Borderlands

by Brian McGilloway

  "Did you believe him?" I asked.

  "God, no. He was lying through his teeth. He seemed particularly uneasy when I told him that Knox had kids. He didn't seem to know. Though obviously he claimed it was nothing to him, since he didn't know the woman."

  "Did you say Ratsy Donaghey was a manager of a bar?"

  "Apparently so."

  "That's worth taking a closer look at as well. Look, when we get back to the station, I want to call Hendry about Yvonne Coyle. Can you pull me anything you can find on Donaghey? Then I want you to start checking for this neighbour of Mary Knox, Joanne Duffy, living somewhere in Derry. I suspect she knows where the kids ended up."

  "You think the kids are involved?"

  "I don't know," I said, honestly, "but it's the only thing we have for now."

  As it transpired, I didn't get to carry out my plans quite as quickly as I had hoped, for when we returned to the station Mark Anderson was standing at the front desk, while Burgess tried desperately to shift him.

  "Ah, Inspector Devlin," he shouted, the moment I came through the door. "A Mr Anderson here for you. Perhaps you'd be so kind as to assist him." Then he added under his breath, "And take the smell of pig" shit out of my station."

  Anderson was not for shifting. He took something from his pocket, a skein of brown velvet material darkened at the edges with crusted blood. He let it drop onto the main counter. "That were in my field, where that animal were shot."

  "What has that to do with me?" I asked, my head spinning as I spoke. The rag of torn skin was both sickening and strangely pitiful.

  "Powell won't give me the reward. He says that ain't no cat. He says that's part of a hound. Where's your dog?"

  "He's at home, Mark. That's not part of a dog. That could be part of anything. Powell's just trying to renege on his part of the deal. Makes good TV offering rewards, so long as you don't have to follow it through."

  Anderson eyed me suspiciously, his face puckered in concentration. He rubbed a callused fingertip along the white stubble of his chin. "All I know is that I ain't seen your dog since the hunt and nothing's been near my sheep since. If I find your dog's been hurt in some way, I got a right to put a bullet in him. Reward or not, I'll protect my sheep."

  "And I'll protect my daughter's pet, Mark," I replied.

  "Best thing for you to do is put a bullet in it yourself, before someone else has to," Anderson said and walked out.

  Regardless of my annoyance at Anderson, I knew he was right about Frank. I resolved to take my gun home with me that night. I had decided when Penny was just a baby that I would not keep a gun in the house, and so it stayed in a special locker in the station. Guns are quite often a final option for Gardai; generally we do not carry them, as it seems to contravene the very name of An Garda Siochana - the Guardians of the Peace.

  I went into the back lock-up, behind Costello's room, where the station safe was located. Above it was a strong box with a padlock.

  I opened it and removed my .38 revolver and a box of bullets, wrapped both in the oilcloth that had been around the gun, and tucked the parcel into my inside coat-pocket.

  I phoned Strabane station and left a message for Hendry to call me. The desk sergeant assured me that Hendry would get back to me when he could. While I was on the phone, Williams came into the office and flopped onto the chair, a thick manila folder in her lap.

  "Ratsy Donaghey, this is your life," she said. She placed the file on the table between us and we both read through it carefully.

  Donaghey had first appeared on police files at the age of eleven, when he was caught stealing from a local shop whose owner wanted the matter dealt with seriously. He was arrested with some regularity from then on in, for drinking or vandalism or stealing. At fourteen he was sent to a borstal for nine months for beating up an elderly neighbour for the contents of her purse, which amounted to about thirteen euros nowadays. He was quiet for the duration of his stay there, but his name surfaced again afterwards.

  His first adult arrest was for aggravated assault and GBH, when he beat the ex-boyfriend of a girl he was dating with a broken beer bottle and a brick until he was unconscious. The case went as far as court but, somehow, Ratsy got off with a suspended sentence despite his earlier record. I made a note of the date, deducing that the court records for it would be found in a newspaper from the period.

