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.
Terry Boyle
Chapter Five
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.'
