Borderlands

Chapter Two

Sunday, 22nd December

The following morning I took Debbie and the children to early Mass, where Penny insisted we say a special prayer for Frank, and the entire congregation prayed for the repose of the soul of Angela Cashell and for comfort for her family in their tragedy. Yesterday's snow flurries had cleared and the sky was fresh as water, the wind sharp, the bright winter sun deceptively warm-looking as we sat in church, staring out. Strangely, the roses in the gardens at the front of the church were budding again despite the lateness of the year. As I stopped to admire them on our way out, Thomas Powell Jr approached me.

Powell was someone I had known when I was young, at school in Derry. He was my age, but where I was stocky and carrying extra weight around the gut, Powell was lean and tanned and carried only the aura of good health, achieved and maintained through prosperity. He was the husband of a girl I had also known when younger, and the only son of one of the richest men in Donegal, Thomas Sr. The old man had been a highly influential politician in his time, and rumour had it that the son would soon follow suit. It was about the father that Thomas wished to see me.

"Devlin. Anything on the old man?" he asked, shaking my hand in both of his, a gesture which was strikingly disingenuous.

"What old man?" I asked.

"My father, of course. I'd assumed you'd know." He smiled with some bewilderment.

"Sorry, Thomas. Did something happen to your father?"

He seemed irritated. "I thought they'd have told you. I phoned your station this morning. About the intruder."

"I haven't heard, Thomas. Where was this?"

"His room in the home: Finnside. He woke in the middle of the night, Wednesday, and swore there was someone in his room. Look, we told the guy who answered the phone. He said it would be investigated."

"I'm sure it will, Thomas. We're a bit up to our eyes with this Cashell girl's death. Was your father hurt?"

"No."

"Was anything taken?"

"No. But that's not the point. Someone was in his room."

I could see Powell beginning to get annoyed so, having promised to follow it up at the earliest opportunity, I excused myself.

As I turned to leave, I caught sight of his wife, Miriam, standing in the vestibule of the church, talking to Father Brennan but looking over at us, seemingly distracted. Her eyes caught mine and something shivered inside me and settled uneasily in my stomach. She smiled lightly and returned her attentions to the priest.

As there were only three days till Christmas, I had promised Penny a trip to Santa's grotto and I wanted to get on the road to Derry as soon as possible. The events of the day before had made me all the more resolved to spend time with my children; I couldn't help seeing their faces when I thought of Angela. Although it was my day off, I had my mobile phone with me and as we drove from the churchyard its urgent ringing startled me.

It was Jim Hendry. He was calling to tell me that Strabane police were holding Johnny Cashell for attempted murder. As I drove across the bridge to Strabane in the beautiful December sunshine, I was able to look down and see frogmen from both sides of the border taking turns at searching the murk for anything that might help us catch his daughter's killer.

On the northern side of the border, a local government agency, tired of traveller encampments clogging up car parks and industrial estates, decided to provide the travellers with their own area. The agency chose a site off the main road and miles away from any other housing developments and then, showing a severe lack of understanding of the term "itinerant", built twenty houses for the traveller families to live in. Needless to say, the travellers parked outside the houses and lived in their caravans as they always had. However, someone systematically stripped the brand new houses of anything that could be sold, making a neat profit and leaving the estate looking like a terrorist training ground. For several months afterwards, the less reputable local builders made a huge and completely illegal profit, buying cut-price piping and slates and putting them into new houses.

It was unusual, Inspector Hendry told me, when I drove over to Strabane that morning, for the police to have to go into the camp – the travellers normally resolved disputes in their own ways. That morning had been different, apparently.

From what could be gleaned from various witnesses, it seemed that Johnny Cashell and his three brothers had walked from his home to Daly's Filling Station in Lifford at 11 p.m. the previous evening, just as the nightshift staff came on, and there they each filled tenlitre jerry cans with petrol. The four of them then sat in McElroy's Bar until 2.30 in the morning, drinking Guinness and Powers whiskey. While most of the other drinkers in the bar smelt the fumes coming off the four jerry cans in the corner, no one asked about them or reacted in any way to imply that such an occurrence was unusual; not even when Brendan Cashell went to the bar and bought a single packet of John Player cigarettes and four disposable lighters. Many of the regulars looked at Johnny with a mixture of pity and suspicion. No one mentioned Angela's name, though some patted him on the shoulder as they passed by, and a few, including the publican, stood him a drink. Others were more circumspect, perhaps wary of being seen to take sides, in case at a later date it transpired that Johnny himself had been involved in some way in the murder of the blonde-haired child.

The Cashell brothers walked the half-mile to Strabane from Lifford, each carrying a can of petrol, and were spotted around 3.30 a.m. crossing the bridge above the point where the rivers Finn and Mourne merge into the Foyle. What they did for the next hour is unclear, but they entered the traveller camp at 5 a.m., just as the first tendrils of grey crept into the pre-dawn sky.

