'Why?'
'I dunno. It just seems like something a woman would do. It was a conscious decision to put her underwear back on her. I don't think a man would do that. In fact, you'd think if sex was involved somewhere, he'd want to keep something as intimate as that – a trophy, you know?'
It made sense. 'What about the ring? It has some significance. None of her family or friends knew about it.'
'Whitey McKelvey did. Maybe he did give it to her.'
'More likely than him selling it to someone who then came back and killed her,' I said.
'So, he steals it from Ratsy Donaghey, gives it to Angela Cashell, and she gets killed wearing it.'
'Do you think it's worth killing over?'
'I dunno. Maybe we should get it valued.'
'But if it was worth anything, surely whoever killed Angela would have taken it,' I pointed out.
'True. So, it's a message.'
'To whom?'
'I don't know. But you're right. We'll follow it up.'
I asked Williams whether she had had any luck contacting the Garda in Bundoran who had dealt with Donaghey's murder.
'Not yet. He's off until tomorrow, I'm told. I need to speak to him about the gun used to kill Terry Boyle, too. What do you think is the Donaghey connection with Cashell? Drugs?'
'Maybe,' I said, 'But he was a different generation. More of an age with Johnny Cashell than Angela. Follow it up anyway. Get that video of the bar again as well. McKelvey denied being with Angela that night. Let's recheck it and see if he was lying or not. In the meantime, I'm going to a wake.'
'Whose?'
'Angela Cashell's. Her body was brought back on Christmas Eve. She's to be buried tomorrow. I want to see Sadie Cashell before that.'
'Is it not a bit early? It's only just gone ten?'
'Morning's the best time for us; less chance of a fight brewing.' I lifted my keys. 'Do you want to come?'
'Are you kidding?' she said, grabbing her coat.
A wake is a long-held tradition in Ireland. The body is laid out for two nights before the burial. Neighbours and friends congregate – ostensibly to pay their respects, but on occasions the wake becomes a party. Mourners comment on how well the deceased looks, as though he or she were not dead. Plates of cigarettes are passed around like sandwiches. At some stage the whiskey is opened and passed among the mourners; someone produces a tin whistle or a fiddle and a full-scale ceilidh breaks out, with people jigging and reeling around the coffin and resting their empty glasses on the white satin lining.
The following morning, the wake-house smells like a pub that has been left unaired. Tea-stained cups are gathered and washed; sandwiches are made in preparation for the next night, which promises to be even bigger than the previous.
Sadie Cashell was sitting by her daughter's coffin when we entered the house and, despite the early hour, three neighbours sat with her. I gave her the Mass card I had had signed by Father Brennan on the way in, offered my condolences, and stood beside her at the coffin and prayed three Hail Marys for the redemption of the soul of Angela Cashell. Sadie leaned over the coffin, pushed a wisp of Angela's blonde hair back from her face and arranged the ruffle at the throat of the shroud she was wearing. I finished my prayers and laid my hand gently on Angela's, which were joined in front of her, intertwined with a rosary. Her skin was cold and hard, almost like wax. Her expression was one of serenity: angelic. It was an appearance certainly preferable to my last sight of her, lying on a bed of leaves and damp moss, the empty winter sky reflected in her unblinking eyes.
I sat beside Sadie on one of the hard wooden chairs which a neighbour must have lent her and passed her a half-bottle of Bushmills that I had bought in McElroy's Bar out of hours.
She held my hand in both of hers, which were shaking slightly, and rubbed the back of my hand with her thumb. She told me that Johnny had not been released for the wake, but hoped to be back for the funeral. She told me how the other girls had taken it. Muire had run away the day before, but was found by a neighbour walking to Strabane. Then she asked if we knew who had taken her daughter from her, and I told her that I thought we did and that, if she believed in God, he would be facing justice. She smiled and gripped my hand tighter.
'Sadie,' I said. 'I want to ask you a favour. About the ring Angela was wearing. Do you have it?'
'Why?'
'Listen, Sadie, I know it wasn't hers, but I don't care. Keep it if you want. But I'd like to borrow it for a day or two. I think it might have something to do with what happened to her.'
She seemed initially unwilling, but eventually agreed and, with some reluctance, turned away from her daughter's coffin and left the room. I heard her going up the stairs and moving about above us. Half a minute later she returned with the ring, still sealed in the plastic evidence bag in which the pathologist had placed it. She handed it to me without a word and sat again beside her daughter.
'Have you touched this, Sadie? I asked. 'Since you got it back. I need to know – for fingerprints.'
She looked at me and shook her head, once.
'I'm sorry, Sadie,' I said. 'I had to ask.' I told her that we had to leave and she stood to walk us out to the door.
'Johnny was angry at me, you know. For taking that money,' she said. 'He told me we don't need a copper's charity.'
'We all need a little help sometimes. Johnny's just raw over Angela. It's understandable.'
'She was his favourite, you know. In a strange way, she was his favourite. He treated her as if she were his own daughter.'
I took her hand in mine and looked her in the eyes. 'She was his daughter, Sadie, and I'll not let anyone say any different.'
She pulled me close to her quickly, gripping my arms in her hands, and muttered something into the nape of my neck. I felt the wetness of her tears against my skin.
By the time we arrived back at the station a fairly large group of reporters had gathered across the road in front of the visitors centre. Someone was holding court before them. He was too slim to be Costello. For some reason I was not wholly surprised when I realized that the figure in the dark suit decrying Garda incompetence was Thomas Powell, attempting to assume the mantle his father had passed to him. It was perhaps no accident that he had chosen the road in front of the old courthouse, from whose roof eighteenth-century recidivists were hung in front of crowds of thousands, to give his lecture on crime and justice in Lifford.
'In the past weeks, three young people have died, one while in Garda custody, and yet nothing seems to have been done. Livestock is being slaughtered by a wild animal of some sort, but again nothing has been done.' He scanned the group as he spoke, making eye-contact with as many of them as possible, perhaps trying to remember faces for future press conferences. Then, his eye caught mine and I swear he smiled. 'Instead, we have officers following personal agendas while we suffer the effects of their incompetence.' He pointed in my direction. 'Perhaps Inspector Devlin here would elucidate further on what Gardai are doing to clean up this mess?' He turned to the cameras, dictaphones and microphones, clearly assuming that I would stick to Costello's 'no comment' dictate. 'My father campaigned tirelessly against Gardai incompetence and I regret that I seem to have to do the same and represent the people of Donegal with an impartial voice.'
'Let's take the fight to him, shall we?' I said to Williams, and walked over to stand beside him in front of the reporters. I felt Williams tug at my jacket, saw the panic register on her face; then she stepped back, away from the glare of the lights.
Powell was alerted to my presence by the radio reporter I had met earlier. 'Inspector, any comment on these claims?'
I raised my hand and waited until the gaggle quietened a little. I spoke slowly and clearly, without looking at Powell, who stood beside me, his arms folded, 'I've just returned from visiting one of three houses on both sides of the border, where a family has spent Christmas in mourning for the loss of a child. I think perhaps we should respect that, rather than using their coffins as soap boxes from which to electioneer, don't you?' I smiled sweetly, then turned and walked into the station. Costello glared at me from his office door, having watched the performance
