Borderlands (7 page)

I
sat in my car, smoking. Overlooking the river, I could see, on the curve of the
embankment further down, the crime-scene tape, still fluttering in the breeze.
I wondered about the Cashell girl's death. And I wondered why, when that
investigation was in need of much work, I was about to waste time on the
ramblings of a senile old man. I told myself it was out of respect for all
Powell had done for Donegal; I told myself it was to stop his son making public
complaints about Garda disinterest; I told myself it
wasn't
because, in a strange way, it brought me back into the circle of
Miriam Powell.

The
home was fairly nice - or as nice as these places can be. The walls were
painted neutral colours, white and magnolia predominating. The carpet was dark
red. The scented candles and oil burners burning at various points in the
reception area failed to cover the unmistakable smell of disinfectant and the
faint hint of urine. The owner of the home, Mrs McGowan, waved at me from her
office and gestured towards the mobile phone into which she was speaking. I
went over and waited for her to finish her phone call.

"Ben,
come in," she said when she was done. "Sorry about that - my daughter
is cooking for her in-laws and wants to know how to cook beef. I tell you, I
don't know where I failed!" She laughed, a soft tinkling laugh that she
probably reserved for children of her patients, as if their parent's incapacity
were but a trifle.

"I'm
here to see Tommy Powell, Mrs McGowan. I believe he had an intruder."

"So
he says," she replied and I could tell from her expression that Powell was
probably not her favourite patient. "Of course he had someone in his room.
The staff here check on him every two or three hours. It's part of our service.
You're welcome to see him, but it's a waste of time, Ben. Next week someone
will be trying to poison his dinner. Wait and see."

The
door to his room was ajar and I could see Tommy Powell, sitting up in his bed,
being spoon-fed creamed rice by a young nurse in a pink uniform. I watched in
wonder as she fed him, scraping the dribbled food off his chin and chatting to
him about her night out, her future plans, anything to fill the silence and
prevent her listening to his laboured, rasping breath or the soft grunting
noise he made as he ate. Her hair was bunched up under her hat, though I could
see the roots were dark. Her neck was slender, the skin soft and white as lily
petals.

I
knocked softly on the door and, when she became aware of my presence, she
blushed slightly. Something about her seemed very familiar, though I didn't
recognize her. I assumed she thought
the
same,
because she stood before me as if to speak. "I'm here to s
ee
Mr Powell," I explained, pointing towards the
bed.

"Oh,
okay," she said, smiling a little, then disappeared out through the
doorway before I could say any more.

Tommy
Powell watched me, moving only his eyes. His head rested against a pillow, his
mouth slightly open. One side of his face
was
frozen, as though he had just come from the dentist and
I
noticed a dribble of food just to the left of his mouth. As I considered
his loss of dignity, I saw again the unbidden image of Angela Cashell, lying
naked in a field, decaying leaves cushioning her head as her blood ran cold.

"Mr
Powell, my name is Inspector Devlin. I'm here about the intruder in your room
last Wednesday."

"Deblin",
he said, "who Deblin? Who your fader?"

"Joe
Devlin, sir."

"Furniture
man?"

"That's
right, sir." My father is still known as a French polisher,
though
he has not practised this in years. Powell's
speech may have
been
affected, but his memory
certainly had not.

"What...
want?" he said, visibly straining to complete even so short a sentence.
This was going to be a dull conversation unless cut it short, I thought. I
rebuked myself inwardly for my lack of
charity
and
decided on brevity anyway.

"I'm
here about the intruder on Wednesday night. Do you
remember
that?"

"Not
stupid son ... sick."

"Of
course, sir. Your son told me what happened. I was wondering if you'd anything
to add. Anything else you remember?"

"Could
... be woman ... boy".

"Excuse
me?"

