Caroline Williams's face appeared in my line of vision. "Your wife is on the phone, sir. Shall I tell her you're busy?" she asked, and walked away before I could answer.
Chapter Four
Monday, 23rd December
Strabane and Lifford straddle the banks of two rivers, the Finn and the Mourne, which join the Foyle midway between the town in the North and our village in the South, which are separated by a distance of half a mile. The Foyle then flows for miles through Derry and on to Lough Foyle, where it joins the Atlantic. A bridge spans the point where the three rivers meet and, traditionally, lies in unclaimed territory, several hundred yards from where the British Army checkpoint used to be during the Troubles and several hundred yards before the Irish customs post. It was in this area of the borderlands that Angela Cashell was found. Just at the customs hut, a sharp left turn brings you to Lifford Community Hospital and, tucked behind but separate from it, Finnside Nursing Home.
I sat in my car, smoking. Overlooking the river, I could see, on the curve of the embankment further down, the crime-scene tape, still fluttering in the breeze. I wondered about the Cashell girl's death. And I wondered why, when that investigation was in need of much work, I was about to waste time on the ramblings of a senile old man. I told myself it was out of respect for all Powell had done for Donegal; I told myself it was to stop his son making public complaints about Garda disinterest; I told myself it wasn't because, in a strange way, it brought me back into the circle of Miriam Powell.
The home was fairly nice - or as nice as these places can be. The walls were painted neutral colours, white and magnolia predominating. The carpet was dark red. The scented candles and oil burners burning at various points in the reception area failed to cover the unmistakable smell of disinfectant and the faint hint of urine. The owner of the home, Mrs McGowan, waved at me from her office and gestured towards the mobile phone into which she was speaking. I went over and waited for her to finish her phone call.
"Ben, come in," she said when she was done. "Sorry about that - my daughter is cooking for her in-laws and wants to know how to cook beef. I tell you, I don't know where I failed!" She laughed, a soft tinkling laugh that she probably reserved for children of her patients, as if their parent's incapacity were but a trifle.
"I'm here to see Tommy Powell, Mrs McGowan. I believe he had an intruder."
"So he says," she replied and I could tell from her expression that Powell was probably not her favourite patient. "Of course he had someone in his room. The staff here check on him every two or three hours. It's part of our service. You're welcome to see him, but it's a waste of time, Ben. Next week someone will be trying to poison his dinner. Wait and see."
The door to his room was ajar and I could see Tommy Powell, sitting up in his bed, being spoon-fed creamed rice by a young nurse in a pink uniform. I watched in wonder as she fed him, scraping the dribbled food off his chin and chatting to him about her night out, her future plans, anything to fill the silence and prevent her listening to his laboured, rasping breath or the soft grunting noise he made as he ate. Her hair was bunched up under her hat, though I could see the roots were dark. Her neck was slender, the skin soft and white as lily petals.
I knocked softly on the door and, when she became aware of my presence, she blushed slightly. Something about her seemed very familiar, though I didn't recognize her. I assumed she thought the same, because she stood before me as if to speak. "I'm here to see Mr Powell," I explained, pointing towards the bed.
"Oh, okay," she said, smiling a little, then disappeared out through the doorway before I could say any more.
Tommy Powell watched me, moving only his eyes. His head rested against a pillow, his mouth slightly open. One side of his face was frozen, as though he had just come from the dentist and I noticed a dribble of food just to the left of his mouth. As I considered his loss of dignity, I saw again the unbidden image of Angela Cashell, lying naked in a field, decaying leaves cushioning her head as her blood ran cold.
"Mr Powell, my name is Inspector Devlin. I'm here about the intruder in your room last Wednesday."
"Deblin", he said, "who Deblin? Who your fader?"
"Joe Devlin, sir."
"Furniture man?"
"That's right, sir." My father is still known as a French polisher, though he has not practised this in years. Powell's speech may have been affected, but his memory certainly had not.
