Borderlands Read online

  "Thomas Powell? The son was trying to ..." I gestured in the general vicinity of her legs.

  "Oh, aye. All the time. Thinks he's flash. A bit too old for my taste."

  "He's the same age as me," I said, half-pretending to be offended.

  "Oh," she replied, and smiled at me. I knew I would be interpreting that all the way back to the station. Time to move on, I thought.

  "So, what can you tell me about Angela Cashell, Miss Coyle?" I asked.

  "Please, call me Yvonne. What do you want to know about Angela?" she replied. This wasn't going particularly well.

  "When did you last see her?" I asked, fairly sure I knew the answer.

  "Friday morning. She stayed here on Thursday night. She left the house at the same time as me. I was in work at lunchtime. I gave her a lift over to Lifford. She was meeting her sisters at the cinema."

  "What was she wearing?"

  She thought for a second. "A red top and a skirt she borrowed from me. She didn't have a change of clothes, so she took some of mine."

  "What about the clothes she had been wearing?"

  "They're upstairs. I was going to keep them - as a reminder, you know. Guess that sounds kind of stupid. Do you need them back? Only I've washed them - you know, if you're looking for evidence or anything. Sorry," she said, wincing exaggeratedly at her actions.

  "I shouldn't think so," I said; they would serve little forensic purpose if Angela hadn't been wearing them at the time of her death. "Did she say where she was going after the cinema?"

  She paused slightly. "Home, I think."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I think so."

  I decided to approach it from a different angle. "Why did she stay with you on Thursday?"

  "I'm... I was her friend. Why wouldn't she have stayed with me?"

  "Why Thursday? Why didn't she stay at home?"

  "She was at a club in Strabane; handier for her to stay here."

  "Did she go to the club with you? Or did you meet her there?"

  "I met her."

  "Who did she come in with?"

  Another pause. "I don't know."

  "Are you sure?"

  "She had a lot of friends. Angela wasn't shy that way."

  "Who was it?"

  "I'm not sure," she said. "It might have been one of the travellers, but I don't know. He doesn't come near me. Angela wouldn't tell me if she was with him."

  "Why not?"

  "'Cause she knows I don't like him."

  "Why not?"

  "'Cause he was using her."

  "In what way?"

  Nothing.

  "In what way, Yvonne?"

  "She ... I don't want to say. It's not fair on her."

  "Yvonne. Angela was murdered by someone. I need to know everything about her - good and bad - if I'm going to find out who did it."

  She thought about it, taking two drags on the cigarette in quick succession, before leaning over and grinding it out in the ashtray. She sat back in the chair and pulled her bare legs up under her, wrapping one arm around her knees.

  "She let him do things. To her. Sex and stuff."

  "Why?"

  "For money. So she could buy things."

  "What kind of things?"

  "Drugs, usually. She got into drugs kind of recently, after she met McKelvey. He met her in a club in Strabane. Gave her something for free, got her drugs for a while when she had money; when she didn't, she paid for them in different ways." She blushed slightly. "She never mentioned him in front of me."

  "What kind of drugs?"

  "Es mostly. McKelvey got her them, or gave her money to buy them off someone else."

  "Was she with McKelvey on Friday night?"

  "I don't know. Might have been. She said she had a date. Wanted something nice to wear; she took my red jacket. I'd only worn it once myself. Still, it looked better on her."

  "Could she have been meeting someone other than McKelvey on Friday?"

  "She might have been. McKelvey wasn't her only one. She had a lot of friends, like I said."

  "Did you see McKelvey on Thursday with her?"

  "I thought I saw him, but I can't be sure."

  The conversation was flowing fairly easily, so I decided to return to Johnny Cashell. "Did she tell you what she and her father had rowed about on Thursday? The night she stayed with you?"

  A pause, while she weighed up her options. In the end she decided to be honest. "The usual. He was spying on her dressing. Used to do it all the time. She said that one time she was in the shower; when she came out he was in the bathroom, cleaning his teeth or something. Acting as if there was nothing wrong with it. She said he gave her the creeps. If you ask me, McKelvey is no better, mind you."

