Single-Handed

No sooner has Garda officer Jack Driscoll returned from Dublin to replace retiring copper dad Gerry in rural Connemara than he has to investigate the death of a young Balkan barmaid, who died of gas fumes inhalation in her trailer home. Jack finds evidence of foul play and learns that the girl was popular with the local menfolk. Ageing builder Tommy, whose niece Jack dates, wanted to marry her but she preferred the younger Liam, who points Jack towards the local hotelier who employed her, not just as a barmaid but as a prostitute. He warns Jack that she was involved with several influential locals, including Gerry, but Gerry is no help to his son, dismissing the victim as a "little foreign tart on the make." This only strengthens Jack's resolve to investigate further.

Jack learns that the victim was called Sylvana and that she was pregnant. Tommy was going to arrange an abortion in England for her. Tommy, in fact, has had previous experience of helping out girls who got pregnant. Many years earlier he was of assistance to another young woman, but the baby girl concerned was adopted and not aborted. The identity of that baby and her father are truly shocking for Jack and local pressures force his hand in not taking the case any further.