Extract from : Counting Down

Transcript from a television news report, 20 November 2006

. . . This exclusive apartment block overlooking Dublin Bay was the unlikely setting for the grisly scene that unfolded this chilly winter morning. Gardaý´ were alerted by neighbours, concerned about an increasingly unpleasant odour coming from behind the door of the third-floor apartment. On gaining entry, what they discovered was shocking and tragic. Inside the luxury apartment, on a sofa, were the decomposing remains of a man. He may have been dead for two weeks or more. The assistant state pathologist is at the scene right now, but because of the condition of the body it won’t be possible to establish cause of death for some time. A Garda spokesperson refused to confirm or rule out any possibility, including foul play or suicide. The man cannot yet be identified, and even if, as seems most likely, he was the occupier of the apartment, very little seems to be known about him. The mailbox in the main hallway has no name on it, just the apartment number, and only one of his neighbours appears to have spoken to him. The young woman didn’t wish to go on camera, but she told me he was a quiet, good-looking man in his mid-thirties, always rather distant. As if, she said, and I’m quoting here, ‘nothing you might say would ever be of interest to him. He never even told me his name.’

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