  "Did Angela's father ever do anything to her? Anything he shouldn't?" I asked, struggling to make the question direct without being crass. "Did he touch her or anything?"

  "I don't think so. I think he just liked to watch her."

  "Why didn't you tell us this when she died? Why keep it to yourself? It could help."

  "I guess I didn't want to get involved. Plus, John Cashell might be a dirty old man, but I couldn't believe he'd be a murderer. Liam McKelvey is a different matter."

  "Did she tell you who gave her the ring?"

  "What ring?"

  "The ring she was wearing. The gold ring with the stones; her initials on it."

  Yvonne looked confused. "Angela didn't wear a gold ring. She wore nothing but silver. Can I have another cigarette?"

  She leaned forward again and took the cigarette. I held out my lighter for her and she steadied my hand in both of hers, though it was not shaking. Her hands were hard from work, but warm. The touch of her skin made my guts contract as if someone had winded me. She held my hand a little longer than necessary, then slowly let go, the tips of her fingers running across the backs of mine, catching slightly on my wedding ring.

  Johnny Cashell was sitting in Interview Room One in Strabane police station. It was like every other interview room I had ever seen: a single wooden desk against one wall, the surface engraved with initials and scarred with cigarette burns and rings where hot mugs of tea had whitened the wood. The walls were painted institutional green and covered in scrawls and obscenities, and beside the desk someone had left burn marks from a lighter flame. The room smelt of sweat and smoke, both emanating in copious quantities from Johnny, who shifted continually in the straightbacked wooden chair he had been given, oblivious to the fact that such rooms are designed to ensure maximum discomfort. In fact, it was rumoured that the old RUC used to cut an inch off the front legs of these chairs so that those sitting on them kept slipping forward and could not get settled.

  Cashell prodded at his stomach and the bulging around his abdomen under his T-shirt showed that he was still wearing a dressing for the knife wound he'd received. He looked unkempt, his stubble a dirty grey in contrast with the redness of his hair. His T-shirt seemed to be annoying him, and he tugged at it, pulling it off his chest throughout the interview.

  I had given Hendry a list of the questions I wanted asked and had filled him in on events while we had waited for Cashell to be brought up to the interview room. Consequently, I was content enough to sit and listen. We had decided to keep things informal.

  "So, Johnny, you told Inspector Devlin here that you last saw your daughter last Thursday, the 19th of December. Is that right?" Hendry said.

  "What? Aye. That's right. Thursday."

  "Was there a reason why she didn't come home that night?"

  "Staying with friends, probably."

  "Any reason she was staying with friends?"

  "Jesus Christ, do you need a reason to stay with a friend? Maybe she was with a boyfriend and didn't want us to know. What the fuck is this about?"

  "Did you have a row with Angela on Thursday, Mr Cashell?"

  Johnny looked up and peered at Hendry more cautiously, alerted by the use of his full name, sensing a change in tone - a change in dire
ction. "Might have done; can't remember."

  "Did you? Yes or no?"

  "Well, if you're asking, you know I did. So just get to the point."

  "What did you row about?"

  "Family stuff."

  Hendry laughed. "Oh it was family stuff alright." Then, so quietly that I wasn't even sure he actually said it, he muttered, "You're a smoker, Johnny. Do you like to roll your own?"

  "What?"

  "Did your daughter accuse you of spying on her getting dressed?"

  Cashell exploded, getting to his feet, "You fucking ...! Devlin? What the fuck's going on?"

  A constable who had been standing at the door behind Cashell - another feature designed to cause discomfort - moved forward and placed a hand on Cashell's shoulder, forcing him back onto his seat.

  "Did she accuse you of watching her getting dressed?" Hendry persisted.

  Cashell did not immediately reply; instead he glared at me, his chest heaving, his breathing laboured and nasal. Finally, he exhaled slowly; "I... I stumbled in on her, by accident."

  "That's not what we hear. Apparently this wasn't the first time, was it, Mr Cashell? You watched her take a shower one day too, we're told. Were you attracted to your daughter, Mr Cashell?"

