Borderlands

by Brian McGilloway

  "Well, do you fancy a trip to Donegal?" she asked as we drove past Prehen Park and up the Strabane Road.

  "Why not? Especially if I get mileage allowance for it."

  "We could kill two birds with one stone and head on to Bundoran - check out the officer in charge of the Ratsy Donaghey killing while we're at it." Williams said, smiling.

  Before I signed out of the office for the evening, I received a call from the doctor who had attended me on Christmas Eve, whose name, I learnt, was Ian Fleming.

  "My father was a Bond fan, if that's any use to you," he explained, though I had not passed comment. I nodded into the receiver. Then I realized that he couldn't see this gesture and managed a grunt, despite the dryness in my throat.

  "Good news, Inspector," he said. "All clear so far - a late Christmas present."

  I almost wept as I thanked him.

  "Don't forget. Check again in a few months time. Without giving too much away, I spoke to the boy's GP this afternoon at the dogs. Explained about the bite. He checked for me. Figures the boy was clean, too. So hopefully ..."

  Debbie let slip a tear or two when I told her, then made tea, as it seemed the only thing to do. I invited her to join Williams and me the next day, in case she wanted to go shopping in Donegal, but she had promised her mother she would take her to Derry. We ate dinner in companionable silence, though I suspected that my kiss with Miriam Powell still played on her mind.

  At around 8.45 p.m., we heard Penny calling from upstairs. She had gone to bed twenty minutes earlier and normally took after her mother in that she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.

  Her bedroom is at the front of the house and we found her kneeling on her bed, her head and half her body hidden underneath the curtains while she watched something out of her window. She lifted the curtains above her head slightly when she heard us and invited us into her makeshift tepee. Then we saw what had got her attention.

  On the road outside, a number of the local farmers were gathering with shotguns and torches. In the middle of the group, Mark Anderson was standing like some tin-pot general, issuing orders and pointing first at a scrap of paper in his hand and then to various points in the fields around our house. Someone was taking pictures, and in the light of one of the flashes, Anderson evidently saw our three faces peering down at him from the bedroom for he pointed us out to the photographer and said something that caused him to laugh. Unable to hear anything, we watched him silently throw back his head with his toothless mouth wide open, then splutter and cough, before spitting onto the ground.

  I went downstairs, pulled on a jacket and went out to see what was happening. The photographer was writing names in his reporter's notebook and seemed to be packing up. I called him over.

  "What's going on?"

  "They're searching for the wild cat that's been killing Mr Anderson's livestock." He was barely out of his teens and still had the fresh red scars of acne across his cheeks and around his mouth.

  "The last time he was called Mr Anderson was in court, sonny," I said, "so I wouldn't waste it on him now. Where are they going with the guns?"

  "Haven't you heard, mister," he said, bristling at the 'sonny' comment. "Thomas Powell has offered a reward of a thousand euros for whoever can capture the cat, dead or alive. Says the Garda aren't doing anything so he has to instead. Care to comment, Inspector?" the boy said, smiling at his guile.

  "Yeah, you're standing in my driveway. Piss off."

  I went back into the house and put on a jumper and waterproof coat and my rubber boots. Then I padlocked Frank in the shed, just as a precaution.

  I found Anderson about a quarter of a mile up the road, standing at the gate of his field, which ran all the way down to our home and up another mile or so to his own house. The moon was high and the sky clear, and in the lilac light the veins which had burst on Anderson's cheeks and nose through years of drinking stood out. As he talked, his toothless gums seemed purple and angry.

  "I warned you I'd deal with things," he said, as I approached. "You're a bit late now."

  "A wild cat's a little different from my dog. Are you sure whatever's worrying your sheep is an animal? How is Malachy, by the way?

  "Are you here for a reason?" he sneered, choosing to ignore the implication in my question.

  "Just thought I'd keep an eye on things. Don't want someone shooting you by accident, now, do we, Mark?"