He
rasped, breathing heavily through the patrician nose; his teeth were clenched
in exasperation and he struggled to straighten himself in the bed. His pyjama
jacket was unbuttoned revealing a chest, matted with wispy grey hairs, which
looked shrunken and collapsed. I could see his pulse vibrating in the wattles
of skin hanging at the sides of his throat. "Might've ... been ... a gir
... girl," he said. "Or a boy. Small."

He
dropped back against his pillow and turned his head towards the wall, not
looking at me again. His jawline flexed momentarily with anger or resentment
that I should see him so weakened. I started to ask a further question, simply
to engage him, but he waved me away with a hand so wizened and bony it could
have belonged to a woman.

On
the way out I did not see again the nurse who had been feeding Powell, nor
could I place where I had seen her face before. I stopped Mrs MacGowan and
asked her name.

"Is
she in trouble?"

"No,
no." I said. "I know her face from somewhere."

"She's
here on probation for a month before I make her permanent. If she's in trouble
with the law, Inspector, she's out on her ear. We have to trust our staff
completely, what with old people's money and belongings lying around."

"No,
she's not in trouble. It's nothing important; I just can't place her face. I've
seen her somewhere recently. Kind of like deja vu," I lied.

"Yvonne
Coyle. She's from Strabane: Glennside, I think."

"Right.
Maybe I've seen her round the town or something. It'll come to me
eventually."

I
thought of driving out to Powell's house to tell Miriam that I had spoken to
her father-in-law, despite the fact that I knew that she and her husband would
once again make me the object of some new private joke. In fact, I made it as
far as the house, a massive Victorian manse which Powell Sr had bought from the
Anglican Church after their minister moved out to Raphoe from Lifford in the
early '60s. Oaks and sycamore, trunks heavy with vines and ivy, surrounded the
house. The wall around their two-acre estate was added maybe forty years ago,
built, I remember being told by my father, from bricks from the old jailhouse
that had been demolished in 1907. They were unidentifiable now under the thick,
wet moss that cushioned the coping stone and had broken off layers of the
brick, which lay shattered on the pavement beneath.

I
sat opposite their driveway gates and peered beyond to where Miriam had parked
her BMW next to the Land Rover that her husband drove, as befitted one of the
landed gentry. Powell Jr lived off the rent collected from his father's various
properties — wealth to which, as far as anyone knew, he added very little. The
jailhouse bricks were typical of Powell Sr: an extravagance that no one would
notice, so that he retained his image as one of the common men, while the
rumours of opulence added to his enigmatic status. The Land Rover, meanwhile, was
indicative of his son, adding to the image of ostentation he had created for
himself.

I
debated whether or not to go in, then decided against, partly because Powell Jr
would be there. As I shifted into gear I couldn't help but feel that I was
being watched.

I
was washing up the dinner dishes that evening, while Debbie cleared the table.
The kids were in the living room, watching
Toy Story
for the umpteenth time. Debbie dropped two knives into the dishwater and began
to wipe the counter.

"Don't
forget that Penny's singing tomorrow night, at Mass," she said.

"I
won't," I promised.

"You'd
better not. She'll never forgive you."

"I
won't," I said, a second time.

She
nodded. "Did I see you at Miriam O'Kane's today?" she asked, not
looking up from her work, as though this were part of the normal conversation.

"Who?
Miriam . . . Oh, Mrs Pow— Miriam Powell. Yes, I was going to call in to see her
husband. He asked me on Sunday to look into an intruder in his father's room.
Remember - after Mass?"

"Oh.
Is that what you were talking about? I thought maybe Miriam had asked
you."

"No.
I haven't seen her since ... I don't know when."

"This
morning, apparently. So your Sergeant said. Caroline, isn't it? Miriam was
there when I phoned you, she said."

"Yes,
that's right. Just called in to see what progress had been made."

"I'm
sure she did. You didn't mention it on the phone."

"No,
I didn't think much of it, I suppose."

"Mmm,"
she said. "Did you make any?"

"Any
what?"