  "You fucker!" he spat, then turned to me as if I represented in some way the last voice of reason. "Devlin? What the fuck's going on here? You don't seriously think I—"

  "Did you fancy your daughter Johnny? It's nothing to be ashamed of. She was a good-looking girl. Wouldn't even really have been incest anyway, would it, Johnny? 'Cause she wasn't yours anyway. Isn't that right?" Hendry seemed to take some pleasure fromthe last comment and the effect it had on Cashell.

  Johnny's mouth opened and closed, struggling to respond like a fish gasping for breath, but his brain wouldn't function. Tears welled in his eyes as he stared, as though in a trance, through me and beyond the walls of the room to wherever he stored his memories of his girl. Again I saw her lying exposed in a field, without dignity. No one spoke as a single tear escaped from the corner of Cashell's eye, then he quickly rubbed at his face with the palms of his hands and lifted a cigarette and lit it. He stretched his mouth like an animal yawning, attempting to swallow back his tears.

  "Did you kill her, Johnny?" Hendry said, his voice warm with camaraderie, but Cashell simply shook his head.

  "Did you ever have sex with her? Or try to have sex with her?"

  Again he shook his head and did not speak, as though afraid of the words he might use and what they might say about him.

  "Did you want to?" Hendry asked.

  Cashell looked at him again, defiance flaring in his red-ringed eyes. "I didn't kill my daughter."

  "Why did you go after Whitey McKelvey, then? Jealousy? He was having sex with your girl."

  "No. I... he ... I found drugs in her trouser pockets. E tabs, I think. One of my other girls said Angela was spending a lot of time with him. I ... I put two and two together. Thought maybe he'd drugged her or something. Raped her. She wouldn't have slept with that piece of shit by choice."

  "Why him? It could have been anyone," I said, waving a pardon at Hendry for the interruption.

  "Muire told me Angela took her to the cinema on Friday, and then was going to meet her boyfriend. He was the only boy I knew she was seeing. People in the village talk. I heard she'd been with him on Thursday night. I just... I just assumed she was with him on Friday night, too."

  "Did he give her the ring?" I asked.

  "What ring?"

  "Angela was wearing a ring with the initials AC on it; some kind of moonstone with diamonds around it. A gold ring. Did McKelvey give it to her?"

  Johnny Cashell's face blanched and he smacked his lips and tongue several times as though thirsty, again looking at some unspecified point just beyond me. "A ring?" he asked, almost to himself.

  "Yes. Does it mean anything to you? Could he have bought it for her?"

  "I don't know nothing about no ring." While he said it with finality, he seemed distracted. I could see that he was thinking about something, but I didn't know what else to ask.

  A few minutes later Hendry wound the interview to a close. As he was being led to the door of the room Cashell looked at me and said, "Oi, Devlin? Whip-round, my arse. Since when did Gardai have a whip-round for the likes of me?" Then he shuffled out of the room, his shoulders slumped, and I couldn't work out whether what he had said had been an expression of gratitude or contempt. Hendry looked at me quizzically, but said nothing.

  I returned to my own station after the interview and phoned Ballybofey, only to be told that Moore was out of the station. I left a message for him to contact me as soon as he came in.

  Jason Holmes was in the interview room with one of our local characters, a thirty-four-year-old named Lorcan Hutton, who had spent several years in detention centres and jail for drugs offences but still continued to sell in the town. He was the antithesis of what you'd expect of a dealer. His parents were very wealthy, both doctors in the North. He had blond curly hair and an athletic physique. Despite his periods in prison and rehabilitation centres, he was a regular in the dark areas of bars and clubs, where teenagers - his acolytes - gathered around him, hoping for the free hit that would never come.

  In fact, an IRA punishment beating, which had left him with two smashed ankles and puncture marks over his legs and arms from baseball bats studded with nails, had not stopped him, though it had driven his family out of Strabane and into Lifford in the mistaken belief that the IRA wouldn't come across the border.

  Holmes announced for the benefit of the tape recording that I had entered the room and then suggested a break. Hutton shrugged, while his solicitor, a Strabane man called Brown, earnestly asked him whether he had been treated badly and what questions he had been asked.