  I chose a slight rise in the field to lie against and joined two other men there. One I recognized as a clay-pigeon shooter from Raphoe, though I did not know his name. The ground beneath us had frozen to iron and the cold seeped up through my body so that I had to shift continually to keep warm. And there, in the frost, we lay and waited, straining against the dark to see shapes shifting around the sheep, whose wool seemed all the more brilliant in the moonlight. The holly hedge around the field was thick and lush now with big blood-red berries. Small animals skittered through it. Directly above us was a weeping birch whose branches were so heavy they trailed along the ground.

  At around 10.30 p.m. someone shouted, and at one corner of the field the loud clear cracks of shotguns rang out a second after the bright gunfire flashes. A number of the men lying about clambered to their feet and ran to the spot where something had been seen, while two men argued about who had shot first.

  "Looks like someone's made a grand," the Raphoe man said, getting to his feet. I followed suit, only to have my legs buckle under me with stiffness from lying in one place so long in the middle of winter. I hobbled behind the men to the spot where a group had gathered, but even before I got there it became apparent, from the disgusted shakes of collective heads, that the quarry was not the wild cat they had hoped. Instead, in the middle of the circle of men, lay the body of a fox, its side shredded by the shotgun blasts, oozing blood as black as tar onto the sugar-frosted grass. Its tongue lolled in and out of its mouth, its breathing was laboured and harsh. With each breath, a fresh spurt of blood pumped out of its side. My companion from Raphoe loaded a shot in his gun, placed it above the fox's head and fired so close that blood and tissue spattered on his shoes and the barrel of the gun. The air carried the smell of cordite and burnt fur.

  "Do we go home then?" someone asked disappointedly.

  "Weren't no fox attacked my sheep," Anderson said, spitting on the carcass. "Leave this here - might attract whatever that thing is."

  He half-heartedly kicked the body, which flopped over on the grass, then wiped his boot on the back of his trouser leg. "Back to your positions," he said, then fixed his cap on his head and trod back to where he had been hiding.

  I returned to the mound again and lay in a different position this time and lit a cigarette.

  "Best not do that," the other man, whose name was Tony something, said. "Them cats could smell smoke miles away. That'll scare them off."

  "If this cat can smell the smoke of one cigarette, but can't smell the stink of thirty Donegal men lying in a field of sheep shit, it deserves to get blown away," I said, then inhaled deeply for effect, though the air was so cold it burned my lungs. The Raphoe man laughed and took out a tobacco tin to roll a cigarette, so I gave him one from my packet.

  "Aren't you hunting?" he asked, noting the fact that I was the only unarmed man in the field.

  "Nope. Just making sure nobody shoots anybody else," I said, adding, "or my dog."

  "What?"

  "Anderson thought it was my dog that was attacking his sheep. I suppose I should be grateful that this cat has appeared."

  "I suppose so, officer," he said, joining with my laugh.

  I smiled. "I know your face. I can't place you, though."

  "You gave me a speeding ticket a few years back. You were in uniform then"

  "Shit," I said. "Sorry."

  "Don't be. I was doing a hundred and two along the Letterkenny Road. I was lucky I wasn't killed. I got off light, all things considered."

  I recalled the event now and remembered the face, althoug
h the man had had a moustache then. He seemed to assume that I remembered his name, so I didn't want to ask. "A red Celica was it?"

  "Close enough. A red Capri."

  "Have you still got it?" I asked. "It was a lovely car, even as a blur."

  "No. Wife had a kid; I got rid of the car. Driving a family car now."

  "This is lovely," the man called Tony said, "and I hate to interrupt, but could you two shut up?"

  We sat in silence for another hour or so, smoking periodically. The evening was so still the smoke hung in a silver cloud above our heads. At around 12.30 a.m. I stood up to stretch the stiffness out of my legs, and it was while doing so that I saw a black shape snaking its way down from the top of the field just above us. It crept slowly towards a group of sheep that seemed to be sleeping, its belly pressed so close to the ground its coat must have been dusted with frost. I couldn't tell what it was as it slinked down along the furrows tractors had made in the field.

  "Stand up," I hissed to the two beside me, and they did so, rubbing their legs while they straightened up. The Raphoe man spotted the shape then and loaded a shell, as did Tony.

