Borderlands

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 bowlfashion. 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. "Costello, 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.

"I remember the Knox children, Inspector, yes," she said, her Fermanagh accent mixed with just a hint of the shorter Dublin twang. "Sean and Aoibhinn." She pronounced the girl's name Eveen. "A sad case. They arrived with us just after New Year, 1979.1 remember because we took some of the children to see His Holiness in Drogheda that year and the Knox children were among them. From what I recall they arrived with next to nothing. An aunt left them off, I think; gave them fifty punts, which was fairly generous in those days." Though still leaving her with fifty punts profit, I thought, for all her socialist beliefs.

She told me the story of the Knox children. It took many months for them to settle into their new home. Their accents, a mix of English and Northern Irish, stood out vividly against the southern brogue of their peers. The girl was subdued and unwilling to participate in any games. The boy was fiercely protective of her and got into more than one fight with people whom he felt were criticizing her. Finally, in September of that year, they were placed with two foster families, on either side of Dublin. The girl lasted four days, the boy less still. They had both cried inconsolably for the other, and, indeed, the boy had attacked his foster mother when she tried to put an arm round him to comfort him. And so they ended up back together again and became suddenly much more settled and content.

It was agreed by all the staff at St Augustine's that the children were precocious with regard to matters of the body. They frequently used coarse language and sexual slang. The boy had to be reprimanded several times for peeping up girls' skirts and, on one occasion, hiding in the girls' toilets.

The children were placed, unsuccessfully, with a number of foster homes, always returning happily to St Augustine's where, for perhaps the first time in their lives, they experienced some stability. Over the next number of years they drifted in and out of foster homes, running away from them before they had a chance to integrate fully. When Sean turned eighteen he left St Augustine's and rented a flat in Dublin, making money doing odd jobs on building sites. When the girl was seventeen she saw an advertisement for a Garda recruitment drive and entered training for An Garda when she turned eighteen.

"She was a beautiful girl, Inspector," Sister Perpetua said, "but troubled. I think she saw the Garda as a chance to join a new family. They were both awful lonely – apart from each other. So… what have they done"

I was a bit taken aback, and she clearly sensed it. She continued, "They're not dead or you'd have said. I can only guess that one or both of them are in some sort of trouble. Am I right?"

"You should have been a policewoman," I said.

"I notice that you haven't answered my question."

"I know," I said, laughing.

"Fair enough," she replied. "I can take a hint. Do me a favour, though? You'll think I'm some kind of wishy-washy liberal in this, but don't be judging those children too harshly. They were dealt a fairly stinking hand in life, do you see?"

I thanked Sister Perpetua and hung up the phone. I could not easily dismiss her parting words, though I reminded myself that I needed to reserve my sympathy, in the first instance, for Angela Cashell and Terry Boyle, more than anyone else. Still, regardless of where the brother had gone, I now knew that aged eighteen, in 1992, Aoibhinn Knox had joined the Garda.

I looked around the station for Williams but she was nowhere to be seen. It was nearing 5.30 p.m. and I wanted to catch the Garda training centre in Templemore before it closed. I dialled and asked to speak to the recruitment officer. A Sergeant O'Neill introduced himself and listened while I explained that I needed a name from the list of recruits for the 1992 recruitment drive and details of that person's postings. He told me that the college would have details only of the first posting of each trainee, if that would be of any help. He put me on hold but, after a few minutes of piped music, he returned and confirmed that Aoibhinn Knox had joined in that drive and had been stationed in Santry for her first posting.

I thanked him and dialled through to Santry, asking to be put through to the officer in charge of new recruits. Again I was put on hold, before, eventually, Superintendent Kate Mailey introduced herself.

"There can't be too many woman Supers, ma'am," I said, having introduced myself.

"Just the four of us, so far," she replied. "But we're doing the same work as the 170 men in our position."

"I don't doubt it ma'am," I said. "I need information about the posting of one of your starting officers."

"I know," she said. "The sergeant told me. I know everyone who's gone in and out of this station in the past twenty years or so. Who are you looking for?"

"A recruit called Aoibhinn Knox. She would have been posted to you in 1993 probably."

"I remember her – a lovely girl."

"That's quite a memory you have, ma'am." I said jokingly.

Her reply was deadpan. "I can't forget Knox. She married one of my own team members. He was killed in 1997 in a ballsed-up drugs bust. I never forget officers killed in duty."

"No, ma'am," I said. "Of course not. I'm sorry."

"Officer Knox left An Garda soon afterwards, Inspector, though by then she was called Coyle. Oh, and by the way – you're pronouncing her name wrong. She's not Eveen. Her name's Yvonne: Yvonne Coyle."

I bumped, quite literally, into Williams in the corridor, hardly able to tell her the news. On our way to the car, I tried Hendry's mobile. When he finally answered, I told him what I had learned and asked him to get to Coyle's home in Glennside and arrest her.

