“Do you see what I was saying there about Margarita and all?” piped up the dyke, effortfully changing the subject. “I don’t care what anybody says, there’s an energy in these things, it’s like a force, why else would all these movements be happening at the one time?”

So much for me and the friendly cop. This was weighty stuff.

“I agree,” said Aisling. “I think it’s going to be unstoppable. It’s like what Marx and Rosa Luxemburg dreamed of. What’s this it was she said? The socialist proletariat are going to be the gravediggers of world capitalism?”

“That’s exactly right,” said Frances, blockhead up and down like a piston. “The socialist proletariat are going to be the gravediggers of world capitalism. Things that are fights for survival at the start turn into revolutions. And they all become connected. They intersect, that’s the thing.”

What are they anyway? Do they ever listen to themselves? My eyes fell for a moment on the worn carpet where she’d stood wet from the shower and the pink halter neck plastered to her skin. She’d shaken with laughter against me and I’d felt her damp in my shirt and trousers.

“Frances is doing a doctorate on Roger Casement you know,” she said.

That figures. That’s the boy got young black men to bugger him night and day.

“Right enough?” I said. “I did a bit on him.”

“Where was that?” asked Frances without interest.

“Ah, A-level history. And I’ve read newspaper articles about him since. Very interesting man.”

“A-level history?” Same deadpan squeak.

“That’s right.”

“Well this is an in depth study. It’s going to take me three years. I’ve just finished my Masters.”

Bully for you bitch.

“Frances knows just about everything there is to know about Casement,” said Aisling.

“That’s brilliant,” I lied. “What was it attracted you to him?”

“His evolution I suppose. And no matter what he did he put his heart and soul into it. You know about his time in the Congo don’t you? I expect you covered that.”

Not everything. Not the messy details.

“You probably remember that Leopold of Belgium turned the Congo into his own private colony and called it the Congo Free State. Well it was a million times less free than even the so-called Free State we have over the border here. It was a massive labour camp and I’m sure you know he murdered millions of people just so he could get a fortune out of the rubber and copper there. Do you remember learning that? His mercenaries burned thousands of villages and every single time they did that they trussed up the women spreadeagled in such a way they could be conveniently raped.”

I nodded mechanically as if all this was old hat. Was that relish in her voice? Yes it was. She rubbed her mouth with the back of her hand. Not a pleasant sight but out of the corner of my eye I knew that Aisling was gazing steadfastly at her. Admiringly? I didn’t want to look.

“They made the village men watch the raping going on and then they told them it wouldn’t stop till the men went into the jungle and brought back so many hundredweight of rubber from the wild vines. It seems this was a terrible painful thing to do and took forever. And usually of course they weren’t able to bring enough back and that meant they all got their throats cut, women as well as men. The children were forced to sit and watch all this and then they got the same. Throats cut,” she added helpfully.

“That’s awful,” Aisling said.

Frances was pleased with the impact. She smiled hungrily at Aisling, mouth gaping smiling but no smile in her eyes that I could see, hidden eyes hiding her thoughts. I thought how strange the human mind that someone of Aisling’s beauty and refinement could allow herself to be pawed by this monstrosity. Ones like her used to go away and stay locked in convents but there’s more of them at large now, more and more of them every time you turn round. Can’t get a man for love or money so they make friendships with lonely girls and before you know it.