The phone rang, jerking him back to attention.  “Phone call on line two Sir.  I think you should take it.  A man on the line says he saw a hand in the river.  Described it as being like King Arthur’s Lady of the lake, waving to him.  Sounds peculiar, I know, and he’s slightly intoxicated, but he doesn’t sound like a crank caller.  He’s pretty insistent and seems a little upset.”

“Put him through.”  The Inspector’s mood sank even lower!

There was indeed a hand “waving” in the River Lagan.  The water was washing it to and fro.  When divers fished her out, they noted that she had been in the water for some time.  She had been battered to death with a blunt instrument.  Blunt round ended instruments tend to leave distinctive star shaped wounds or wounds with uneven edges, but time in the water, fish, worms and decomposition had all begun to eat away at these.  Her body had been weighted down with rubble.  She was not a prostitute, though she was a friend of Anne Shanks.  She was an alcoholic.  Though she didn’t sell herself, she did do a few favours for drink now and then. 

Doris McFeeny was taken to the morgue for a post mortem.  She had been reported missing back in April by the Dog Warden.  Her neighbours had called him in.  Her dog had been barking and was in a slightly dehydrated and emaciated state.  The lady next door had told him Doris went on blinders and vanished for a few days now and again and she usually gave the dog a few scraps, but this was all becoming too much of a regular occurrence.  The constant barking was getting on everyone’s nerves and the thing was getting too skinny.  At the best of times, Doris didn’t look after it properly.  The Warden had taken the dog to the pound and called back on several occasions to try to see Mrs McFeeny about it.  When there was no sign of her returning, he alerted the Police.

The post mortem revealed that she had probably been in the river since April.  If she was killed by the same man, she was likely to be his first victim.