Borderlands

'So, Johnny, you told Inspector Devlin here that you last saw your daughter last Thursday, the 19th of December. Is that right?' Hendry said.

'What? Aye. That's right. Thursday.'

'Was there a reason why she didn't come home that night?'

'Staying with friends, probably.'

'Any reason she was staying with friends?'

'Jesus Christ, do you need a reason to stay with a friend? Maybe she was with a boyfriend and didn't want us to know. What the fuck is this about?'

'Did you have a row with Angela on Thursday, Mr Cashell?'

Johnny looked up and peered at Hendry more cautiously, alerted by the use of his full name, sensing a change in tone – a change in direction. 'Might have done; can't remember.'

'Did you? Yes or no?'

'Well, if you're asking, you know I did. So just get to the point.'

'What did you row about?'

'Family stuff.'

Hendry laughed. 'Oh it was family stuff alright.' Then, so quietly that I wasn't even sure he actually said it, he muttered, 'You're a smoker, Johnny. Do you like to roll your own?'

'What?'

'Did your daughter accuse you of spying on her getting dressed?'

Cashell exploded, getting to his feet, 'You fucking…! Devlin? What the fuck's going on?'

A constable who had been standing at the door behind Cashell – another feature designed to cause discomfort – moved forward and placed a hand on Cashell's shoulder, forcing him back onto his seat.

'Did she accuse you of watching her getting dressed?' Hendry persisted.

Cashell did not immediately reply; instead he glared at me, his chest heaving, his breathing laboured and nasal. Finally, he exhaled slowly; 'I… I stumbled in on her, by accident.'

'That's not what we hear. Apparently this wasn't the first time, was it, Mr Cashell? You watched her take a shower one day too, we're told. Were you attracted to your daughter, Mr Cashell?'

'You fucker!' he spat, then turned to me as if I represented in some way the last voice of reason. 'Devlin? What the fuck's going on here? You don't seriously think I-'

'Did you fancy your daughter Johnny? It's nothing to be ashamed of. She was a good-looking girl. Wouldn't even really have been incest anyway, would it, Johnny? 'Cause she wasn't yours anyway. Isn't that right?' Hendry seemed to take some pleasure from the last comment and the effect it had on Cashell.

Johnny's mouth opened and closed, struggling to respond like a fish gasping for breath, but his brain wouldn't function. Tears welled in his eyes as he stared, as though in a trance, through me and beyond the walls of the room to wherever he stored his memories of his girl. Again I saw her lying exposed in a field, without dignity. No one spoke as a single tear escaped from the corner of Cashell's eye, then he quickly rubbed at his face with the palms of his hands and lifted a cigarette and lit it. He stretched his mouth like an animal yawning, attempting to swallow back his tears.

'Did you kill her, Johnny?' Hendry said, his voice warm with camaraderie, but Cashell simply shook his head.

'Did you ever have sex with her? Or try to have sex with her?'

Again he shook his head and did not speak, as though afraid of the words he might use and what they might say about him.

'Did you want to?' Hendry asked.

Cashell looked at him again, defiance flaring in his red-ringed eyes. 'I didn't kill my daughter.'

'Why did you go after Whitey McKelvey, then? Jealousy? He was having sex with your girl.'

'No. I… he… I found drugs in her trouser pockets. E tabs, I think. One of my other girls said Angela was spending a lot of time with him. I… I put two and two together. Thought maybe he'd drugged her or something. Raped her. She wouldn't have slept with that piece of shit by choice.'

'Why him? It could have been anyone,' I said, waving a pardon at Hendry for the interruption.

'Muire told me Angela took her to the cinema on Friday, and then was going to meet her boyfriend. He was the only boy I knew she was seeing. People in the village talk. I heard she'd been with him on Thursday night. I just… I just assumed she was with him on Friday night, too.'

'Did he give her the ring?' I asked.

'What ring?'

'Angela was wearing a ring with the initials AC on it; some kind of moonstone with diamonds around it. A gold ring. Did McKelvey give it to her?'

Johnny Cashell's face blanched and he smacked his lips and tongue several times as though thirsty, again looking at some unspecified point just beyond me. 'A ring?' he asked, almost to himself.

'Yes. Does it mean anything to you? Could he have bought it for her?'

'I don't know nothing about no ring.' While he said it with finality, he seemed distracted. I could see that he was thinking about something, but I didn't know what else to ask.

A few minutes later Hendry wound the interview to a close. As he was being led to the door of the room Cashell looked at me and said, 'Oi, Devlin? Whip-round, my arse. Since when did Gardai have a whip-round for the likes of me?' Then he shuffled out of the room, his shoulders slumped, and I couldn't work out whether what he had said had been an expression of gratitude or contempt. Hendry looked at me quizzically, but said nothing.

I returned to my own station after the interview and phoned Ballybofey, only to be told that Moore was out of the station. I left a message for him to contact me as soon as he came in.

Jason Holmes was in the interview room with one of our local characters, a thirty-four-year-old named Lorcan Hutton, who had spent several years in detention centres and jail for drugs offences but still continued to sell in the town. He was the antithesis of what you'd expect of a dealer. His parents were very wealthy, both doctors in the North. He had blond curly hair and an athletic physique. Despite his periods in prison and rehabilitation centres, he was a regular in the dark areas of bars and clubs, where teenagers – his acolytes – gathered around him, hoping for the free hit that would never come.

In fact, an IRA punishment beating, which had left him with two smashed ankles and puncture marks over his legs and arms from baseball bats studded with nails, had not stopped him, though it had driven his family out of Strabane and into Lifford in the mistaken belief that the IRA wouldn't come across the border.

Holmes announced for the benefit of the tape recording that I had entered the room and then suggested a break. Hutton shrugged, while his solicitor, a Strabane man called Brown, earnestly asked him whether he had been treated badly and what questions he had been asked.

Holmes and I stepped out of the room. 'How's it going?' I asked.

Holmes shook his head. 'Nothing. Knows nothing about E tabs. Never even seen one before. Shut tighter than a virg-' He stopped short as Williams approached.

'Did I miss a famous Holmes simile?' she asked, smiling.

'Nearly. You're just in time.'

'What's up?' she said, waving a sheet of paper in her left hand.

'Nothing. Lorcan Hutton has joined us for a chat. Brought his lawyer.'

'What?'

'Yep. I invited him to the station; he picks up his mobile and phones. The fucking lawyer was here before we were.'

'Jesus.' She allowed a respectful pause before telling us of her success. 'Guess what? We got a hit on the ring. Two hits, actually.'

'Great. What?'

'I kept phoning round jewellers and that, and this morning got a woman in Stranorlar who recognized the description of the ring.'

'Any names come up?' I asked impatiently. Williams looked a little hurt at my lack of appreciation for her storytelling and continued.

'I couldn't find any of you, so I went on myself. Seems that about a month ago, a young traveller boy tried selling her a number of items, including the ring. She remembered the ring in particular because she has a