Costello brought us back to Cashell again. 'We'll wait to see these reports. Caroline, I'd like you and Jason to follow up the Boyle inquiry. Report back to Inspector Devlin here, daily. Inspector,' he said, referring to me by rank rather than name, thereby making it all official, 'I'd like you to continue pushing the Cashell case until McKelvey's found. Let's see if we can get one case tied up at least.'
Holmes and Williams nodded their agreement. Holmes looked exhausted, due in part to his visiting many of the local bars and clubs to see if anyone recognized Angela Cashell from a photograph he had got from Sadie. He had felt obliged to partake of a number of complimentary Christmas drinks in each pub and had arrived on site in the middle of the night a little the worse for wear. He told us that Sadie had informed him that Johnny had been refused Christmas bail as a flight risk and would be up before Strabane magistrates on Friday 27th.
As well as speaking to local publicans, Holmes had visited the nightclub in Strabane which Angela had reportedly attended on Thursday night with someone fitting the description of Whitey McKelvey. The club owner didn't remember her, but had provided a tape of his security camera footage for that night, which Holmes placed on Costello's desk.
Williams had contacted most of the local jewellers and secondhand shops, both in Strabane and Lifford, but no one remembered having seen or been offered the ring. She told us she was planning on trying Derry shops later that day. She had asked two of the secretaries in the station to go through the stolen items list which Burgess had printed out for her late on the previous afternoon. The list ran to 112 pages for the past six months.
Costello then provided us with the full report from the state pathologist, including toxicological findings. And we discovered just how Angela Cashell had died.
At some time, probably after seven o'clock on Friday night, Angela Cashell had eaten a cheeseburger and chips and drunk Diet Coke. She smoked several joints through the rest of the evening and drank vodka – again, probably, with Diet Coke. At some point she took what she may have believed to be an Ecstasy tablet, no bigger than a one cent coin and speckled yellow and brown. The tablet was of very low purity and had been cut with, amongst other things, talc, rat poison, DDT, nutmeg and strychnine.
Shortly after taking the tablet, and perhaps even as a consequence of it, she began to have sex with someone who wore a condom, as we had been told earlier. Perhaps during the act itself, the compound of chemicals she had taken caused something in her brain to misfire; her synapses sparked with electrical currents which eventually sent her into an epileptic seizure. The strychnine was probably responsible for spasms which tore her leg muscles from their ligaments. In addition, her lungs began to slow and enter paralysis, though whoever was with her may not have realized this, for they knelt on her chest and covered her mouth with a cotton cloth until she stopped breathing. Perhaps they realized that the drug would kill her, but wished to speed the process along. Or perhaps they simply put her out of her misery.
After she had died her body was washed and her pants were put back on, inside out. Then two people – for she would have been prohibitively heavy for a person small enough to kneel on her to be capable also of carrying her – must have put her into a car. They drove her to behind Lifford Cineplex several hours after she died and threw her body down to the spot where we discovered it.
We waited until everyone had finished reading, Williams going over the report more slowly than the rest of us. 'So,' said Costello finally, 'it fairly much confirms what we knew already, with a few more details thrown in. Especially the drug thing.'
'Yeah,' said Holmes. 'Not uncommon to get low-grade drugs, especially E tabs. Though in saying that, I haven't heard of any of these substances being found before.'
'I have,' said Costello and I saw Williams nod slightly, as though in agreement. 'Read this and see if it sounds familiar.'
He handed each of us a copy of a letter dated September 1996, the paper still warm from the photocopier. The letter read:
Dear Student
As you are aware, An Garda work closely with your school to develop drugs awareness programmes to educate you about the dangers of drugs and ensure that none of you get caught in the cycle of criminal activity which drugs use can cause.
However, we are also aware that some of you may be using drugs or have been tempted to experiment with them. Therefore I write to you in particular to be vigilant over the coming weeks.
It has come to our attention that a batch of highly dangerous Ecstasy tablets has appeared on the Irish drugs scene and, while none has reached Donegal to date, it has been decided that all students in all schools in the area be made aware of this danger. The tablets, which are round, are about one centimetre in diameter. They have a yellow/brown speckled appearance and might taste slightly bitter. The Customs Office in Dublin has informed us that these drugs, which originated in Holland, will not have the effect of an Ecstasy tablet, but in fact contain a number of deadly chemicals and poisons, including rat- and flea-killer. The tablets can cause a range of symptoms, including breathing difficulties, convulsions, brain damage, and could cause death.
If someone offers you one of these tablets – or if you are suspicious of anything you are offered – DO NOT TAKE IT.
You can contact Letterkenny Garda station in confidence on 074 55584, or else contact your local Garda station or tell a member of your school staff. You will not get in any trouble and you might help save lives.
The letter was signed by Costello, with a further reminder to avoid the drugs completely. I vaguely remembered the letters being distributed by schools, though at the time I was working in Sligo on a breaking-and- entering team who were targeting local hotels and hostels.
'Sound like the same things,' Holmes said, putting the letter down on the table.
'I'm surprised you don't remember it,' Williams said, 'working with the drugs squad in Dublin.'
'Before my time,' Holmes replied, then smiled good humouredly. 'I'm still a young buck, me.'
'God help us all,' Williams said and hid her face behind the A4 sheet she held.
'Well, it's probably the same.' I said. 'So, we need to find out who gave it to her. Was it the same person that she was sleeping with?'
'And did they intend for her to be killed by the tablet or was it accidental?' Costello added.
'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
