A burglar alarm rang somewhere on Mount Street Upper as the woman with long blonde hair walked up and down the pavement beside the Pepper Cannister Church.

Another woman, with long dark hair, joined her. Then a young man came out of a lane and approached the second woman. Within a minute they were walking up the street together and down the steps to a basement yard in front of one of the elegant Georgian buildings nearby.

The first woman continued to pace. Seven minutes later the dark woman came back up the steps, and walked away with the other woman. The man went back towards the canal in the opposite direction.

It was shortly before midnight on Tuesday night, less than 48 hours after Sinead Kelly had been stabbed to death just around the corner. But it was business as usual. On Fitzwilliam Place a girl paced up and down from the corner, eyeing passing cars. Five other women were waiting in the area around the murder scene.

Susan (not her real name) works the same area as Sinead did. She is feeding a heroin habit and two children, but argues that not all addicts are as volatile as those blamed for attacks. She had not been out until two nights after the murder, partly because she was afraid, but mainly because she thought gardai and reporters would outnumber punters.

She was beaten up by a client recently. "I'd had sex with him. He'd seemed grand before that. But then he just danced all over me, just laughing while he did it. He took his money back. I reported it to the guards and they were good. The detectives are ok. It's the younger ones trying to impress aren't.

"When I got home I was worried how I'd get my gear tomorrow night. I had black eyes, but luckily my face wasn't that swollen. So I still went back down to work that night."

A pair of scissors in her pocket sometimes and her hand on the car door while she's having sex with a client are the only safety measures she has taken since then.

"It's not some kind of drug war down there. A good while ago there were young ones coming over from Benburb Street and they were dipping [pickpocketing] the punters. The other girls would look at them getting money and not doing any work and next thing they all seemed to be at it.

"We had fellas charging up and down the canal looking for the girl who robbed him and he'd probably come up and take it out on some innocent girl. One of the girls from Benburb Street would go to dip a fella and if the client copped on her fella would run across with a syringe and rob him."

She knew Sinead Kelly, but had not seen her recently. "She came across as naive to me. A lot of them down there you don't even know by their real names. She was chatty.

"People don't really have friends down there. It's not like other work where you might go for a drink together. A few of you might go and score gear together. But everyone's out for themselves. You'll often see some of the girls, especially young ones, full of tablets. They'll get into anyone's car."

A heroin addict for six years Susan finishes her night's work after she's made £100. She tells her daughters she works in a nightclub. The murder has shaken her. "He picked her up from where I stand. It could have been me."

After Sinead was raped and beaten in December, Susan says her attitude was the same as other prostitutes who had been attacked. "You have to do it, don't you?"