"What... want?" he said, visibly straining to complete even so short a sentence. This was going to be a dull conversation unless cut it short, I thought. I rebuked myself inwardly for my lack of charity and decided on brevity anyway.
"I'm here about the intruder on Wednesday night. Do you remember that?"
"Not stupid son ... sick."
"Of course, sir. Your son told me what happened. I was wondering if you'd anything to add. Anything else you remember?"
"Could ... be woman ... boy".
"Excuse me?"
He rasped, breathing heavily through the patrician nose; his teeth were clenched in exasperation and he struggled to straighten himself in the bed. His pyjama jacket was unbuttoned revealing a chest, matted with wispy grey hairs, which looked shrunken and collapsed. I could see his pulse vibrating in the wattles of skin hanging at the sides of his throat. "Might've ... been ... a gir ... girl," he said. "Or a boy. Small."
He dropped back against his pillow and turned his head towards the wall, not looking at me again. His jawline flexed momentarily with anger or resentment that I should see him so weakened. I started to ask a further question, simply to engage him, but he waved me away with a hand so wizened and bony it could have belonged to a woman.
On the way out I did not see again the nurse who had been feeding Powell, nor could I place where I had seen her face before. I stopped Mrs MacGowan and asked her name.
"Is she in trouble?"
"No, no." I said. "I know her face from somewhere."
"She's here on probation for a month before I make her permanent. If she's in trouble with the law, Inspector, she's out on her ear. We have to trust our staff completely, what with old people's money and belongings lying around."
"No, she's not in trouble. It's nothing important; I just can't place her face. I've seen her somewhere recently. Kind of like deja vu," I lied.
"Yvonne Coyle. She's from Strabane: Glennside, I think."
"Right. Maybe I've seen her round the town or something. It'll come to me eventually."
I thought of driving out to Powell's house to tell Miriam that I had spoken to her father-in-law, despite the fact that I knew that she and her husband would once again make me the object of some new private joke. In fact, I made it as far as the house, a massive Victorian manse which Powell Sr had bought from the Anglican Church after their minister moved out to Raphoe from Lifford in the early '60s. Oaks and sycamore, trunks heavy with vines and ivy, surrounded the house. The wall around their two-acre estate was added maybe forty years ago, built, I remember being told by my father, from bricks from the old jailhouse that had been demolished in 1907. They were unidentifiable now under the thick, wet moss that cushioned the coping stone and had broken off layers of the brick, which lay shattered on the pavement beneath.
I sat opposite their driveway gates and peered beyond to where Miriam had parked her BMW next to the Land Rover that her husband drove, as befitted one of the landed gentry. Powell Jr lived off the rent collected from his father's various properties — wealth to which, as far as anyone knew, he added very little. The jailhouse bricks were typical of Powell Sr: an extravagance that no one would notice, so that he retained his image as one of the common men, while the rumours of opulence added to his enigmatic status. The Land Rover, meanwhile, was indicative of his son, adding to the image of ostentation he had created for himself.
I debated whether or not to go in, then decided against, partly because Powell Jr would be there. As I shifted into gear I couldn't help but feel that I was being watched.
I was washing up t
he dinner dishes that evening, while Debbie cleared the table. The kids were in the living room, watching Toy Story for the umpteenth time. Debbie dropped two knives into the dishwater and began to wipe the counter.
"Don't forget that Penny's singing tomorrow night, at Mass," she said.
"I won't," I promised.
"You'd better not. She'll never forgive you."
"I won't," I said, a second time.
She nodded. "Did I see you at Miriam O'Kane's today?" she asked, not looking up from her work, as though this were part of the normal conversation.
"Who? Miriam . . . Oh, Mrs Pow— Miriam Powell. Yes, I was going to call in to see her husband. He asked me on Sunday to look into an intruder in his father's room. Remember - after Mass?"
"Oh. Is that what you were talking about? I thought maybe Miriam had asked you."
"No. I haven't seen her since ... I don't know when."