Once there, they doused as many of the houses and caravans as they could with petrol, then they each took out cigarettes and disposable lighters, lit their smokes, and then the houses and caravans around them. The four brothers did not run away, but rather sat on the massive boulders which had been placed at the mouth of the encampment to prevent any more caravans from entering. Johnny listened dispassionately as screams began to shudder through the flimsy metal of the burning caravans.

A passing taxi driver radioed for the police and fire engines and watched while Johnny and his brothers cheered as one traveller family after another stumbled from the burning caravans, screaming and crying. Then Johnny spotted one person in particular – a thin boy who looked no more than twelve or thirteen, with hair so blond it was almost white. Johnny was seen shouting at him. Then he and his brothers ran after the boy, who scuttled like a rabbit through the bushes behind the encampment and across the fields beyond, his bare back luminous in the moonlight.

It was not clear who realized the Cashells' culpability first, but by the time the police arrived, someone had beaten Johnny's brothers so badly that they were unidentifiable. The youngest, Diarmuid, had been rushed to Altnagelvin hospital. A female taxi-driver had described how she had watched two of the travellers, barefoot and bare-chested, yet seemingly oblivious to the winter night (or, perhaps, heated by the flames and the adrenaline of the situation) grab Diarmuid by his straggled hair and throw him to the ground. As he cowered against the boulders blocking the entrance to the estate, they took turns kicking and stomping on him with enough force to shatter his teeth and his jawbone, which soon hung loose and useless as a dead man's.

Frankie Cashell was dragged to the ground by the jacket his wife had made him wear and, though he cursed her when it gave the travellers something to grab, the padding buffered most of the kicks he received to his trunk so that, although his skull was fractured, his ribs were only bruised.

The third Cashell brother, Brendan, was set upon by a number of women, one of whom bit off one of his ears. By the time the police found it later that day, spat into the bushes beyond the smouldering wreck of a caravan, it was beyond saving.

Johnny himself, bleeding profusely, had been found lying in the field across which he had reportedly pursued the traveller boy. The boy had turned on Johnny, pulling a knife on him. Only when Johnny was in the ambulance did it become clear that he had received only a superficial wound, and so he was arrested as soon as he was discharged from hospital and taken to Strabane. Hendry had heard all about it that morning when he arrived for work. Recognizing the name from our exchange the day before, he contacted me.

Johnny sat on the metal frame which doubled as a bench and bed in the holding cell, his fingers exploring under the bandage which had been taped around his abdomen. He looked up when he saw me enter the cell, but went back to his work, testing the wound for tenderness and inspecting the dressing for blood.

"Well, Johnny. Do you feel better now?"

"Piss off, Devlin. You're not allowed in the North. You shouldn't be here."

"Neither should you, Johnny. I'm off duty. This is a social call. What were you playing at, taking on the travellers?" I asked, but his attention remained focused on his dressing. Hendry kicked at Johnny's foot when he still didn't look up.

"I've nothing to say," Johnny muttered. "Have you a fag?"

"Aye," I said, taking the cigarette packet out of my pocket. "But I've forgot my lighter. Have you got one?"

"Ha, ha! Stick it up your arse, Devlin."

"Oi! Mind your mouth, son, you're not in the South now," Hendry said. "Jesus, Devlin, what class of criminal are you lot breeding over there?"

I squatted down beside Cashell, hoping to get his attention. "What had this to do with Angela, Johnny?" I asked, and saw, for a second, the slightest glimpse of recognition. "It was Angela, wasn't it, Johnny? You see, that's why Inspector Hendry here has contacted me – on account of what happened to Angela. But this won't bring her back, Johnny." I didn't intend to sound as patronizing as I did.

He looked up at me fiercely, anger and pride defiant in his face. "And you will, will ye Devlin? Fucking resurrect her? Is that it? You couldn't catch cold in a snow storm. You're a joke. Fuck you." He grew more animated as he spoke, getting angrier and angrier until he almost spat in my face, "Fuck the lot of you!" Then in the silence that followed, his venom spent, he sank back onto the metal frame again. He buried his face in his hands, as would any grieving father who has vented his anger and frustration at the person nearest him because of his failure to do so at those who actually deserved it.

"The boy he was seen chasing was Whitey McKelvey. His real name's Liam or something, but everyone calls him Whitey. A bad wee bugger, too," Hendry told me as he walked me back to my car, where Debbie and the children were waiting for me. "He looks about ten but he's nearer eighteen. Undernourished. Some of the lads here reckon it's deliberate so he can slip through windows more easily when he's robbing a place. Whitey's been in and out of detention centres. He hasn't done anything yet to do real time for, but it'll happen soon enough. Wouldn't surprise me if he's involved in the girl's death. Knives are his thing, mind you. I don't know if he'd be strong enough to lift a body, either. He's wiry but fairly weak. Vicious rather than strong, you know."

