Borderlands (9 page)

"Yep.
So, Jason, I want you to start bringing in the local drug dealers. Ask about,
check bars and clubs again, Strabane and Letterkenny. See if anyone's selling
this stuff. While you're there, flash about the photo of Terry Boyle too, maybe
find out where he was last night."

"They're
not connected though, are they?" Holmes asked.

"Not
as far as I know," I said, "but if we can kill two birds with one
stone ..."

"There's
no one else, Jason," Costello explained. "I've requested extra help
from Letterkenny, but you seem to know the pubs and that. Might have more
success than most."

"I'll
phone Hendry, just so there's no jurisdiction nonsense about going over the
border," I said. "Caroline, keep following up on that gold ring. I'll
see if I can speak to Johnny Cashell, though he's looking unlikely; I can't see
him drugging and abusing his own daughter. Besides," I added, "I
don't think this was a sexual attack."

"Pathologist's
report
suggests
consensual, Inspector; that
doesn't necessarily mean it
was
consensual," said Williams.

"True.
But all the same. Size, drugs, eye witnesses - everything seems to be pointing
to Whitey McKelvey."

"If
the wee bugger would show his face," Williams added.

"Maybe
he has though, eh?" Holmes retorted, tapping on the CCTV videotape lying
in front of us.

We
set up the video and TV in the conference room at the back of the station and played
the tape from the start. The tape began at 6 p.m. on Thursday 19th December,
the time and date appearing in white lettering at the bottom of the screen. The
images jumped from one view to the next every twenty seconds.

Williams
leaned forward and fast-forwarded the tape until customers began to appear
around 7.20 p.m. With each new arrival we paused the tape, looking for Angela
and the person who had accompanied her - whom we assumed to have been Whitey
McKelvey.

By
9.30 p.m. the bar was filling up and they still had not appeared, though we had
noticed that a young man with a shaved head and a shoulder bag who had gone
into the male toilets at 8.50 p.m. had yet to emerge. Holmes concluded that he
was either a drug dealer or a homosexual. "Either way, we'll bust him if
we see him this side of the border," he added.

As
the tape progressed, the lights in the bar dimmed. Then the screen cut to the
doorway and I caught of glimpse of a girl with blonde hair passing underneath
the camera. She was dressed in jeans and a blue top, as Cashell had described
Angela's outfit that night. Slightly behind her, again half-disappearing from
view under the camera, was a thin figure with short, almost peroxide- blond
hair, clad in jeans and a white top. The figure did not look up at the camera
and so we could only see the top of the head and the bright hair. Holmes paused
the shot and we all leaned a little closer to the screen.

"Is
that him?" Williams asked, squinting at the screen.

"I
think so," I said.

Holmes
tapped the screen with his knuckles; "Ladies and gentlemen, Whitey
McKelvey, I believe."

It
was not as clear a shot as any of us wanted, but it seemed a reasonable
assumption to make. We watched a further hour's worth of tape and saw Angela
several times: in the queue for the bar, dancing, chatting to a group of girls
by the toilets. That shot had almost passed when I saw a face I recognized and
everything seemed to fall into place. The clothes were different, obviously,
the pink uniform replaced with a tight satin grey top that accentuated every
curve. She wore make-up and looked older, but there was no mistaking her - it
was Yvonne Coyle, the girl who had been feed
ing Tommy
Powell in his room the day before. At the same time, it suddenly came to me
where I had seen her face before. It was with her cheek pressed against Angela
Cashell's in a strip of passport photographs, placed carefully between the
leaves of an unfinished romantic novel lying under the dead girl's bed.

I phoned
Finnside almost immediately, while Holmes and Williams set about the tasks we
had agreed earlier that morning. Mrs McGowan told me, with some annoyance, that
Coyle had phoned in sick, having left early the day before.

"Are you
sure she's alright to have here?" Mrs MacGowan asked. "You know, I'd
rather not have staff involved with Gardai."

"As far
as I know, Mrs MacGowan, Yvonne Coyle has done nothing wrong. I want to speak
to her about something completely innocuous," I lied. "She witnessed
an accident."

"I'll
tell her to contact you if she returns tomorrow—"

"Thanks
Mrs MacGowan."

"Though
if she doesn't, she needn't bother ..."

I put the
receiver down quickly to avoid hearing the rest. Picking it up again, I phoned
Strabane PSNI station and asked to be transferred to Inspector Hendry.

As I had
expected, Hendry didn't care about our people going across the border to
question bar owners, though it was technically not allowed. Some policemen on
both sides of the border could be sticky about it, but generally we all knew
that we were chasing the same people. The bad old days, when collusion and
suspicion had prohibited any contact, were passing, if not yet past. Hendry
also agreed to the more unusual request that I interview Cashell in the PSNI
holding-cell - so long as I was a silent partner, technically off-duty, and
Hendry asked the questions on my behalf. Finally, I asked him if Whitey
McKelvey had been spotted yet, though I knew that, if he had, Hendry would have
phoned us to boast about the efficiency of the northern police in comparison
with their sleepy southern counterparts.

"No sign
here," he said, "though I hear rumours from the travelling community
that he's over your side. Apparently a branch of his family has set up camp
outside of Ballybofey."

"I've
heard nothing about that," I said, a little rankled at having not received
this information myself.

"That's
because I haven't told you until now. I'm telling you: British Intelligence,
best in the world!" he laughed.

"See you
in an hour," I said, and hung up. I immediately rang through to Ballybofey
Station and was transferred to a Sergeant Moore, who promised to investigate
the tip about Whitey McKelvey being in their area after I had given him a
description and some background on the boy. I cautioned him to keep it low-key;
I didn't want the boy running again.

