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fit. She used to play camogie for Antrim, and that’s not a game for the weak. There were no blows to her head and she wasn’t knocked out, so the strength required to bruise and then strangle her could only have been a pretty strong man.”
    “Or men?”
    John nodded. “Maybe. But there was only one set of hand prints on her throat. As you know, the IRA never claimed it and they usually did, unless they ‘disappeared’ the person. And leaving her on Strand knowing the tide was going to come in was never going to disappear her for long.”
    He looked thoughtfully at Liam. He had the most experience of them all of The Troubles. “Liam, what’s your feel on this: terrorism or domestic murder?”
    “By domestic you don’t necessarily mean husband or partner Doc, do you?”
    John shook his head. “No. I mean anything non-terrorist. An ‘ordinary’ murder, if there is such a thing.”
    Liam rubbed his chin and paused. He liked being asked for his opinion.
    “Ordinary, definitely. The IRA claimed their kills. That was the whole point. ‘Look at what we can do and be very scared.’ Especially with people they thought might be informers. And they used bullets, not strangulation. With people they wanted to kill, like women, who they knew there might be a backlash against, they usually ‘disappeared’ them. My money’s on this being nothing to do with the ‘RA, but it made for a quick answer back then.”
    “Or a handy cover.”
    They looked at Craig questioningly. He took a sip of coffee and started to explain.
    “OK. Let’s say that someone wanted to kill a woman, any woman.” He suddenly thought of something and turned to John. “John, Ronni Jarvis wasn’t sexually assaulted, was she?”
    John shook his head, but it wasn’t a firm ‘no’. “The report says not, but…”
    “What?”
    “Forensics back then weren’t what they are now. Unless there was obvious semen a lot of rapes were missed. Add to that the fact she was given a bath every time the tide came in. Well, let’s just say that I wouldn’t be sure that she wasn’t sexually assaulted, no matter what forensics they couldn’t find. I’d like to go back and take another look.”
    “At the samples or the body?”
    “Samples and reports first, but body if I’m not convinced. We might be looking at an exhumation.”
    Craig rubbed his eyes tiredly. “OK. Let’s just say that she might have been raped. If we add that in with Liam’s feelings about the IRA, then it makes Ronni Jarvis’s death much more likely to have been a sexually motivated killing than a terrorist punishment murder. That leads me on to my next question.”
    He turned to Liam and Andy. “Jonno Mulvenna?”
    Andy answered first. “What about him, hey? He’s a nasty bastard, have no illusions about that, Marc. If he wasn’t guilty of this, he just paid for something else.” His voice rose agitatedly and Liam reinforced his sentiments with a nod. “Overturning his conviction will do no-one any favours.”
    “Except maybe Lissy Trainor.” John nodded in agreement and Craig waved Andy down.
    “Look, as I said before I have no sympathy for Mulvenna but if he was framed for Ronni Jarvis’ murder, then why? And if someone wanted him banged up and out the way, why again? It might just have been because they thought he deserved it. OK, that’s the simple explanation. But what if it served another end? To get the real killer off? And if there is someone else out there who killed Ronni Jarvis, then did they kill Lissy Trainor? And if they did, then why her? Is it linked to her mother in some way? Or even her father’s job? There are a lot of unanswered questions here.”
    John nodded more furiously with each question Craig asked and gradually Liam and Andy joined in.
    “OK. Was there anyone else in ‘83 who was a suspect in Ronni Jarvis’ death? And if so why were they just a suspect; why did they drop out of the loop? Did someone want them protected who also wanted