  Forty minutes later my faith in librarians was repaid once more as we read the court report for the case. According to the papers from the time, Donaghey was shown leniency because of his important position in something called 'IID' and his role as an ambassador for the area. The chairman of IID, Joseph Cauley, interceded on Ratsy's behalf, describing the attack as a single regrettable blemish on an otherwise impressive character. The magistrate at the time was Gordon Fullerton, who had since spent three years in jail himself, having being found guilty of taking bribes in a case over land ownership. As neither of us knew what IID was, we set off again to a building a little closer to home.

  In the centre of Lifford, almost opposite the Garda station, is the Seat of Power, a museum dedicated to Lifford's history as the administrative centre of Donegal. The museum also houses the original courthouse and cells from the old jail and mental asylum. More importantly, however, the building houses a number of individuals who know more about Lifford and Donegal than is perhaps healthy. One such person is Mary Deeney. Mary is a woman in her late thirties with straight copper-tinted hair, which occasionally reveals glimpses of grey. She was able to give us the rundown on IID in fifteen minutes.

  "Invest in Donegal," she explained, pushing her pink-framed glasses up the bridge of her nose, only for them to slide back down almost immediately. "One of these things set up in the '70s to try to bring bigger companies into Donegal. It actually had a few big successes in the late '70s, early '80s with a textile company and an IT firm. Offered incentives, tax breaks, grants and so on; performed feasibility studies; handled contracts for building. Folded up in 1984 — no, 1985 - when Cauley died. Possibly just as well, actually; rumour had it that the Fraud Squad was taking an interest in it by that stage."

  "Do you remember a man by the name of Tony Donaghey being involved?" Williams asked. "I think he was quite important to it."

  Mary thought about it as she absentmindedly twirled a few loose strands of her hair around her fingers. "No, the name doesn't mean anything. Of course, I'm the wrong person to be taking to. Tommy Powell's the man you'd really want to see."

  "Why Powell?" I asked.

  "Well he started it. IID was his brainchild. He raised millions through the Dail for it."

  "We thought Cauley ran IID" Williams said, and I nodded agreement.

  "Cauley ran it alright," Mary said, as if explaining something to very slow children, "but Powell owned it. Cauley was just a manager."

  Williams and I stood outside the museum while I had a smoke. Across the street we could see Costello moving around in his office, his blinds pulled back to let in the December sun. At one point he walked over to the window and stared across at us, then moved into the shadows of his room again.

  "So, what now?" I said.

  "Try to track the kids, I suppose." Williams said. "And Coyle. What about Powell? Are you going to speak to him?"

  "Maybe," I said. "But not quite yet. Costello said this morning about bringing the Investigation Bureau in on this."

  "Are you going to?" Williams asked, looking a little surprised.

  "No. But I think they can help us with one thing."

  As well as the local Garda stations around the country, An Garda has a centralised Criminal Investigation Bureau which helps in serious-crime cases. It is just one, however, of a number of support systems. We had already called on the Water Unit. I decided that perhaps it was time to contact the Research Unit as well. The Research Unit does exactly what its name suggests. Over years it has collated information passed on from all the other strands of the Garda system and filed it for future reference. No other section
of An Garda could access information on companies or national initiatives as quickly. Or so I hoped.

  I returned to our office and phoned through to the Command and Control Centre in Harcourt Street in Dublin and asked to be transferred to Research. I was put through to an Officer Armstrong, and asked him to find whatever he could on Ratsy Donaghey in connection with IID. I decided not to mention Tommy Powell just yet, assuming that the name would turn up anyway once IID was researched. I also mentioned the rumour about the fraud investigation and the chairman, Joseph Cauley. Armstrong told me it might take a few days.

  I then tried contacting Hendry again about Yvonne Coyle, but he was still not available. I sat in the storeroom, watching Williams scan phone directories and electoral registers for Derry in an attempt to locate Joanne Duffy, Mary Knox's friend. Then I sat beside Williams and helped her. After a number of false leads, three coffees and a shared tuna sandwich, we found her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Monday, 30th December

  Duffy had moved from Strabane to Derry in 1983, marrying a man called Edgar van Roost, a Belgian political analyst who was lecturing in Peace and Conflict Studies at a local university. They met at a political rally at which van Roost spoke, comparing the conflict in Northern Ireland with the conflict in the Middle East, while Duffy sold copies of Socialist Worker to an indifferent crowd.

