Borderlands (30 page)

I was on my
way out of the house when I found the photograph of Mary Knox that her children
had left behind, sitting on the hall table in front of a vase of white roses.

I asked
myself why they hadn't killed Kate Costello here, in her house. Taking her away
suggested that she was still alive, that she was being held somewhere. But I
could not think where. And then I realised again the significance of the date:
New Year's Eve. The date Knox had disappeared. It could be no coincidence that
Kate was taken on this date. And if they chose the date of her death on which
to enact their final plan, perhaps the Knox children had also chosen the place
of her death. It was tenuous, but I had nothing else to follow, nowhere else to
look. If, indeed, they had taken her to Mary Knox's final resting place, it meant
that Ratsy had admitted where he had dumped her body. There was only one other
person who would know.

Cashell
answered the door in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt, squinting against the
glare of the snow. His face was drawn, his skin the colour of ash.

"What?"
he asked, leaning against the door jamb so that I was left standing in the
falling snow.

"Where
did you dump the body? Mary Knox's?"

"Piss
off, Devlin," Cashell said, pulling the door behind him as he walked back
into his house.

I stuck my foot
against the jamb, holding the door ajar, then pushed my way in. "I know
what happened, Johnny. I know Powell ordered Ratsy Donaghey to kill her. My
guess is you were just a driver. Maybe you didn't even know what was happening;
I ... I
don't
give a shit. But four people have died in the past weeks over this, and one
more will now if you don't help me." He stood looking at me pleading in
his hallway, as he might consider a drunk begging for change in the street.
"Please, tell me where you dumped the body. Please."

"Have
a bad night, Inspector?" he asked.

"What?"

"You
look a little worse for wear. Bit of a headache?" Cashell sneered,
snorting as he turned and walked away. I felt my hand reach instinctively into
my coat pocket for my gun, my fingers tightening around the grip.

"Borderland,"
a voice above me said.

Cashell
spun around, his teeth bared like an animal. "Shut up!" he hissed.
But Sadie Cashell was walking slowly down the stairs now, ignoring her husband,
whose foolishness and pride had cost her her daughter.

"Borderland,"
she repeated, looking only at Cashell. "It's too late, Johnny. Too much
has happened." Then she turned to me. "Borderland. That's where
Johnny was working. The Three Rivers Hotel. Borderland was a new disco hall they
built around the time she vanished. They threw her body in with the
foundations. I washed the blood and cement off his trousers," she
explained. She stood halfway down the stairs now, and as she spoke something
inside her seemed to be extinguished. With the slightest slump of her
shoulders, Sadie Cashell seemed to age by twenty years.

"You
stupid bitch!" Cashell roared at her, standing in the doorway of the
kitchen, a pint of milk in his hand. "You useless fucking bitch."

I removed
the gun from my pocket and with preternatural calmness, levelled it at Johnny
Cashell. His jaw gaped open and he dropped the milk onto the linoleum floor,
the white liquid stippling his legs.

"Don't,"
I said. "Don't, Johnny. If I come back here and something has happened to
Sadie, I will kill you. Understand that. I won't waste time on kickings or
petrol, I will gladly put a bullet through your fucking heart."

Then I
backed down the hallway and pushed through the doorway, back out into the
snow.

The roads
were deserted, save for farmers shifting hay between barns and fields. It took
me ten minutes to get to the Three Rivers. On the way, I radioed through to
Burgess in the station and asked for support at the hotel. I also asked about
Holmes and was disappointed to hear that he had still not been found. It meant
that Yvonne Coyle might still have an accomplice. That was if she was still in
the area and supposing that Kate Costello was still alive.

Just as I
negotiated the final twist in the road, my phone rang. I recognized the number
as Williams.

"You
spineless prick!" she snapped as soon as I answered. "If you think
I'm not capable, tell me yourself."

"What?"

"First
you send me to babysit a pensioner, then you send someone down to give me a
hand. How dare you!"