"I know him," I said. "He's popped up once or twice on our side too. White-blond hair, FA Cup ears? Let us know if you lift him. Cashell obviously thinks he knows something."

We shook hands. "Surely," Hendry said, "though I hope you get him first. Last time we lifted Whitey, he left the place in a right mess."

Later that evening Superintendent Costello arrived at our house. He does this fairly frequently; part of his personable, policing-thecommunity bit. He squeezed into the armchair in the corner furthest from the TV and held in his hand the teacup and saucer Debbie had given to Penny to bring him. The coffee table upon which a plate of biscuits sat was just a little beyond his reach and the effort required to set down and pick up the cup was evidently too much to make it worthwhile. The cup looked tiny in his hand and he seemed awkward drinking from it.

"Quite a good response from the RTE thing," he said, holding the cup just below jaw-level, his third and fourth fingers jutting out, the handle of his cup too small to accommodate them. "Twenty-three calls. Twelve nutcases."

For the press conference we had decided not to mention that Angela's body had been dumped naked but for her underwear, nor the ring which she had been wearing, in an attempt to weed out the cranks from those with genuine information.

"A few promising leads though," Costello continued, stirring the tea now to give him something to do with his hands and the cup. "A mention of a traveller boy, presumably Whitey McKelvey. The two of them were seen together on Thursday night, at a disco in Strabane. Drugs were mentioned too." I nodded, unsurprised. "In connection with her – not him, Benedict."

"Might be worth asking for toxicology reports from the state pathologist," I suggested, though I suspected Costello had already done so.

"I spoke to her earlier," he said, trying to place the spoon back on the saucer as gently as possible. "The manager of the Cineplex saw Angela there on Friday afternoon with her sisters. They bought tickets for a children's matinee but went to some horror thing. They were thrown out at about four o'clock." The spoon clattered off the side of the cup and fell to the ground. Penny scurried over on all fours and retrieved it with a smile.

"On Friday?" I repeated. "Are you sure? Cashell said she left the house on Thursday."

"Best check it out in the morning," Costello replied. "Preliminary findings are through from the pathologist as well. They put time of death at somewhere between 11 p.m. Friday night and 1 a.m. Saturday morning." As he spoke, he lifted a cream-coloured folder out of the bag he had brought with him. He passed it over to me and turned his attention to Shane, who was sitting on his sheepskin rug, watching Costello with open mouth, a rusk held aloft in his hand, his face smeared with soggy biscuit. He grinned, showing off his two teeth, and gurgled with satisfaction.

I skimmed through all the technical jargon. In short, Angela had been engaged in sexual activity before she died – more than likely consensual and most definitely using contraception; the lubricant found in swabs taken from her suggested Mates condoms, and precluded any possibility of finding DNA evidence, unless hairs could be found on her body.

Stomach contents seemed to verify that she had indeed been at the cinema on the day of her death: there was no doubt that Angela had eaten popcorn, chocolate and, at a later stage in the day, burger and chips. The pathologist also noted a partially decomposed tablet of some sort, speckled brown and yellow. Toxicology would identify the exact constituents.

The level of lactic acid in Angela's muscles – all her muscles – when she died was massive, suggesting that they had been in vigorous use at the moment of her death. The pathologist suggested that this was probably not consistent with regular activity. It was more likely that Angela had suffered some kind of seizure. She had died through asphyxiation. The bruising on her chest and other bruising, discovered around her mouth when the lipstick was removed, suggested that someone fairly small had sat or, more likely, knelt on her chest and covered her mouth, perhaps while she thrashed beneath them in a fit. Eventually the lack of oxygen and massive electrical activity in her brain became too much.

"Someone knelt on her?" I said, breaking my own rule of never discussing such things in front of my children.

"Someone small," Costello said, "and s-e-x-u-a-l-l-y active," he added, mouthing the letters, while motioning with his head towards my children, who sat pretending to watch TV but were listening to the exchange. I decided not to tell him that Penny is top of her class in spelling – though I trusted they had not reached polysyllables like that in Primary Two.

"Outside, kids," I said and waited until Penny pulled the door quietly shut behind her, hefting Shane in her other arm. "What do you reckon with the tablet? E?"

"Could well be. We'll find out soon enough. Check with the family about drugs history. Check about epilepsy as well. If she'd never had a fit before, 'twould fairly much guarantee that it's drug- related in some way."

I nodded. "Still, this mention of someone small would seem to suggest Whitey McKelvey."

"Looks that way, Benedict," Costello agreed. "I'll put out a description, see if we can't pick him up. Either that or hope the northerners get him before Cashell's extended family go out and buy more petrol."