Williams drove across into Strabane and, while overtaking tractors and avoiding traffic islands, she relayed what she had discovered.

"The Three Rivers was originally owned by an Indian businessman named Hassem, but he sold up and developed a chain in the North. Now it gets kind of complicated here, because a consortium bought it over in 1974. Five local businessmen and budding entrepreneurs: Anthony McGonigle, Sean Morris, Gerard McLaughlin, Dermot Keavney and, leaving the best to last, a certain Thomas Powell Senior." She smiled over at me, proud of her efforts, then focused back on the road, someone's horn blaring as we sped past them on the inside.

"Shit! You're kidding me."

"I kid you not, boss. It keeps coming back to the same people. Looks like Knox had a thing going with both Powell and Costello."

"The question is, did one of them have her killed? And why?"

"You don't think Ratsy acted off his own bat?" Williams asked, risking a glance across at me.

"I don't see it. He'd no reason to. Someone paid him."

We pulled into Glennside, though there was no need for me to direct Williams to the house, for a PSNI car was already parked outside, its flickering blue lights intermittently illuminating the trees in Coyle's garden.

The house was in darkness. Two uniformed officers walked around the side, shining torches in the windows, using their gloved hands to minimize glare. I went up to the front window. Her furniture was still in its place but, as best I could see, all books, pictures and ornaments were gone.

Hendry came round the front of the house, alerted to our arrival by one of his officers.

"Come on round, Inspector. She's left the back door unlocked," he said grimly.

I felt a wave of nausea wash through me. A cold sweat broke on my skin, prickling on my arms under the heat of my overcoat. I was sure we would find her hanging inside, or lying on the floor, her body discoloured and stiff, or white and drained in a crimson bath. Yet none of those things awaited us. The house was simply deserted, the rooms stripped of anything personal. In the fridge, milk had begun to sour a little, smelling out the other contents. A bunch of bananas had begun to soften and blacken in the fruit bowl. A few circulars lay on the hall carpet behind the front door. The house itself was chilled from several days without heating.

Hendry sent the uniforms to canvass the neighbours while we sat in the kitchen and had a smoke. Hendry and Williams introduced themselves formally and exchanged pleasantries, then I explained the path that had led us to Coyle. I told Hendry about Cashell, Boyle and Donaghey, and my belief that Ratsy had abducted and killed Knox, with Cashell acting as an accomplice at worst or as driver at best, although we had no proof of this. I did not tell him my suspicions about Costello, nor the fact that Powell's name had appeared more than once during the investigation.

"So you think she killed Cashell and Boyle?" Hendry asked.

"Best guess," I said. "We know the ring belonged to her mother. We know she had a photograph of her mother wearing the ring. As a Garda officer she might have had access to a stolen items list." I knew this point was weak, but continued nonetheless. "She would have had a uniform. Angela Cashell was apparently having an affair with her. My guess is she realized that Donaghey had the ring. He's tortured and killed. Presumably he named the person or people involved in killing Knox, including Johnny Cashell and Seamus Boyle. Coyle befriends Cashell's daughter, who then ends up dead, wearing the ring Whitey McKelvey stole and which he claimed he'd sold to a girl in a bar. And I suspect our eyewitness who spotted Terry Boyle leaving the pub with a girl may well have their memory refreshed if we can show them a photograph of Coyle."

Forty minutes later the uniforms returned to say that none of the neighbours had seen Coyle in a week. In fact, the previous Tuesday was the last time she'd been seen; the day I had visited her. One of the neighbours recalled seeing a car which fitted the description of mine – minus the rust they described – around lunchtime. They also recalled that, later that night, a blue car with a southern registration had been parked outside Coyle's house until morning. The witness didn't see the car leave, though, as she went to listen to Today on Radio 4 in her 'sun room' and when she looked out afterwards, the vehicle had gone.

"Best we can do is put out a 'be on the lookout' bulletin to all officers, north and south," Hendry said as we walked back out to our cars. "She can't stay hidden forever. Unless, of course, she's done what she set out to do and has vanished, like her mother, into the night!" This last phrase he said in a mock spooky voice and Williams laughed despite herself. Hendry flashed a grin at her, then winked at me, his face sober and drawn. I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. Kathleen Boyle's number flashed on the screen. Her ex-husband had arrived, and wanted to talk.

We were sitting in Boyle's living room again, Seamus Boyle on a hard- backed chair, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. The man looked shattered. His hair, ginger mixed with grey, was unkempt and straggled over his forehead. His eyes were puffy and red, the whites bloodshot; his skin was sallow and smelt of sweat and cigarettes. Throughout our conversation he stuttered and stopped, catching his breath, swallowing back the pain that must have hit him the moment his wife confronted him about the photograph – the one now sitting on the coffee table in front of him. He must have suspected the identity of the subject when his wife mentioned the photograph. One glance had confirmed it, and he had erupted.