"What
are you talking about?" I snapped.

"Harvey.
I'm sitting here in my car, watching him going inside. Do you not think I'm
capable of sitting here myself?"

"I
didn't send Harvey down there, Caroline," I explained. "Why aren't
you inside, with Powell?"

"His
daughter-in-law chased me out. I'm sitting outside, watching. Harvey arrived a
few minutes ago. He's just gone in." Her tone changed. "I thought
maybe you'd sent him to keep an eye on me."

"For
Christ's sake, Caroline, I sent you there because I trust you. Go in and see
what Harvey's doing," I said, then thought better of it. "In fact,
leave him in there and get over to the Three Rivers. I think that's where they
are."

There was a
period of silence, long enough for me to wonder if my connection had been
broken. Then Williams spoke: "Sorry, sir," she said.

"Later,
Caroline."

"Yes,
sir."

The Three
Rivers emerged out of the snow, skeletal and exposed. The windows had long
since been smashed, boarded up and ripped open again. I drove up to the front of
the hotel and got out of the car. I could just about make out the faintest
tracks of tyres leading around the side of the building, though the snow was
falling so thickly it was impossible to say how long ago they had been made.
Returning to the car I followed the tracks carefully, the snow cracking under
the wheels.

I slid to a
halt and checked to ensure I had my gun. Treading carefully, I reached a side
entrance where I could make out more tyre tracks gradually disappearing under
the snow. I approached the side of the hotel. Inside, the wallpaper was falling
off and pieces fluttered in the wind like strips of flayed skin. On the exposed
walls, graffiti was scrawled on top of the pink paint which someone had once
applied as an undercoat.

The carpet
was still intact, though it was almost black, matted with dirt and sodden, so
that, with each step, water welled up around my feet and my shoes squelched
loudly. My eyes were just growing accustomed to the dimness when I turned a
corner and walked into a patch of still grey light seeping in through a hole in
the ceiling. Through it, stray flakes of snow pirouetted down.

The musty
smell of mice and another sharper, cleaner smell were carried on the wind. Beer
cans, cigarette packets, used condoms, all lay discarded along the corridors.
As I passed each doorway, I jerked my head in and scanned the room with my .38
drawn and cocked.

Finally I
came into a central reception area. In the corner was the door to what had once
been a cloakroom. I could hear someone shifting in the darkness. I thought I
could see a movement.

"Sean?
Yvonne?" I shouted. "Yvonne, this is Inspector Devlin. I know you're
here. We're all around you, Yvonne. It's over, love. Why not come on out?"

I waited,
holding my breath, straining in the half-light to see if anyone would appear. I
was about to call out again when I saw the diminutive figure of Yvonne Coyle
step out of the shadows of the room, Kate Costello beside her, a Garda revolver
pressed against her side. Further back, to her left, I could make out the
outline of a man, sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, though it
was too dark for me to see who it was.

"It's
over, Yvonne," I said, slipping my gun into my pocket. "Where's
Holmes?"

"Who?"
she said.

"Jason
Holmes."

"I have
no idea what you're talking about, Inspector. Please. Throw your gun on the
floor."

"I
don't carry a gun," I said, stretching out my arms.

"I
know that's not true. You took one out of your station the other night. Please.
Throw your gun on the floor. Now," she added, nudging Kate with her own
pistol.

"Where's
your brother, Yvonne?" I asked, glancing around in the semi-darkness in
case he was hiding. But I began to suspect that I knew where he was. "He's
not here, is he?"

"Lie
down on the ground, Inspector," Yvonne said. "Please don't make me
hurt you."

The figure
slumped against the wall behind Coyle looked up. "Is that you,
Devlin?" I realized that it was Thomas Powell.

"You
don't know who did it, yet, do you?" I said, realizing the significance of
both Powell and Kate Costello being here. "You don't know who killed your
mother. Ratsy was given away by the ring; I'm guessing he named Cashell and
Boyle.
But...
you don't know who gave the order."