  They now lived in an area of Derry known as Foyle Springs, in a modest semi-detached house which required painting. However, inside, the house was far from what we had expected from a socialist. The plush-carpeted hallway, despite being quite narrow, was dominated by a huge chandelier which hung so low I had to walk around rather than under it.

  Duffy had clearly aged gracefully, though, perhaps aided by a little surgery, for her eyes were unnaturally free of wrinkles or laughter lines and her lips were full and perfectly pink. Her cheeks were accentuated with blusher and her hair was a steely blonde, set high in a bun.

  She smoked a long, slim, brown cigarette, drawing lightly on it and releasing the smoke in a single puff, as if unaccustomed to smoking.

  "I can't inhale," she explained, noting my curiosity, and gesturing vaguely with the cigarette, "because of my asthma. I shouldn't smoke at all, but I can't help it."

  Williams nodded with understanding. "Ms Duffy, as I explained to you on the phone, we're trying to trace the family of Mary Knox."

  Duffy nodded, her bun tottering on her head. "Mary, God rest her. Have you found her? Is that it?" She leaned forward a little in her seat as an indication of concern.

  "No, Ms Duffy," I said. "We're re-examining her case. Do you have any idea what happened to her?"

  "Oh, Mary's dead," Duffy said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Mary was dead the day she disappeared. I've always known that."

  "How?" Williams asked, smiling uncertainly.

  "You just do. We were very good friends. I would watch her children for her when she was ... you know, when she was working." She broke the tip off her cigarette and laid the unsmoked half in the ashtray beside her. "Would you like to see her?" she asked, standing up before we had a chance to answer. She went over to a heavy mahogany cabinet in the corner of the room and opened it to reveal shelves packed with books and photo albums. Duffy flicked through one or two, then located the picture she wanted, removed it from the album and gave it to Williams, who looked at it and passed it to me. "That's her and the children," Duffy said, standing above me, her head tilted to see the picture in my hand.

  The picture was clearly from the same batch as the one we had already seen. In the background, grey clouds had massed, but it did not detract from the sunny disposition of the three figures. Mary Knox was still sitting on the concrete steps to the beach, but in this shot her children were on either side of her. She had obviously been an attractive woman. A black swimsuit was visible through the large white T-shirt she wore. Her hands rested demurely on her bare knees, which were pressed together. Clearly visible on her left hand was the moonstone ring.

  To her left was a boy of about eight, his blonde hair cut bowl- fashion. He wore nothing but green shorts. His ribs stood out a little through his skin, and he was grinning so much that his eyes were little more than slits. He had one arm around his mother's neck, the other jauntily resting on his hip. Small bruises were visible on his legs and shins.

  On the other side of Mary Knox sat her daughter. She too smiled into the camera, but her body was closed, her hands clasped in front of her. She retained a tiny distance from her mother. Her face was thin and her skin light, contrasting with the darkness of her hair, which hung in curls around her face and shoulders. She was wearing a blue swimsuit with a beach towel around her shoulders like a shawl. Something about her expression was familiar and strangely sad. Perhaps it was just that I knew how this family would turn out.

  "When was this taken?" I asked.

  "Should be written on the back," Duffy replied. "Around Halloween, before she disappeared. The weather was beautiful for so late in the year and we all went to Bundoran for a day out. We had a great day." The dates certainly fitted with Costello's buying the ring.

  "That's a nice ring she's wearing," I said. "Looks expensive."

  "It was. Didn't stop it breaking, though. In fact on the way home that night she noticed one of the stones had fallen out. Had to send it back to be fixed."

  "Where did she get it?" I asked, trying to make the question sound as casual as possible. Still Duffy viewed me with suspicion.

