Powell's child should die. I was to be their arbitrator and become complicit in their plan. In the end, Yvonne shot Powell, then Kate Costello, and finally herself. And her revenge was complete. Her brother, however, with no one else left to blame, turned to my family.
I was interviewed as part of the investigation into the death of Liam McKelvey. During the interview I admitted to my attack on the boy and accepted responsibility for the various breaks in procedure I had made during the preceding weeks. I was suspended with pay for two weeks for negligence. I have not yet decided if I will make the break permanent. Jason Holmes was likewise suspended for his role in the McKelvey affair. But someone higher up than either of us had evidently decided that it was better to pin the whole lot on Harvey rather than tarnish the reputation of the force further by implicating the man who had solved the murders of Angela Cashell, Terry Boyle, Emily Costello, Thomas Powell and, at last, Mary Knox.
I met Christine Cashell several days later. She was serving in the local chemist's, where I was buying painkillers. She smiled at me when I approached the counter. I asked her how her parents were doing.
'Mum's great. Never better,' she said. 'I couldn't tell you about Dad. He and Mum had a row about something and she threw him out. Again,' she added, rolling her eyes in mock exasperation.
'Will he be back?' I asked, suspecting that her father's departure had affected her more deeply than she was prepared to admit.
'Maybe,' she shrugged.
Kate Costello was in hospital for several days. On 4th January, Debbie drove me to Letterkenny General to visit her. Afterwards, I sat in the hospital cafe with her father for twenty-five minutes, talking of the weather, which had begun to improve. I asked about Emily and he told me that the funeral arrangements were being postponed until Kate was out of hospital. He did not mention the events in the hotel until I got up to leave.
'Thanks, Benedict,' he said, as I signalled my intention to go.
'No problem. Doing my job, sir.'
'No. Thanks for what you told her. Kate told me. About Powell. I don't know how you made that up on the spur of the moment; it was… it was inspired.' He smiled lightly, almost apologetically. 'I won't forget it; it goes no further than us.'
For a moment I wanted to pursue what he had said, to tease out the meaning and be sure I understood it. I looked at him, alone now without his wife, and wondered what I could say. In the end, I simply straightened up, pulled my coat around me, and walked down the echoing corridor, out into the freshening air.
The following day, I visited Thomas Powell in Finnside. I sat in the room, a bunch of flowers in my hand, and watched him sleep. He had suffered another stroke, late on the evening he was told of his son's death, and had hardly recovered any strength since. The blankets on his bed were so heavy that they disguised the movement of his ribcage as he breathed. His room smelt stale and cold, like a crypt. The only movement discernible in the man was a continual twitching of his eyelids which, though shut, fluttered endlessly.
Miriam Powell walked into the room just before I left. Seeing me sitting beside the bed, she went and stood outside, her back against the wall, and waited for me to leave. As I did so, she passed me, so closely that my hand accidentally touched the exposed skin of her arm. I inhaled the air in her wake, but could not smell the scent of coconut. She wore a new, stronger perfume. I believe she intends to continue building on the political career her late husband began.
Early on the morning of 3rd March, unable to sleep, I sat in the kitchen watching with horrified fascination as the US policy of 'shock and awe' was finally unveiled and Baghdad burned. Eventually, sick to the stomach, I flicked off the TV and sat in the kitchen in darkness, listening to the noise of thaw-water dripping from the eaves outside. I gradually became aware that Frank was whining and yelping from the shed. The thought of what had to be done had lain heavy on my mind since New Year and I knew that the stay of execution he had received was almost over. I ate a bowl of cereal slowly. Then I loaded one bullet in my gun, and rolled up an old towel with which to muffle the shot.
Unlocking the back door, I stepped out into the coldness of the dawn. All around me was the sound of water dripping, from the eaves of the house, from the hedge and trees.
Frank had somehow escaped from the shed once again. Now he lay at the back door of the house, his body flat against the ground, the fur on his back raised, his single long ear under his snout. But he was not looking at me. I followed his gaze to his food dish, and there, in the shadows of the cherry tree near the top of the garden, stood a wild cat.
It was nearly the size of a collie, its body compact and hard, its dark fur sleek and shining in the morning light. It was poised to flee, muscles tensed, legs bent, its hard golden eyes trained on me. It considered me for a moment, raising its head slightly to sniff the air. Then it dipped its head again into Frank's food bowl and ate the remains of his dinner from the previous night.
I shifted my gun from one hand to the other, considering whether I had any chance of firing a shot. The cat lifted its head again and looked at me with disdain. The dawn sun was spreading slowly across the lawn now. The animal snarled once, lightly, baring its teeth, then it turned and padded up through the hedgerow and into the field beyond.
During that month, it hunted freely both in the North and the Republic, eluding naturalist and hunter alike, slaughtering livestock with impunity, making the borderland its own.
Then, in the early spring, it disappeared.