"This morning, apparently. So your Sergeant said. Caroline, isn't it? Miriam was there when I phoned you, she said."
"Yes, that's right. Just called in to see what progress had been made."
"I'm sure she did. You didn't mention it on the phone."
"No, I didn't think much of it, I suppose."
"Mmm," she said. "Did you make any?"
"Any what?"
"Progress," she said, then went in and sat with the children, while I finished the dishes in silence.
Terry Boyle
Chapter Five
Tuesday, 24th December
I answered the phone on the second ring at 3.30 a.m. that morning, having had difficulty sleeping. Debbie lay beside me, hunched away from me so that, even in sleep, her resentment over the re- emergence of Miriam Powell in our lives was clear. She stirred with the ringing of the phone, but I answered it before it woke the children. It was Costello. A body had been found in a burned-out car on Gallows Lane by a local farmer, Petey Cuthins.
Gallows Lane was so called because, several hundred years ago, before the courthouse was built, this was where local criminals were executed, left hanging from the branches of three massive chestnut trees on the approach into the town, a warning to all visitors. On a good day it provided a panoramic view of Counties Donegal, Derry and Tyrone.
The fire had abated by the time I arrived, a hoar of mist sizzling lightly off the scorched bodywork of the car. Costello had already arrived on the scene with two uniforms whom I recognized but couldn't name, their faces pale, eyes red-rimmed, working silently through their tiredness. Petey Cuthins was standing against his gate, several hundred yards away from the wreckage, trying to keep his pipe smouldering. He nodded a greeting when I got out of the car and muttered "Merry Christmas" through teeth still clenched on the pipe-stem. His face was dark under the hood he wore. I nodded over at Costello, who was telling the uniforms where to place the crime-scene tape. I took a quick glance inside the car, thought better of looking more closely, and went back over to Petey to wait for my stomach to settle.
"Heard the bang - must've been the petrol tank. Nearly sent my cattle haywire." He gestured with a slight nod of his head towards the charred body in the car. "Nothing I could do, Ben. Couldn't carry much in a bucket from the house. By the time I got here there wasn't much sense in getting the fire brigade out: fire was almost dead. Weren't gonna do him no good anyhow."
The registration plate, though damaged, had not been destroyed, the raised numerals revealing that it was a new car - a Nissan Primera, as far as I could tell. The driver was alone; from the size I guessed it was a man, but the body was so badly burned I couldn't be sure.
Costello sent the two officers about their business then approached us. The female officer smiled sadly as she passed with a roll of blue and white tape which she tied onto the hedge behind us and began to unwind.
"Do you think it crashed?" Cuthins called, reluctant to go any closer to the car. To the right of the driver's side I could see a pool of vomit in the grass - presumably Petey had seen more than enough already.
"I don't think so," Costello said, patting me on the back as a gesture of greeting. I guessed he was right: there was no sign of denting on the bodywork, no signs of impact on the area around where the car had stopped. I peered in at the body of the driver, the smell of burnt flesh thick in my mouth and nostrils. "The handbrake is on," Costello pointed out. "And the ignition is turned off." Which meant the car was parked when whatever happened to it had occurred. Costello shook his head slowly, "An awful business, boys. An awful business."
I stepped away from the car and spat the taste from my mouth as Costello took out his phone and called Burgess who had reached the station, giving him the registration number to trace. "Best get a doctor up here. And a few more pairs of hands. It's going to be a long night."
The SOCO officers had to go over to Strabane first to borrow arc lights and a generator from the PSNI. Occasional needles of sleet darted now through the mist, trapped in a fluorescent glare, just as the first gash of red cracked on the horizon. Burgess called back, having run the registration number through Garda Central Communications. The charred remains still strapped inside the car now had a probable name - Terry Boyle, an accountancy student from Dublin, whose parents lived in Letterkenny. Costello asked me to break the news to the family, sending female officer, Jane Long, with me. Just as we were about to leave, I saw John Mulrooney struggling up Gallows Lane towards us to fulfil the slightly ridiculous task, as medical examiner, of pronouncing dead something which was little more than skeleton and pulp.