  They both shouldered their shotguns together, steadying the barrels. The Raphoe man shifted his stance a little, widening his legs so he was standing in a solid position. I noticed the mist of his breath stop as he took aim, and I found myself instinctively holding my own breath as I watched the shape slow and stop, as if it too were suddenly aware of the events which were about to unfold. Afterwards, I would recall that he shifted his aim just slightly in the final milliseconds before he shot, though I cannot be sure.

  Slowly then, he pulled the trigger, a fluid movement, and his gun jerked as the blast echoed across the field and left my ears ringing. Tony fired a second later, another sharp crack, like a stick being snapped. Then the three of us set off at a run, stumbling through the furrows and sliding across the sheep dung, scattering the slumbering sheep who watched us with wide, terrified eyes. As we ran, we saw the black shape dash back the way it had come, its running erratic. We reached the spot where it had been when shot, and saw the black blood of its wound spattered on the white grass. We followed its path, the grass greener where the frost had been disturbed by the creature, and saw more blood on the ground. Then the path disappeared into a thicket hedge and we could follow it no further.

  "Hard luck," I said to the man from Raphoe, who smiled slightly.

  "Time to go home I think, partner," he said, shouldering his shotgun and picking his way carefully back down the field, while others ran to see what had happened.

  I walked back down the road to the house about half an hour later and went around the back of the house to check that the shed was locked. I rattled the padlock on the bolt and was turning to go into the house when I heard a soft whimpering from inside the shed. I unlocked the door and went in.

  Frank lay in the corner, curled up, blood congealing on the floor of the shed beneath him. He raised his head an inch and looked at me, but his usually bloodshot eyes were pale and dull. He licked ineffectually at the area on his flank where the shot had skinned him, and I noticed that his right ear, which before had hung almost to the ground, was tattered and torn, the surface bloody and dark. His snow-white chest was pink and red with blood, though I could not tell if he was bleeding there or if this had come from the wound to his ear.

  He yelped weakly when I lifted him and carried him out to the car. I set him on the back seat with a picnic blanket under him, working quickly lest some of the farmers wandering down the field, disappointed with the night's hunt, should see him and realize what had happened. I quickly ran up the stairs to Debbie, who was sitting up in bed reading a magazine. She had heard the shots earlier and was interested to hear what had happened. I told her to call the emergency vet in Strabane, as I was afraid if we took him to a Donegal vet, word would eventually filter back to Anderson.

  I had to wait outside the surgery for twenty minutes until the vet arrived and she helped me carry Frank onto the steel table in the surgery. There, she gave him a shot that knocked him out in seconds, before washing his wounds. I told her half of the story, saying that I had been shooting at a fox and that the dog had run into the line of fire.

  "Oh, right," she said, "I thought maybe it had to do with the cat hunt over there." She brushed one of her bangs back from her face with a bloody, gloved hand and smiled before returning to cleaning the wounds.

  The shot had skinned Frank's leg but there were no deeper injuries. His ear was badly torn and was about half its original length, which meant that part of his ear, a scrap of bloodstained velvet, was lying in Anderson's field. She bandaged his ear, tying it up behind his head, and put a dressing over the thick white ointment on his leg. Then she went into the storeroom and brought out a bottle of pills, antibiotics to reduce infection.

  Finally she checked his eyes and teeth and helped me carry him back out to the car.

  "I hope you weren't shot by accident, too," she said, nodding at the dressing on my hand, while I manoeuvred Frank onto the back seat.

  "No, I was bitten."

  "By him?" she said, looking concerned.

  "Oh, no," I said. "By a person," I closed the back door of the car while she looked at me, now more concerned about my mental wellbeing than my physical health.

  "Figures," she shrugged finally, taking the money I offered her.

  Chapter Ten

  Friday, 27th December

  I left the house at 7.30 the following morning and drove to Williams's house, a two bedroom bungalow in Ballindrait. As I approached, a blue Sierra drove past, the windows misted and icy, but I was almost certain that the man hunched over the steering wheel, looking like he had been hurried out of bed, was Jason Holmes.