"Which
is where you can help me, Inspector," Yvonne said through gritted teeth.
"Now lie down on the fucking ground."

"Where's
your brother, Yvonne? Did he kill Emily Costello? Murder an old woman?"

I heard
Kate whimper.

"Keep
talking, Inspector," Yvonne said, "and I'll shoot this useless bitch
anyway." Again she prodded Kate with her gun. The girl's eyes flashed with
panic, her face drawn in terror.

"You've
got the wrong person, Yvonne," I said, as I walked slowly towards her.
"The rest of the station is outside now." I could make out Powell's
outline, shaking his head. "You got the wrong person. Costello didn't kill
your mother. I'm guessing Donaghey told you that, but he lied."

"Then
you have the chance to put the record straight, Inspector. One of these two has
to die for what was done. You choose. You choose who should live."

"I
can't do that, Yvonne," I said, reaching slowly into my coat pocket for my
pistol. "You know I can't do that."

"Throw
your gun on the floor, Inspector," Yvonne said. Then I heard her click the
barrel of her gun into place and Kate Costello screamed. I took out my gun and
threw it away from me, my hands raised in appeasement.

"It
was Costello," Powell shouted suddenly. "My father told me. We're
family, for fuck's sake," he said, his voice cracking into sobs.

"That's
not true," I said. "I don't know who did it, Yvonne. Don't you think
enough people have died already?"

She moved
towards me a little, the gun still held in her hand. "Why would Powell
have killed my mother? How do you know it wasn't this ..." she gestured towards
Costello, unable to sum up a word vicious enough to describe her or her father.

"Your
mother knew about some fraud he was running on these big companies he was
bringing into Donegal. She went to the police. Donaghey worked for Powell.
Donaghey lied to you, though. You can't believe anything he said. Yvonne,
where's your brother? Please."

"He's
finishing things off. Going to see our father."

And then I
knew. "It's fucking Harvey, isn't it?" I said, desperately.

She did not
answer. The room lit up as if caught in the flash of a camera, and a sound like
ice cracking in my eardrum echoed through the building. In that moment of
intense light, Powell's face was lit up and I saw his expression of disbelief
as a single horsetail of blood spurted from his body onto the wall behind.

Kate
Costello screamed hysterically now, while Coyle struggled to keep hold of her.

I scrambled
over to the slumped body, smelt the foulness under the cordite. The wetness of
the carpet soaked up through my knees. But Powell was beyond help. "Please
stop this, Yvonne." I managed to stutter.

She
released Kate now, who huddled against the wall, trying to make herself as
small as possible, her body heaving with sobs.

"I'm
sorry you got involved, Inspector - really I am." Yvonne's voice assumed a
singsong quality, as if removed from the squalor and the dead bodies
surrounding her. "You remind me of my husband, you know. He's dead,
too."

I nodded.
"I know, Yvonne. Look, it's not too late. We can sort something out."
I knew, though, as I spoke, that my words were meaningless, born from
desperation.

"Can
we?" She smiled at me, squatting with her gun inches from my skull, her
fingers lightly brushing my face and lips. "I don't think so," she
said, with the melancholy of a departing lover. "Much as I'd like to leave
you here alive, Inspector, I know that you wouldn't let it go. Would you?"

"My
name's Benedict," I said. "Ben."

I wanted to
say more to her, to tell her that at some level I understood what she had done.
I wanted to tell her that things could be salvaged, even though I knew that
they were far beyond that point. "I spoke to Sister Perpetua," I
said, a little too late.

We both
heard the sound of voices approaching along one of the darkened corridors. I
thought I recognized Williams's voice, as ephemeral as those inside your head
you when you are on the cusp of sleep. Coyle turned suddenly and strode over to
where Kate Costello lay in a ball on the floor. I heard another sharp crack of
the pistol, while I scrabbled about for my own weapon. As the shot hit
Costello, I heard a soft grunting, then the sucking noise her body made as she
tried to breathe.