  Finally she decided to answer. "I suppose you know anyway. Mary had a lot of men. Made a bit for herself on the back of it. One of her men bought it for her."

  "Do you know who?" Williams asked.

  "Someone with money. Someone important. One of the important people."

  "What do you mean, 'one of?" I asked.

  "There were several," Duffy replied, and smiled coyly, as if to suggest she had gone as far as she could.

  "Who were they?" Williams asked, reading my thoughts.

  "I don't remember names. Some businessmen, important people. The owner of the Three Rivers Hotel was the biggest of them, though."

  "Who was that?" I asked. The Three Rivers was derelict now, and had been for as long as I could recall.

  "I don't remember," Duffy said, averting her eyes from my mine. "As for the children, I haven't seen them in twenty-five years."

  "Do you know what happened to them?" Williams asked. Duffy looked at her and her face reddened. Her eyes began to moisten and she bit lightly at her lip in a vain attempt to stop the tears.

  "I took them," she said, finally, as she wiped carefully at her tears. "I know it was wrong, but I took them to Dublin. Left them in an orphanage in South Circular Road - St Augustine's. I gave them a photograph each of their mother from that same batch you're looking at."

  "That was it? You just decided to take them away, for no reason?" I asked incredulously. "What if she'd come back?"

  "Someone told me to do it - someone who was very fond of Mary. He gave me money to take them. Gave me a hundred punts to give to them. He told me to do it."

  "This man told you to give someone else's children away to an orphanage and you did it?" Williams's voice rose so quickly it cracked and she had to swallow back her last words.

  "Yes. He told me she wouldn't be back. Said it would be better for the children if they were kept away from Strabane for a while. I thought they might be in some danger. I couldn't look after two children. I did what he said. It wasn't my fault," she said.

  "Who was he, Ms Duffy? We need a name."

  "I can't tell you."

  "Ms Duffy," I said, as reasonably as possible. "Whoever told you to take those children away probably knows what happened to their mother. In fact, he may have been responsible for what happened to her. Now, please, who told you to take them?"

  She looked from Williams to me and back again. Then she looked at her hands, clasped in her lap, and finally back at me, a note of defiance clear in her voice and in her eyes. "C
ostello, his name was," she said, then preened herself slightly in vindication at her reluctance to speak, as we struggled to make sense of what she had told us.

  On the journey home, we tried to examine all the pieces of the case as objectively as possible. Costello had been having an affair with a prostitute with two children. She vanishes and he pays a neighbour to have the children taken to Dublin and left in an orphanage. Twenty-five years later a hood's daughter is killed and her body is dumped wearing the ring Costello had given to the prostitute.

  "Costello seems to be fitting the frame more and more," Williams said grimly, though neither of us wanted to consider what would happen if we proved decisively that he was responsible for Knox's disappearance.

  "It looks that way," I said resignedly, and decided on one final stalling measure. "The best thing for us to do is to try to locate those children: it's the only solution."

  "Are you going to speak to him about this?" Williams asked, as we drove through Porthall, approaching Lifford from the east.

  "Not yet," I said, though I knew that eventually I would have to face Costello, as surely as I would have to deal with Frank and the attacks on Anderson's livestock. "What are you doing now?" I asked.

  The sky was darkening, although it was only just after four o'clock. The moon hung low in the sky, still little more than a sliver of ice. Three or four stars stood out in the navy sky; a bulkhead of cloud building in the west promised snow by morning. We had already overtaken a number of the local farmers out spreading salt on the minor roads.

  "No plans. I'm meeting Jason later for dinner. In fact, he's cooking."

  "Fancy doing one last thing for us before you shoot home? Check out who owned the Three Rivers when Knox was about. I'll try this St Augustine's place and see what I can find."

  The only St Augustine's in the book was a church, though the priest was able to give me a number for a nun named Sister Perpetua, who had worked in the orphanage until 1995 when it had closed down. Sister Perpetua, or Sister P as she announced herself on the phone, was a northerner and proved to be as voluble as her memory was remarkable.