Borderlands

by Brian McGilloway

  Frank scrabbled at the door to the living room. Underneath it, I could see the flickering of the fire. I could wait for back-up, but it would simply turn this into a situation from which my family had no chance of escape. Besides, I couldn't stand out here, waiting for someone to help. I pushed the door open with my foot, my gun in my hand.

  Debbie and Shane were sitting on the sofa, Shane squirming restlessly. Debbie had clearly been crying, her eyes wide and red.

  Harvey was sitting in the armchair closest to the fire, Penny held in front of him as a shield. His gun was held by her head, though it was pointing at me. When he saw my pistol, he held the gun tight against her skin, her beautiful soft skin. Frank, who had run to Debbie, now turned his attention to Harvey, growling and baring his teeth.

  "Drop the gun, Devlin," Harvey said, his own gun steady.

  "Give it up, John. I'm not going to let you out of here, you must know that," I said, though the quaver in my voice revealed my lack of conviction.

  Frank barked, while Debbie tried to pull at his collar to restrain him. Harvey's attention flickered towards the dog, then back to me.

  "Drop it," he snapped.

  "Let Penny go," I said, inching closer to him.

  Frank barked again, then twisted and tugged so hard that his collar slipped over his ears and he lunged towards Harvey. In turn Harvey kicked out at the him. Penny, seemingly more concerned about Frank than herself, flailed against Harvey and slid off his knee onto the hearth. I fired one shot, indiscriminately, while I grabbed at Penny. The edge of her dress was burning when I lifted her away, and I thumped at the flames with my bandaged hand until they were smothered.

  She scrabbled into my arms, sobbing. When I looked up, Harvey lay sprawled in my armchair, a single small bullet-hole in his left cheek, his eyes wide with disbelief. I did not feel sorrow for him, as I had with Yvonne. I did not even close his eyes when he exhaled his final, weak sigh. I simply gathered my family and we stood outside while we waited for the Guards to arrive. I hoped the snow would fall thickly enough to bury all transgressions and make the world fresh and clean with the dawn.

  Epilogue

  20th March 2003

  In the days that followed, and in my absence, the NCIB were drafted in to piece together what had happened. They eventually discovered that, having fled her house in Strabane, Yvonne had joined her brother in a rented farmhouse in Ballindrait.

  Presumably, Sean Knox, or John Harvey as he had become, recognized the ring belonging to his mother on the list of stolen goods he had been given to check. Perhaps he had waited years for some sign of her life - and death - to emerge. Or perhaps it simply happened unexpectedly, setting in motion a chain of events which would culminate in the Three Rivers Hotel and, later, in my own home. Either way, once he got a hit in the second-hand jewellers, it mustn't have been too hard for him to identify Whitey McKelvey from the description given of a young traveller boy with big ears and hair so blond it was almost white.

  Working backwards, they traced Ratsy Donaghey to Bundoran and, there, killed him, having established at least that Johnny Cashell and Seamus Boyle had aided him in their mother's murder.

  Yvonne had begun a friendship and ultimately a relationship with Angela Cashell, another woman's arms presumably the perfect refuge from a voyeuristic father and a drug-pushing boyfriend like McKelvey. Using McKelvey as their fall-guy, Yvonne and her brother drugged Cashell. It can only be assumed that Harvey then had sex with her before she died and that Yvonne knelt on her chest as the life drained from her.

  Later, Yvonne would pick up Terry Boyle, out for a celebratory pint on his return from university. She directed him to a lay-by on Gallows Lane and Harvey followed. The fact that Boyle's window had apparently been wound down at the time of his death suggested that Harvey had approached Boyle's car in uniform.

  It was assumed that Ratsy Donaghey had told them something about Costello's involvement with their mother. Either that, or Joanne Duffy had told them something - though she denied having had any contact with them since she had abandoned them in Dublin twenty-five years previous.

  However they learnt of his involvement, the outcome remained the same: on the morning of New Year's Eve, they broke into Costello's house. One of them, probably Harvey, hit Emily with a poker, though they may not have intended to kill her. Then they took Kate Costello to the Three Rivers. At the same time, Yvonne managed to lure Thomas Powell there. It transpired that Miriam was correct in her suspicion that her husband was having an affair with a nurse. Again, it was assumed that Ratsy had named Powell Sr as he died. In each case, they decided on transferring the punishment for the sins of the father onto the children. Harvey went to Finnside to deliver the photograph of Mary Knox, which was found amongst a pile of Christmas cards lying on Powell's bedside cabinet later that day.

  Finally, they waited for me to find them and make their decision for them with regard to whether Costello's or Powell's child should die. I was to be their arbitrator and become complicit in their plan. In the end, Yvonne shot Powell, then Kate Costello, and finally herself. And her revenge was complete. Her brother, however, with no one else left to blame, turned to my family.

  I was interviewed as part of the investigation into the death of Liam McKelvey. During the interview I admitted to my attack on the boy and accepted responsibility for the various breaks in procedure I had made during the preceding weeks. I was suspended with pay for two weeks for negligence. I have not yet decided if I will make the break permanent. Jason Holmes was likewise suspended for his role in the McKelvey affair. But someone higher up than either of us had evidently decided that it was better to pin the whole lot on Harvey rather than tarnish the reputation of the force further by implicating the man who had solved the murders of Angela Cashell, Terry Boyle, Emily Costello, Thomas Powell and, at last, Mary Knox.