"Jesus, Ben, it's Christmas Eve," he said, stopping beside us and stubbing out his cigarette, which he had held clamped in his mouth as he'd slipped plastic galoshes over his shoes. I noticed that he was still wearing his pyjamas under his corduroy trousers, the paisley material creeping out over his shoes. "What have we got?" he asked, gesturing towards the car.
"Spontaneous combustion?" I suggested.
Mulrooney steeled himself and went over to the car, holding his breath against the smell. I watched him take a biro from his pocket and use it to poke at the skull, angling it slightly for a clearer view.
He stepped back and spat, much as I had done earlier. It's on just such occasions that you regret knowing that all smells are particulate.
"Looks like a simple shooting," he said, and it took me a moment to realize he wasn't being flippant.
"What?"
"Look," he said, indicating with his pen. "Entry wound here; exit wound presumably out the other side. Two murders in a week. You know that might make Lifford the killing capital of Ireland."
"Very funny," I said.
"Any ideas about when it might have happened?" Costello asked, shifting closer to the car.
"None. But to cross the 't's and that - for what it's worth - he's dead."
Terry Boyle's mother, Kathleen, clutched a used Kleenex in her hand, her face raw, her eyes red and puffy. Jane Long's eyes were not much better. She shifted in the seat and put her arms around the older woman's shoulders. I crouched in front of Mrs Boyle, though she seemed to look through me.
"I'm very sorry, Mrs Boyle," I said, realizing not for the first time the inadequacy of the expression. I took her hand in mine and sat with her as she cried some more.
"Mr Boyle?" I said.
The woman shook her head. "Lives in Glasgow."
"Best get someone to check on him," I said to Long, the implication being that she should both break the news and ascertain his whereabouts.
"Shall I make some tea?" Long suggested, reaching for her radio as she headed out of the room, grateful, probably, to escape the stultifying grief for a few minutes.
"Jesus," Kathleen Boyle repeated over and over, her body shuddering.
And, with that, I found myself both questioning His existence and praying all the harder that He would transcend time and space and bring comfort both to this woman and to her son, who surely did not deserve to die in such a manner.
"Any ideas who might have a slight against your son, Mrs B
oyle? Someone maybe he had a falling out with?"
She shook her head, her tissue clamped to her face. "He's only just home," she snuffled. "Back from university. Went out to some disco."
"What about a girlfriend, Mrs Boyle?"
She nodded, but did not, or could not, speak.
"Was he with her last night?"
A shake of the head this time. "She lives in Dublin. He said he was just going out for a drink. Not meeting anybody. Are you sure it's him?" The words tumbled out together.
"We're fairly certain, Mrs Boyle."
"Do I need to identify him or something? Can I see him?" she asked, her expression lightening a little, as if by grace of her seeing the body she might somehow will her son back to life again and forget this terrible night as no more substantial than a nightmare.
"No, Mrs Boyle. We'll identify him," I said, not wishing to explain that her son was now beyond even her recognition. Before we left the house I would have to find something from which a DNA sample could be taken for comparison should dental or doctor's records prove inconclusive.
While Kathleen Boyle wept, Long and I sat in that room, drank tea and did not speak. We could not leave her - not as police officers, not as fellow human beings.
Her sister arrived at around eight o'clock and convinced her to try to get some sleep. Long and I finally made our way back to the station after requesting that should Mrs Boyle think of anything useful - anything at all - she should contact us, day or night. I sat in the car and lit a cigarette, and could think of nothing but my tiredness and the cold which seemed to have permeated my very bones.
The murder team met on Tuesday morning at 9.30 to report on progress in the Cashell case, though we had all spent the night on the Gallows Lane incident. On the way in, Costello called me to one side. "How's things?" he asked. "At home, I mean."
"Fine," I said a little taken aback at his sudden avuncular manner. "Why?"
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