"I can't… I can't believe he's not here," Boyle spluttered, incomprehension creasing his face. "And for this. For one stupid fucking…" He turned away from us and faced the window, head tilted slightly, as if to stop his tears from running down his cheeks. He sniffed heavily several times, rubbing at his face with the palms of his hands.

"We know who she is, Mr Boyle," I said. "We need you to confirm what happened to her."

"She's dead," he said simply, still not looking at us. "She's dead and buried somewhere – I don't know where."

"Did you kill her, Mr Boyle?" Williams asked.

"I might as well have done," he said, looking at us both. "For what it's done. I might as well have."

It was neither confirmation nor denial. We waited in silence, until he composed himself and spoke again.

"I wasn't the one, if that's what you mean. But I knew about it. They told me afterwards. Got me to burn the clothes she was in."

"We think we know who you mean, Mr Boyle, but we need you to give us their names."

"Ratsy and Johnny Cashell. Ratsy did it. Cashell helped him get rid of the body, I think."

"Why did they kill her?" Williams asked.

"Orders. Someone paid them," he stated. "You see, Ratsy and us worked together as bouncers, when I was wee, like – in my twenties. But Ratsy had other things going on. We helped him out when he needed a bit of weight behind him. He was a skittery wee shite. He got us work; we had to help him out. Once you're in, you can't back out again. We were all responsible. Our Terry wasn't, though," he said, and we lost him again to whatever image of his son's last moments he was replaying in his mind. His entire body shuddered with his sobs, his tears spilling unchecked. Across the room from him, perched on the edge of an armchair, Kathleen Boyle watched him with a mixture of pity and horror on her face.

"Why do you think he did it?" Williams asked.

"Someone asked him to, I guess. Ratsy never did anything unless he was getting paid for it."

"Who do you think paid him?" I asked.

He shook his head, then took deep breaths again until his tears subsided. "Could have been anybody," he said, his lips bubbling.

"What's Ratsy's connection with IID?" Williams asked.

Terry Boyle's expression showed us that he had no idea what we were talking about. "Could have been anybody," he repeated, stunned by the direction his life had just taken.

Williams dropped me at the station, which was by now almost in darkness. We pull the blinds at night in the station but leave the lights on inside. That way, it appears to all who pass that the Gardai are ever watchful, when the truth is that we're usually all at home, bathing our kids or having a beer in front of the midweek movie.

I popped into our storeroom/office and lifted a pile of paperwork which had been left for me. I noticed on top of it a fax which I assumed to be from Templemore. There was also a note telling me that two officers from Sligo would be in the station the next day to begin an investigation into the death of Whitey McKelvey; I was to make myself available to be interviewed. I called Debbie and grovelled my excuse for being late for dinner, patted my jacket to make sure I had my gun, and locked up for the night.

As I turned the key in the front door to engage the deadbolt, I became aware of a figure standing watching me. The woman was heavy-set and squat, her blonde hair straggled in rats' tails. She had her hands buried deep in the pockets of a tweed overcoat which would have better suited a man.

"I know your face," she said. "You're that detective."

I smiled a little uncertainly and approached her. "That's right. Can I help you?"

"My name's McKelvey. Liam was my boy."

I stopped walking, caught completely off-guard. "Mrs McKelvey, I'm so sorry. I…"

"I saw you on TV, saying you'd visited the families of them what died. How come you didn't visit us? The travellers? Are we not good enough for you, officer?" she said, emphasizing the last word disdainfully.

"No, that's not true. I… I'd wanted to visit you. I… I felt guilty, I suppose. I'm sorry."

I walked towards her again, my arms outstretched, believing for a second that she would take my hands and, in doing so, would help alleviate the guilt I felt.

Instead, she coughed deep into her chest and spat a globule of phlegm at me before turning and walking off. I could not allow myself to wipe the spit from my face until I reached my car.

As I fumbled in my pockets for my keys, I heard, too late, the rush and rustle of clothing behind me. I spun into the blur of two male figures, arms raised, bearing down on me. Red and green lights exploded in my field of vision with the first blow and I fell forwards, face down, into the gutter. I could feel the dirt and grit scrape my face, taste the mud in my mouth. My head thudded, a sudden coldness spreading from the area where I had been hit. I put my hand to the back of my head and examined it in the dullness, though I could feel the stickiness of the blood without even looking. A glass bottle clattered to the ground beside me and I tried to shield my face with my arms as boots thudded off my trunk and legs. I felt one of the kicks connect with the back of my head, where the skull and spine meet; I felt the bones grating against each other and my stomach heaved. Eventually, the night sky started to spin, then everything slid into darkness.