"Progress,"
she said, then went in and sat with the children, while I finished the dishes
in silence.

Tuesday, 24th December

I
answered the phone on the second ring at 3.30 a.m. that morning, having had
difficulty sleeping. Debbie lay beside me, hunched away from me so that, even
in sleep, her resentment over the re- emergence of Miriam Powell in our lives
was clear. She stirred with the ringing of the phone, but I answered it before
it woke the children. It was Costello. A body had been found in a burned-out
car on Gallows Lane by a local farmer, Petey Cuthins.

Gallows
Lane was so called because, several hundred years ago, before the courthouse
was built, this was where local criminals were executed, left hanging from the
branches of three massive chestnut trees on the approach into the town, a
warning to all visitors. On a good day it provided a panoramic view of
Counties Donegal, Derry and Tyrone.

The
fire had abated by the time I arrived, a hoar of mist sizzling lightly off the
scorched bodywork of the car. Costello had already arrived on the scene with
two uniforms whom I recognized but couldn't name, their faces pale, eyes
red-rimmed, working silently through their tiredness. Petey Cuthins was
standing against his gate, several hundred yards away from the wreckage, trying
to keep his pipe smouldering. He nodded a greeting when I got out of the car
and muttered "Merry Christmas" through teeth still clenched on the
pipe-stem. His face was dark under the hood he wore. I nodded over at Costello,
who was telling the uniforms where to place the crime-scene tape. I took a
quick glance inside the car, thought better of looking more closely, and went
back over to Petey to wait for my stomach to settle.

"Heard
the bang - must've been the petrol tank. Nearly sent my cattle haywire."
He gestured with a slight nod of his head towards the charred body in the car.
"Nothing I could do, Ben. Couldn't carry much in a bucket from the house.
By the time I got here there wasn't much sense in getting the fire brigade out:
fire was almost dead. Weren't gonna do him no good anyhow."

The
registration plate, though damaged, had not been destroyed, the raised numerals
revealing that it was a new car - a Nissan Primera, as far as I could tell. The
driver was alone; from the size I guessed it was a man, but the body was so
badly burned I couldn't be sure.

Costello
sent the two officers about their business then approached us. The female
officer smiled sadly as she passed with a roll of blue and white tape which she
tied onto the hedge behind us and began to unwind.

"Do
you think it crashed?" Cuthins called, reluctant to go any closer to the
car. To the right of the driver's side I could see a pool of vomit in the grass
- presumably Petey had seen more than enough already.

"I
don't think so," Costello said, patting me on the back as a gesture of
greeting. I guessed he was right: there was no sign of denting on the bodywork,
no signs of impact on the area around where the car had stopped. I peered in at
the body of the driver, the smell of burnt flesh thick in my mouth and
nostrils. "The handbrake is on," Costello pointed out. "And the
ignition is turned off." Which meant the car was parked when whatever
happened to it had occurred. Costello shook his head slowly, "An awful
business, boys. An awful business."

I
stepped away from the car and spat the taste from my mouth as Costello took out
his phone and called Burgess who had reached the station, giving him the
registration number to trace. "Best get a doctor up here. And a few more
pairs of hands. It's going to be a long night."

The
SOCO officers had to go over to Strabane first to borrow arc lights and a
generator from the PSNI. Occasional needles of sleet darted now through the
mist, trapped in a fluorescent glare, just as the first gash of red cracked on
the horizon. Burgess called back, having run the registration number through
Garda Central Communications. The charred remains still strapped inside the car
now had a probable name - Terry Boyle, an accountancy student from Dublin,
whose parents lived in Letterkenny. Costello asked me to break the news to the
family, sending female officer, Jane Long, with me. Just as we were about to
leave, I saw John Mulrooney struggling up Gallows Lane towards us to fulfil the
slightly ridiculous task, as medical examiner, of pronouncing dead something
which was little more than skeleton and pulp.