  I met Christine Cashell several days later. She was serving in the local chemist's, where I was buying painkillers. She smiled at me when I approached the counter. I asked her how her parents were doing.

  "Mum's great. Never better," she said. "I couldn't tell you about Dad. He and Mum had a row about something and she threw him out. Again," she added, rolling her eyes in mock exasperation.

  "Will he be back?" I asked, suspecting that her father's departure had affected her more deeply than she was prepared to admit.

  "Maybe," she shrugged.

  Kate Costello was in hospital for several days. On 4th January, Debbie drove me to Letterkenny General to visit her. Afterwards, I sat in the hospital cafe with her father for twenty-five minutes, talking of the weather, which had begun to improve. I asked about Emily and he told me that the funeral arrangements were being postponed until Kate was out of hospital. He did not mention the events in the hotel until I got up to leave.

  "Thanks, Benedict," he said, as I signalled my intention to go.

  "No problem. Doing my job, sir."

  "No. Thanks for what you told her. Kate told me. About Powell. I don't know how you made that up on the spur of the moment; it was ... it was inspired." He smiled lightly, almost apologetically. "I won't forget it; it goes no further than us."

  For a moment I wanted to pursue what he had said, to tease out the meaning and be sure I understood it. I looked at him, alone now without his wife, and wondered what I could say. In the end, I simply straightened up, pulled my coat around me, and walked down the echoing corridor, out into the freshening air.

  The following day, I visited Thomas Powell in Finnside. I sat in the room, a bunch of flowers in my hand, and watched him sleep. He had suffered another stroke, late on the evening he was told of his son's death, and had hardly recovered any strength since. The blankets on his bed were so heavy that they disguised the movement of his ribcage as he breathed. His room smelt stale and cold, like a crypt. The only movement discernible in the man was a continual twitching of his eyelids which, though shut, fluttered endlessly.

  Miriam Powell walked into the room just before I le
ft. Seeing me sitting beside the bed, she went and stood outside, her back against the wall, and waited for me to leave. As I did so, she passed me, so closely that my hand accidentally touched the exposed skin of her arm. I inhaled the air in her wake, but could not smell the scent of coconut. She wore a new, stronger perfume. I believe she intends to continue building on the political career her late husband began.

  Early on the morning of 3rd March, unable to sleep, I sat in the kitchen watching with horrified fascination as the US policy of "shock and awe" was finally unveiled and Baghdad burned. Eventually, sick to the stomach, I flicked off the TV and sat in the kitchen in darkness, listening to the noise of thaw-water dripping from the eaves outside. I gradually became aware that Frank was whining and yelping from the shed. The thought of what had to be done had lain heavy on my mind since New Year and I knew that the stay of execution he had received was almost over. I ate a bowl of cereal slowly. Then I loaded one bullet in my gun, and rolled up an old towel with which to muffle the shot.

  Unlocking the back door, I stepped out into the coldness of the dawn. All around me was the sound of water dripping, from the eaves of the house, from the hedge and trees.

  Frank had somehow escaped from the shed once again. Now he lay at the back door of the house, his body flat against the ground, the fur on his back raised, his single long ear under his snout. But he was not looking at me. I followed his gaze to his food dish, and there, in the shadows of the cherry tree near the top of the garden, stood a wild cat.

  It was nearly the size of a collie, its body compact and hard, its dark fur sleek and shining in the morning light. It was poised to flee, muscles tensed, legs bent, its hard golden eyes trained on me. It considered me for a moment, raising its head slightly to sniff the air. Then it dipped its head again into Frank's food bowl and ate the remains of his dinner from the previous night.

  I shifted my gun from one hand to the other, considering whether I had any chance of firing a shot. The cat lifted its head again and looked at me with disdain. The dawn sun was spreading slowly across the lawn now. The animal snarled once, lightly, baring its teeth, then it turned and padded up through the hedgerow and into the field beyond.

  During that month, it hunted freely both in the North and the Republic, eluding naturalist and hunter alike, slaughtering livestock with impunity, making the borderland its own.

  Then, in the early spring, it disappeared.

  Acknowledgements

  I wish to acknowledge the support of my friends and colleagues in St Columb's College, particularly Bob McKimm, Tom Costigan, Ruth Byrne and Nuala McGonagle, who read early drafts of the novel. Thanks also to Sister Perpetua McNulty, Patricia Hughes, Jude Collins, Paul Wilkins, Martin Meenan and Alex Mullan, who each encouraged my writing in his or her own way.

  During the writing of this novel, I received wonderful advice and encouragement from Peter Buckman of The Ampersand Agency. Also, thanks to Billy Patton, Gerard McGirr, Eoghan Barr, Marcas O'Murchu and Lifford Gardai for their assistance with various aspects of this book. Finally, thanks to David Torrans of No Alibis Bookshop.

  I owe a massive debt of gratitude to all involved with Macmillan New Writing: Mike Barnard, Sophie Portas and, most particularly, Will Atkins for his editorial work and his tremendous efforts on my behalf.

  Thanks to my family: Carmel and Michael, Joe and Susan, Dermot and Lynda, and the girls: Catherine, Ciara, Ellen, Anna and Elena. Thanks also to Paul, Rosaleen and the O'Neill family.

  Special thanks to my parents, Laurence and Katrina McGilloway, for more than I could list. And last, but certainly not least, this book is for my sons, Ben and Tom, who make it all worthwhile, and my wife and best friend, Tanya, with love and immense gratitude.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen