Altnagelvin hospital. A female taxi-driver had described how she had watched two of the travellers, barefoot and bare-chested, yet seemingly oblivious to the winter night (or, perhaps, heated by the flames and the adrenaline of the situation) grab Diarmuid by his straggled hair and throw him to the ground. As he cowered against the boulders blocking the entrance to the estate, they took turns kicking and stomping on him with enough force to shatter his teeth and his jawbone, which soon hung loose and useless as a dead man's.
Frankie Cashell was dragged to the ground by the jacket his wife had made him wear and, though he cursed her when it gave the travellers something to grab, the padding buffered most of the kicks he received to his trunk so that, although his skull was fractured, his ribs were only bruised.
The third Cashell brother, Brendan, was set upon by a number of women, one of whom bit off one of his ears. By the time the police found it later that day, spat into the bushes beyond the smouldering wreck of a caravan, it was beyond saving.
Johnny himself, bleeding profusely, had been found lying in the field across which he had reportedly pursued the traveller boy. The boy had turned on Johnny, pulling a knife on him. Only when Johnny was in the ambulance did it become clear that he had received only a superficial wound, and so he was arrested as soon as he was discharged from hospital and taken to Strabane. Hendry had heard all about it that morning when he arrived for work. Recognizing the name from our exchange the day before, he contacted me.
Johnny sat on the metal frame which doubled as a bench and bed in the holding cell, his fingers exploring under the bandage which had been taped around his abdomen. He looked up when he saw me enter the cell, but went back to his work, testing the wound for tenderness and inspecting the dressing for blood.
'Well, Johnny. Do you feel better now?'
'Piss off, Devlin. You're not allowed in the North. You shouldn't be here.'
'Neither should you, Johnny. I'm off duty. This is a social call. What were you playing at, taking on the travellers?' I asked, but his attention remained focused on his dressing. Hendry kicked at Johnny's foot when he still didn't look up.
'I've nothing to say,' Johnny muttered. 'Have you a fag?'
'Aye,' I said, taking the cigarette packet out of my pocket. 'But I've forgot my lighter. Have you got one?'
'Ha, ha! Stick it up your arse, Devlin.'
'Oi! Mind your mouth, son, you're not in the South now,' Hendry said. 'Jesus, Devlin, what class of criminal are you lot breeding over there?'
I squatted down beside Cashell, hoping to get his attention. 'What had this to do with Angela, Johnny?' I asked, and saw, for a second, the slightest glimpse of recognition. 'It was Angela, wasn't it, Johnny? You see, that's why Inspector Hendry here has contacted me – on account of what happened to Angela. But this won't bring her back, Johnny.' I didn't intend to sound as patronizing as I did.
He looked up at me fiercely, anger and pride defiant in his face. 'And you will, will ye Devlin? Fucking resurrect her? Is that it? You couldn't catch cold in a snow storm. You're a joke. Fuck you.' He grew more animated as he spoke, getting angrier and angrier until he almost spat in my face, 'Fuck the lot of you!' Then in the silence that followed, his venom spent, he sank back onto the metal frame again. He buried his face in his hands, as would any grieving father who has vented his anger and frustration at the person nearest him because of his failure to do so at those who actually deserved it.
'The boy he was seen chasing was Whitey McKelvey. His real name's Liam or something, but everyone calls him Whitey. A bad wee bugger, too,' Hendry told me as he walked me back to my car, where Debbie and the children were waiting for me. 'He looks about ten but he's nearer eighteen. Undernourished. Some of the lads here reckon it's deliberate so he can slip through windows more easily when he's robbing a place. Whitey's been in and out of detention centres. He hasn't done anything yet to do real time for, but it'll happen soon enough. Wouldn't surprise me if he's involved in the girl's death. Knives are his thing, mind you. I don't know if he'd be strong enough to lift a body, either. He's wiry but fairly weak. Vicious rather than strong, you know.'
'I know him,' I said. 'He's popped up once or twice on our side too. White-blond hair, FA Cup ears? Let us know if you lift him. Cashell obviously thinks he knows something.'
