never do that.' He spluttered a laugh again, spittle bubbling on his lips.
'No drugs, then Liam. Not for you?'
'I don't do drugs. I'm telling you; I don't need them.'
'Not even something to get you in the mood, you and Angela maybe. Before… you know?'
He giggled strangely. 'I don't need nothing, me. You might at your age, but not me.'
'What about Angela? Was she taking drugs?'
'I don't know. Ask her. Give us a fag, mister.'
Costello thumped the table with such force it made me jump, whatever the effect on McKelvey. 'We can't ask her – she's dead. So watch your mouth, son.'
For a moment McKelvey looked slightly stupefied, but quickly regained his bonhomie. He behaved as though this whole thing was a big joke – three friends having a laugh. 'Aye, good one. What? Have you got me in for murder, like? Aye, right.'
'Actually, we do Liam. So I'd start answering some questions if I were you, son, starting with where you were on Friday night.' Costello leaned forwards on the table as he spoke, his size formidable in such a small room.
McKelvey was silent a moment, his face aghast. Then he shouted, 'Piss off! You're not pinning nothing on me. I want me lawyer.' He leaned to look around us at the mirror behind us. 'Oi, you in there. Get me a lawyer. I want me lawyer.'
'Listen, Liam. It's very simple, son,' I said. 'We have a number of questions which we would like you to answer. If you help us, and answer them fully and honestly, we'll have you home this evening. If not, you're in here over Christmas until the court opens on the twenty-seventh. Help us and we'll see you right.'
McKelvey said nothing. He folded his arms sullenly and slouched further in his seat, staring at some indistinct point on the scarred surface of the table. I hoped we had deflected his attention away from his request for a lawyer – it would only complicate things. 'Where were you on Friday night last?' I asked, taking his silence as a sign of reluctant acceptance.
'Don't remember,' he said, without looking up.
'Try!' Costello said.
'I was in Letterkenny. With me cousins.'
'Where?'
'About.'
'Where about?' I asked.
'Everywhere! I don't know, do I? I had a few drinks in me,' he spat.
'When did you last see Angela Cashell?'
'Last Tuesday, I think.'
'Are you sure?'
'Aye, of course I'm sure.'
'So you remember what you did last Tuesday, but not Friday?' Costello queried.
'I got off, didn't I? 'Course I remember it.'
'You didn't see her, say, on Thursday night?'
'Are you deaf?' He leaned towards the tape recorders and raised his voice for comic effect. 'I haven't seen her since Tuesday. Do you understand?' This final phrase he said as a deaf person might. Then he laughed forcibly, any real bravado having long since abandoned him.
'So, if I told you we have video footage of you and Angela Cashell on Thursday night together in Strabane, you'd say I was lying would you?'
'Aye. I didn't see her on Thursday, alright?'
'Okay, okay, Liam, whatever you say.' I looked to Costello, signalling that I was done for now.
'Tell me, Liam, I have to ask. Angela Cashell was a good-looking girl. Whatever attracted her to you?'
'Animal fucking magnetism, isn't it?' he said, not missing a beat, his teeth exposed in a grin.
'But seriously,' Costello said, not breaking his stride either, 'what attracted her? Drugs? Money? What?'
'I gave her things nobody else could,' McKelvey said, almost offended that his charms were not immediately apparent.
'What? Scabies?' I asked and thought I heard a snort from behind the mirror, where Williams and Holmes were still watching. I immediately regretted the comment, but Whitely spoke before I could apologize.
'Aye, babies,' he said, though I was unsure whether he actually misheard me or just chose to ignore what I had said.
'There must have been something else,' Costello said. 'Were you paying her?'
'No!' McKelvey replied, beginning to redden. 'She needed money sometimes. That's the way she is. I gave her it if she was stuck. Said her da was a bleeding tightwad.'
'Did she ask you for money when she said she was pregnant, Liam?' Costello asked with conspiratorial warmth.
'Aye. Said she needed two hundred quid to take care of it, know what I mean? Couldn't ask her da.'
'What did you tell her?'
'Told her it wasn't my problem.'
There was a pause while Costello seemed to consider something, biting at the inside of his cheek. Finally he asked, 'Would you have taken care of her and the baby?' The relevance of this question was lost on me.
'Not my problem. She got a shag. What more does she want?' He folded his arms on his chest and nodded once, with arrogance, as if to emphasize his position. 'Know what I mean?'
Costello shook his head sadly, and I realized the question had been personal: a vain attempt to see if there was even a shred of decency in Whitey McKelvey.
'Liam,' I said, redirecting the interview, 'I want to go over some stuff, because I think you've not been totally honest with me. So I'm going to ask you once more. Were you giving Angela Cashell drugs?'
'I said no already.'
'Were you buying her drugs or giving her money for drugs?'
'I gave her money for stuff. I don't know what she spent it on.'
'What about the ring, Liam? Did you give her the ring?'
'What ring?'
'Gold ring, greeny-blue stone in the middle with diamonds around it. You know the one. You lifted it in Letterkenny a month ago. Tried to sell it in Stranorlar. Refreshing your memory now, Liam?'
'That. I sold it,' he said, refusing to look at me, staring instead at the mirror behind me. 'Some bitch bought it off me in a disco.'
'Who?'
'Don't know.'
'Where?'
'Don't know,' he said, smiling.
Costello stood up, suddenly. 'This interview is concluded at 7.55 p.m. on Wednesday 24th December.' Then he turned off the tapes and called into the intercom beside the machines. 'Would someone come in and take this piece of shit to the cells?' He added softly and a little sadly, 'Then hose this place out…' Finally, he turned to McKelvey and said, 'You disgust me, you… fucking animal,' as if he could think of nothing worse to say. His shoulders slumped, as though he realized that Whitey McKelvey, of all people, had somehow inveigled him into revealing a side to his character that he would rather not have acknowledged, and he left the room.
'You shot yourself in the foot with this one, buddy.' McKelvey said nothing, but gave me the finger. Then, when Harvey came over to take him down to the cells, I too left the room and joined Costello and Williams and Holmes next door.
'Well?' I said.
'Not much, is there?' Williams said. Then she smiled, 'I liked the scabies line though.'
'It was a cheap shot,' I said.
'It's him,' Holmes said. 'He's a liar through and through. We know he was with her on Thursday night; sure we have it on tape. If he's lying about that, he's lying about the whole lot.' He snorted with derision. 'I say we