  I did not ask Williams about it until we passed through Ballybofey twenty minutes later. "Did I see Holmes leaving your house this morning?" I asked in as innocuous a manner as I could.

  "Yes, Father, you did," she said, looking out the side window. "He slept on the sofa," she added, turning to look at me.

  "Hey, I didn't ask. Nothing to do with me," I said, holding one hand up off the steering wheel in mock placation.

  "I know," she said. "And I'd keep it that way, unless you want to end up like your dog."

  "Fair enough. I was only going to ask how he's doing. With the McKelvey affair."

  "Fine, I think," she said. "He doesn't say much. By the way, he thinks he may have a hit on the Terry Boyle thing. A barman remembered seeing him leave some nightclub in Raphoe with a girl on the night he died. Small girl - brown hair. He's going there today to get a description, maybe do up an e-fit." She rolled down the window and dropped out the gum she had been chewing.

  "That's littering," I protested.

  "As I was saying," she continued, ignoring my comment, "I think he's alright with it. So long as he thinks McKelvey is guilty."

  "Did you tell him where we were going?"

  "Yeah, though I said we were following a lead on McKelvey, tying up loose ends, checking out the ring. He wanted to know what he was missing. You know?"

  "Understandable," I said.

  We arrived on the outskirts of Donegal around an hour later. We called first at Hendershot & Sons Jewellers which was, indeed, still beside the Atlantic restaurant. From outside, it looked quite rundown: the woodwork around the door and the sign above the window were sun-faded and blistered. The windows were dusty and the shop appeared so dim inside that at first we thought it was closed. Inside, the style was old-fashioned with a lot of mahogany cases brimming with gold and diamonds which glittered under the spotlights embedded in the ceiling. The shop smelt of air-freshener, perhaps used in an attempt to disguise the deeper smell of tobacco.

  The manager was a young man with wavy brown hair and an expensive smile that glittered like the stone in his tie-pin. We explained our visit and showed him the ring. He examined it and suggested that we leave it with him for an hour while he contacted his father, who had made most of
the jewellery they had sold during the '60s and '70s.

  So we drove on to Bundoran, forty minutes towards the coast. For years Bundoran would have passed for a 1950s coastal village: bleached cottages, rundown shops with curling yellowed sunscreens on the windows, the Atlantic buffeting the coastline even on calm days. Recently, however, it has transformed itself, with amusement arcades and surfing shops, flickering neon signs, restaurants with Wild West facades, and bars crammed with oldIrish paraphernalia. In the early mornings, the streets are littered with broken beer bottles and vomit. By lunchtime, however, the town again presents its family-friendly face.

  We parked outside the Garda station and went in to meet Sergeant Bill Daly. The window in reception was so low that you had to bend slightly to address the man behind it. It was almost like a taxi office. Williams introduced us both and asked for Daly.

  Soon we were buzzed through and welcomed by a middle-aged man, whose black hair was greying at the temples. His skin was tanned like leather, with wrinkles deeply etched around his eyes, and he squinted slightly in the glare of the fluorescent lights overhead. He took us to an interview room.

  Daly excused himself and returned after a few moments carrying a small cardboard box on which he balanced three cups of coffee and a thin green folder. He set down the box and sat opposite us, blowing on the surface of his coffee and squinting at Williams.

  "So, you're here about Ratsy. Take a look; ask anything you like," he said, gesturing towards the green folder.

  Williams opened it and placed it between us on the desk. The notes were brief and concise.

  Ratsy Donaghey had been found in his flat overlooking the local playgrounds and swimming pool on 5th November, tied to a chair, his mouth gagged. His arms were covered with cigarette burns. Ultimately, his killer had slit Donaghey's wrists and left him to watch while his blood poured down his hands and dripped off his fingers onto the ground. Vital reaction indicators around the wounds suggested that he lived for perhaps another twenty-five to thirty minutes as he watched the life drip out of him, struggling against his restraints with such violence that he cracked three ribs.