at her boarding house. Dublin Castle suspects she was abducted.’
    â€˜What are they suggesting?’
    â€˜The file on your desk contains information on a number of missing women. In the past month, two of them have turned up dead in forests, their bodies naked and badly mutilated. I believe that Dublin Castle is trying to suppress the fact there’s a lust murderer on the loose.’
    O’Shea got up from his desk and stood at the window. He glanced back at Kant.
    â€˜None of us would know anything about violent death, Mr Kant, if it happened only once during our lifetimes.’ His shoulders drooped slightly and his eyes looked tired. ‘In my capacity as manager of this life assurance firm, I think I have seen more brutal deaths than the general population of this city. Therefore, I must congratulate you, an outsider, for finding me here. You have come to the centre of things, the point where this city’s inhumanity is at its darkest.’ He waved a hand towards the distant view of Dublin’s smoky terraces and slum tenements. ‘I don’t know if you can sense the fear and loathing out there. The ordinary citizens of Dublin don’t know how the British soldiers will act from one moment to the next, and this puts them on constant edge.’ His voice lowered to almost a murmur. ‘It is the arbitrary nature of the violence that is most damaging. Checkpoints, reprisals, the scattershot rage that has soldiers burning entire terraces of housing. Then there is the violence against women. It appears to be the fetish of the hour. The physical assaults, the rapes, the drunken attacks with batons and whips.’
    It was true, thought Kant. He had read the heavily censored reports about the behaviour of British soldiers. Sexual crime was undergoing a renaissance in Dublin city.
    O’Shea stared at the file and looked thoughtful. ‘This story about abducted women will carry weight. It will have an impact on the decent people of England if published in your paper. Are you determined to bring it to their attention, in spite of the danger?’
    â€˜Of course. That is my job. To report on what is there.’
    â€˜Ireland will have need of sympathetic journalists in the days to come.’ O’Shea paused. He glanced at Kant anxiously. ‘Perhaps I have talked more than I should.’
    To Kant’s ears, however, something more important was being withheld.
    â€˜My loyalty is t o the company and our clients,’ said O’Shea, returning to his desk. He reassumed his professional air. ‘Their details should not be compromised. However, I feel that I can trust you, and our company owes some small debt to you for