I knew I had gone too far. Sadie's eyes had welled and were red, while Johnny stared at me ashen-faced, a cigarette suspended midway to his mouth. The eldest Cashell girl, Christine, was standing in the hallway, staring at me. I immediately regretted what I had said. A sweat broke on my forehead and the room became unbearably close.
'I think you better wait outside, Inspector,' Williams said, glaring at me.
'I'm… I'm sorry, Sadie. Jesus, Johnny – I'm sorry.'
Sadie looked up at me with eyes empty of any feeling. 'You're the lowest bastard I've ever met. Get out of my home,' she said. She wiped a tear from her cheek and stared across the table at Williams until I left the kitchen.
I stood in the tiny patch of garden at the front of the house and lit a cigarette, drawing as deeply as I could so that it would burn my lungs. I was aware of someone to my right and I turned to see Christine Cashell standing, her arms folded, a cigarette clenched in her right hand.
'Was there any need for that?' she asked, her face lacking the defiance she had presented when we last met. It was almost as though I had confirmed for her all that she believed. We may talk of equality and serving the community, but sometimes, despite ourselves, we treat people badly because we can, because we tell ourselves that we do it in the name of justice or virtue, or whatever excuse we use to hide the fact that we want to hurt someone, to get at them in any way we can to compensate for their total lack of respect for our job and all that we have sacrificed to do it.
'No,' I said, seeing no point in sharing my thoughts with her. 'I was out of line, Miss Cashell.'
'Jesus, don't start calling me Miss Cashell. Christine'll do.' She dragged on her cigarette and blew the smoke upwards, holding her face towards the strengthening sun. She sniffed. 'Do you think it'll be enough for Mum to leave him?' she asked, without looking at me.
'Maybe. That wasn't my intention, Christine.'
'I know. Still, clouds and silver linings, eh? You never know.' She stood with one arm wrapped in front of her, the other one, which held her cigarette, hung at her side. She twisted the toe of one shoe into the grass. 'Looks like you screwed up with McKelvey.'
'Yep. Seems that way.' I flicked my cigarette over the hedge in the vain hope that their nosey neighbour would still be lurking there.
'You were told she'd have nothing to do with him. She got into drugs. That was McKelvey's thing. They weren't going out.'
'Who was she going out with, Christine?' I asked. 'Muire mentioned Angela was going to see someone the night she died.'
'Muire didn't know what was going on.'
'About McKelvey?'
'You've McKelvey on the brain. Angie was going out with someone, but it wasn't McKelvey. In fact, it wasn't even a boy. Our Angie found herself a girlfriend before she died. Someone to support her habit.'
'Who?'
'Some nurse called Yvonne, from Strabane.'
'Yvonne Coyle?'
'Sounds about right, aye,' Christine said, then turned at the sound of voices from inside. Her parents came out with Williams, who shook hands with each, nodded to me, and strode down towards the car. I smiled gently towards Christine, who replied with her eyes at the same instant that she set the rest of her face into its familiar expression of defiance against the world. I turned to apologize to her parents again, but they only looked at me, ushered Christine inside, and closed the door softly.
'Feeling better?' Williams asked when I got into the car. Then, before I could answer she continued, 'Jesus, sir.'
'Cashell is a criminal,' I replied, a little haughtily.
'Not when you're talking about his daughter's death. He's still a father.'
'Well, he shouldn't be. His other daughter was outside hoping this would finally force Sadie to leave him. It's hardly family life at its most idyllic, is it?'
'It's more than some of us have,' she snapped, and I stopped arguing.
Neither of us spoke as Williams started up the car.
'What else did the girl say?' she asked finally.
I stared out the side window at the hedgerows sliding past, the sunlight filtering through the thickets. 'Not much of use. Says that McKelvey was a dead end, as if we hadn't worked that out. Seemed to suggest that Angela was a bit of a double-adapter.'
'Meaning?' Williams said, glancing over at me.
'Meaning Christine seemed to think Angela was having a fling with Yvonne Coyle.'
'Really. Should we bring her in?'
'Certainly worth taking a closer look, I suppose. Though having an affair, even a lesbian one, isn't a criminal offence. She already admitted that Angela stayed with her the night before she died. Said she went out with McKelvey on the night in question.' Then I remembered something. 'Although, now I think of it, she said she'd seen McKelvey on the Thursday night: in fact she was our only witness. What if she was lying?'
'Maybe we should bring her in, then.'
'I'll ask Hendry. She's in his jurisdiction.' I paused. 'What did the Cashells have to say about things?'
'Cashell admitted knowing Donaghey and Boyle in the late '70s. Said Donaghey managed a bar where he and Boyle worked as bouncers. Did the odd favour for him. That was it. Knew nothing about Knox or the ring. Or why someone would want to leave it on the body of his dead daughter.'
'Did you believe him?' I asked.
'God, no. He was lying through his teeth. He seemed particularly uneasy when I told him that Knox had kids. He didn't seem to know. Though obviously he claimed it was nothing to him, since he didn't know the woman.'
'Did you say Ratsy Donaghey was a manager of a bar?'
'Apparently so.'
'That's worth taking a closer look at as well. Look, when we get back to the station, I want to call Hendry about Yvonne Coyle. Can you pull me anything you can find on Donaghey? Then I want you to start checking for this neighbour of Mary Knox, Joanne Duffy, living somewhere in Derry. I suspect she knows where the kids ended up.'
'You think the kids are involved?'
'I don't know,' I said, honestly, 'but it's the only thing we have for now.'
As it transpired, I didn't get to carry out my plans quite as quickly as I had hoped, for when we returned to the station Mark Anderson was standing at the front desk, while Burgess tried desperately to shift him.
'Ah, Inspector Devlin,' he shouted, the moment I came through the door. 'A Mr Anderson here for you. Perhaps you'd be so kind as to assist him.' Then he added under his breath, 'And take the smell of pig' shit out of my station.'
Anderson was not for shifting. He took something from his pocket, a skein of brown velvet material darkened at the edges with crusted blood. He let it drop onto the main counter. 'That were in my field, where that animal were shot.'
'What has that to do with me?' I asked, my head spinning as I spoke. The rag of torn skin was both sickening and strangely pitiful.
'Powell won't give me the reward. He says that ain't no cat. He says that's part of a hound. Where's your dog?'
'He's at home, Mark. That's not part of a dog. That could be part of anything. Powell's just trying to renege on his part of the deal. Makes good TV offering rewards, so long as you don't have to follow it through.'
Anderson eyed me suspiciously, his face puckered in concentration. He rubbed a callused fingertip along the white stubble of his chin. 'All I know is that I ain't seen your dog since the hunt and nothing's been near my sheep since. If I find your dog's been hurt in some way, I got a right to put a bullet in him. Reward or not, I'll protect my sheep.'
'And I'll protect my daughter's pet, Mark,' I replied.
'Best thing for you to do is put a bullet in it yourself, before someone else has to,' Anderson said and walked