We shook hands. 'Surely,' Hendry said, 'though I hope you get him first. Last time we lifted Whitey, he left the place in a right mess.'
Later that evening Superintendent Costello arrived at our house. He does this fairly frequently; part of his personable, policing-thecommunity bit. He squeezed into the armchair in the corner furthest from the TV and held in his hand the teacup and saucer Debbie had given to Penny to bring him. The coffee table upon which a plate of biscuits sat was just a little beyond his reach and the effort required to set down and pick up the cup was evidently too much to make it worthwhile. The cup looked tiny in his hand and he seemed awkward drinking from it.
'Quite a good response from the RTE thing,' he said, holding the cup just below jaw-level, his third and fourth fingers jutting out, the handle of his cup too small to accommodate them. 'Twenty-three calls. Twelve nutcases.'
For the press conference we had decided not to mention that Angela's body had been dumped naked but for her underwear, nor the ring which she had been wearing, in an attempt to weed out the cranks from those with genuine information.
'A few promising leads though,' Costello continued, stirring the tea now to give him something to do with his hands and the cup. 'A mention of a traveller boy, presumably Whitey McKelvey. The two of them were seen together on Thursday night, at a disco in Strabane. Drugs were mentioned too.' I nodded, unsurprised. 'In connection with her – not him, Benedict.'
'Might be worth asking for toxicology reports from the state pathologist,' I suggested, though I suspected Costello had already done so.
'I spoke to her earlier,' he said, trying to place the spoon back on the saucer as gently as possible. 'The manager of the Cineplex saw Angela there on Friday afternoon with her sisters. They bought tickets for a children's matinee but went to some horror thing. They were thrown out at about four o'clock.' The spoon clattered off the side of the cup and fell to the ground. Penny scurried over on all fours and retrieved it with a smile.
'On Friday?' I repeated. 'Are you sure? Cashell said she left the house on Thursday.'
'Best check it out in the morning,' Costello replied. 'Preliminary findings are through from the pathologist as well. They put time of death at somewhere between 11 p.m. Friday night and 1 a.m. Saturday morning.' As he spoke, he lifted a cream-coloured folder out of the bag he had brought with him. He passed it over to me and turned his attention to Shane, who was sitting on his sheepskin rug, watching Costello with open mouth, a rusk held aloft in his hand, his face smeared with soggy biscuit. He grinned, showing off his two teeth, and gurgled with satisfaction.
I skimmed through all the technical jargon. In short, Angela had been engaged in sexual activity before she died – more than likely consensual and most definitely using contraception; the lubricant found in swabs taken from her suggested Mates condoms, and precluded any possibility of finding DNA evidence, unless hairs could be found on her body.
Stomach contents seemed to verify that she had indeed been at the cinema on the day of her death: there was no doubt that Angela had eaten popcorn, chocolate and, at a later stage in the day, burger and chips. The pathologist also noted a partially decomposed tablet of some sort, speckled brown and yellow. Toxicology would identify the exact constituents.
The level of lactic acid in Angela's muscles – all her muscles – when she died was massive, suggesting that they had been in vigorous use at the moment of her death. The pathologist suggested that this was probably not consistent with regular activity. It was more likely that Angela had suffered some kind of seizure. She had died through asphyxiation. The bruising on her chest and other bruising, discovered around her mouth when the lipstick was removed, suggested that someone fairly small had sat or, more likely, knelt on her chest and covered her mouth, perhaps while she thrashed beneath them in a fit. Eventually the lack of oxygen and massive electrical activity in her brain became too much.
'Someone knelt on her?' I said, breaking my own rule of never discussing such things in front of my children.
'Someone small,' Costello said, 'and s-e-x-u-a-l-l-y active,' he added, mouthing the letters, while motioning with his head towards my children, who sat pretending to watch TV but were listening to the exchange. I decided not to tell him that Penny is top of her class in spelling – though I trusted they had not reached polysyllables like