  Holmes and I stepped out of the room. "How's it going?" I asked.

  Holmes shook his head. "Nothing. Knows nothing about E tabs. Never even seen one before. Shut tighter than a virg—" He stopped short as Williams approached.

  "Did I miss a famous Holmes simile?" she asked, smiling.

  "Nearly. You're just in time."

  "What's up?" she said, waving a sheet of paper in her left hand.

  "Nothing. Lorcan Hutton has joined us for a chat. Brought his lawyer."

  "What?"

  "Yep. I invited him to the station; he picks up his mobile and phones. The fucking lawyer was here before we were."

  "Jesus." She allowed a respectful pause before telling us of her success. "Guess what? We got a hit on the ring. Two hits, actually."

  "Great. What?"

  "I kept phoning round jewellers and that, and this morning got a woman in Stranorlar who recognized the description of the ring."

  "Any names come up?" I asked impatiently. Williams looked a little hurt at my lack of appreciation for her storytelling and continued.

  "I couldn't find any of you, so I went on myself. Seems that about a month ago, a young traveller boy tried selling her a number of items, including the ring. She remembered the ring in particular because she has a moonstone ring herself. Said it was very unusual. Offered him twenty euros for it, thinking he wouldn't know the value. Told her to go fuck herself and left the shop. She thought he was playing hard to get, that he'd be back for the money, but she never saw him again."

  "Is she sure it was a traveller?"

  "Oh yes. Made a big deal out of showing me the can of air freshener she said she'd had to spray after he went. A blond boy, she said. Hair almost white. Big ears."

  "Whitey McKelvey. Jesus! Good work, Caroline," Holmes said.

  "Thank you." She smiled warmly. "Anyway - here's the interesting bit. She said she told the other Garda who had asked."

  "What other Garda?" I asked.

  "She said that a Guard had called into the shop one day, just out of the blue, and asked her about the ring. Had a sketch of it. She said she told him then; gave a full description of the boy. A young Guard."

  "Wh
o was it?"

  "I don't know. I've contacted Letterkenny and they're to get back to me about it," Williams said. "But I figured that it meant the ring must have been stolen, not bought. Guess what?"

  "What?" I said.

  "It was. Stolen, I mean. In Letterkenny, a few weeks earlier."

  "Makes sense." Holmes said.

  "What does?" I asked.

  "McKelvey steals it from Letterkenny, tries to shift it, doesn't get the money he expected and so gives it to his girlfriend in return for ..." He looked at Williams. "For you know what."

  "I suppose," I agreed a little reluctantly. "Who reported it stolen?"

  "Someone called Anthony Donaghey. Said it was a family heirloom, belonged to his mother."

  "Anthony Donaghey. The Anthony Donaghey?" I asked in amusement.

  "I don't know. An Anthony Donaghey, certainly," Williams said, annoyed at my tone. "Why? Who's Anthony Donaghey?"

  "Ratsy Donaghey," I said, looking to Holmes for agreement.

  "Right, right. The drug dealer. Right."

  "More than a drug dealer. Fulltime asshole. If that ring belonged to his mother, I'll ... I don't know what I'll do. But it's not his mother's. She spent her days cleaning the local primary school; she didn't buy gold-and-diamond rings."

  "Maybe she ran a sideline, same as her son," Holmes said, laughing.

  "Maybe we should have a talk with Mr Donaghey," Williams suggested, pointedly ignoring the previous remark.

  "You'll have a hard time doing that," a voice behind us said. We all turned to see the oily face of Mr Gerard Brown, lawyer to Lorcan Hutton, about whom we had completely forgotten.

  "Why?" asked Holmes.

  "He was found dead in Bundoran last month."

  "Client of yours, too, was he?" Williams asked, smirking.

  "Occasionally," Brown replied, without a hint of irony. "I take it my present client is free to go now."

  I nodded at Holmes. "Try him one last time. Make it clear," I said, as much for Brown as for Holmes, "that we will ignore any admission of knowledge about drugs in the area, if Mr Hutton reveals such while giving us information which pertains to this murder inquiry."