I had decided
not to ask Hendry for Yvonne Coyle's address; the cost of having to listen to
more crowing about Intelligence was too high for such basic information. I
decided instead to do some rudimentary detective work and checked a northern
phonebook someone had 'borrowed' from a phone box just over the border a few
years earlier. There were no Coyles listed for Glennside. I tried Mrs McGowan
again, suitably apologetic for my earlier abruptness. She gave me the address
immediately, with commensurate curtness. I decided to visit Yvonne before
seeing Johnny Cashell, on the off- chance that Angela might have mentioned her
father to her friend at some stage.

I had to ring
the doorbell three times before I heard the thud of someone running down stairs
and the clunk of the deadbolt. Then Yvonne Coyle answered the door in a pink
dressing-gown one would expect to see on a child, with a teddy-bear embroidered
on the breast. Her hair was quite short and, being wet, appeared dark. Her skin
still sparkled with moisture, smelling unmistakably of shampoo and soap.

"Oh . .
.
I ...
Can
I help you?" she said, gripping the lapels of her gown in one fist, the
other hand holding the door ajar.

I introduced
myself and added, "I'd like to speak to you, Miss Coyle, if you don't
mind," smiling to seem less threatening.

"About
Mr Powell?" she said, affecting an appearance of boredom.

"I think
you know what about?" I said.

"Well, I
can't help you. The bitch fired me, so it's not my problem anymore."

"Mrs
MacGowan fired you. Why?"

"Thanks
to you, I guess. She's only just off the phone. Said I was bringing her
establishment into disrepute." As she spoke she mimicked her former
employer's voice with a fair degree of accuracy. Certainly enough to make us
both laugh.

"Sorry,
Miss Coyle; I told her you hadn't done anything wrong.
I...
Look, can I come in
for a few minutes? I have some questions about Angela Cashell."

She tried to
pretend to be surprised at the mention of Angela's name, but gave it up as a bad
job and swung the door open. "Ten minutes. Give me a chance to get changed
first. I'm only out of the shower," she said, pointing to her wet hair,
which was dripping water onto the floor. "Though I suppose you already
worked that out, you being a policeman and all. Go in and sit down; I won't be
a minute."

I went into
the room towards which she had gestured. It was a small living room, with a
brown sofa and two mismatched easy chairs arranged around a TV set and an
electric fire. A CD player and a stack of CDs sat by one of the chairs. I
glanced down the spines of the discs and noticed a few Divine Comedy albums,
which reminded me of the one I had seen in Angela's bedroom. I suspected I knew
now where she had got it. An ashtray full of butts rested on the arm of the
sofa, so I sat beside it and took out my cigarettes. "Do you mind if I
smoke?" I called up the stairs.

"Long as
you can give me one; I'm all out," she replied, coming downstairs,
"and I'm too lazy to go to the shop." Yvonne came in and sat in one
of the easy chairs. She had not changed out of her dressing-gown, but had
wrapped a towel around her hair turban- style. The gown had loosened very
slightly, so that the flushed skin at the base of her throat and the top of her
chest was visible. She leaned forward and took the cigarette which I offered
her, and I could see the swell of her breasts as the gown fell slightly open. 1
looked away, but she had already caught me looking and smiled slightly as she
rearranged her gown. I began to regret not asking Caroline Williams to
accompany me.

"I'm out
of matches too," she said, and leaned forward again. I battled with myself
to look her in the eyes as she lit her cigarette off my Zippo, and in so doing,
I noticed that her eyes were two different colours: one green and one almost
grey. Seeing her now, without make-up, I also realized that she was not as
young as she had seemed when I had seen her at Finnside. I guessed she was in
her late twenties. Her skin was smooth and well-toned, but had begun to wrinkle
around her eyes.

"So,
you're off sick," I said. "Hope it's nothing serious."

"Nothing
more than a hangover. Still, I'm not sick anymore: I'm unemployed."

"Sorry
about that. I—"

"Don't
worry about it. It was a shit job anyway - feeding old gits like Tommy Powell
his stewed apples, while his prick of a son tried to look up my skirt. Good
riddance."

"Thomas
Powell? The son was trying
to ..."
I gestured in the general vicinity of her legs.

"Oh,
aye. All the time. Thinks he's flash. A bit too old for my taste."

"He's
the same age as me," I said, half-pretending to be offended.

"Oh,"
she replied, and smiled at me. I knew I would be interpreting that all the way
back to the station. Time to move on, I thought.

"So,
what can you tell me about Angela Cashell, Miss Coyle?" I asked.

"Please,
call me Yvonne. What do you want to know about Angela?" she replied. This
wasn't going particularly well.

"When
did you last see her?" I asked, fairly sure I knew the answer.

"Friday
morning. She stayed here on Thursday night. She left the house at the same time
as me. I was in work at lunchtime. I gave her a lift over to Lifford. She was
meeting her sisters at the cinema."

"What
was she wearing?"

She thought
for a second. "A red top and a skirt she borrowed from me. She didn't have
a change of clothes, so she took some of mine."

"What
about the clothes she had been wearing?"

"They're
upstairs. I was going to keep them - as a reminder, you know. Guess that sounds
kind of stupid. Do you need them back? Only I've washed them - you know, if
you're looking for evidence or anything. Sorry," she said, wincing
exaggeratedly at her actions.

"I
shouldn't think so," I said; they would serve little forensic purpose if
Angela hadn't been wearing them at the time of her death. "Did she say where
she was going after the cinema?"

She paused
slightly. "Home, I think."

"Are you
sure?"

"I think
so."

I decided to
approach it from a different angle. "Why did she stay with you on
Thursday?"

"I'm... I
was her friend. Why wouldn't she have stayed with me?"

"Why
Thursday? Why didn't she stay at home?"