Borderlands (26 page)

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 out.

Regardless
of my annoyance at Anderson, I knew he was right about Frank. I resolved to
take my gun home with me that night. I had decided when Penny was just a baby
that I would not keep a gun in the house, and so it stayed in a special locker
in the station. Guns are quite often a final option for Gardai; generally we do
not carry them, as it seems to contravene the very name of An Garda Siochana -
the Guardians of the Peace.

I went into
the back lock-up, behind Costello's room, where the station safe was located.
Above it was a strong box with a padlock.

I opened it
and removed my .38 revolver and a box of bullets, wrapped both in the oilcloth
that had been around the gun, and tucked the parcel into my inside coat-pocket.

I phoned
Strabane station and left a message for Hendry to call me. The desk sergeant
assured me that Hendry would get back to me when he could. While I was on the
phone, Williams came into the office and flopped onto the chair, a thick manila
folder in her lap.

"Ratsy
Donaghey, this is your life," she said. She placed the file on the table
between us and we both read through it carefully.

Donaghey
had first appeared on police files at the age of eleven, when he was caught
stealing from a local shop whose owner wanted the matter dealt with seriously.
He was arrested with some regularity from then on in, for drinking or vandalism
or stealing. At fourteen he was sent to a borstal for nine months for beating
up an elderly neighbour for the contents of her purse, which amounted to about
thirteen euros nowadays. He was quiet for the duration of his stay there, but
his name surfaced again afterwards.

His first
adult arrest was for aggravated assault and GBH, when he beat the ex-boyfriend
of a girl he was dating with a broken beer bottle and a brick until he was
unconscious. The case went as far as court but, somehow, Ratsy got off with a
suspended sentence despite his earlier record. I made a note of the date,
deducing that the court records for it would be found in a newspaper from the
period.

Forty
minutes later my faith in librarians was repaid once more as we read the court
report for the case. According to the papers from the time, Donaghey was shown
leniency because of his important position in something called 'IID' and his
role as an ambassador for the area. The chairman of IID, Joseph Cauley,
interceded on Ratsy's behalf, describing the attack as a single regrettable
blemish on an otherwise impressive character. The magistrate at the time was
Gordon Fullerton, who had since spent three years in jail himself, having being
found guilty of taking bribes in a case over land ownership. As neither of us
knew what IID was, we set off again to a building a little closer to home.

In the
centre of Lifford, almost opposite the Garda station, is the Seat of Power, a
museum dedicated to Lifford's history as the administrative centre of Donegal.
The museum also houses the original courthouse and cells from the old jail and
mental asylum. More importantly, however, the building houses a number of individuals
who know more about Lifford and Donegal than is perhaps healthy. One such
person is Mary Deeney. Mary is a woman in her late thirties with straight
copper-tinted hair, which occasionally reveals glimpses of grey. She was able
to give us the rundown on IID in fifteen minutes.

"Invest
in Donegal," she explained, pushing her pink-framed glasses up the bridge
of her nose, only for them to slide back down almost immediately. "One of
these things set up in the '70s to try to bring bigger companies into Donegal.
It actually had a few big successes in the late '70s, early '80s with a
textile company and an IT firm. Offered incentives, tax breaks, grants and so
on; performed feasibility studies; handled contracts for building. Folded up in
1984 — no, 1985 - when Cauley died. Possibly just as well, actually; rumour had
it that the Fraud Squad was taking an interest in it by that stage."

"Do
you remember a man by the name of Tony Donaghey being involved?" Williams
asked. "I think he was quite important to it."

Mary
thought about it as she absentmindedly twirled a few loose strands of her hair
around her fingers. "No, the name doesn't mean anything. Of course, I'm
the wrong person to be taking to. Tommy Powell's the man you'd really want to
see."

"Why
Powell?" I asked.

"Well
he started it. IID was his brainchild. He raised millions through the Dail for
it."

"We
thought Cauley ran IID" Williams said, and I nodded agreement.

"Cauley
ran it alright," Mary said, as if explaining something to very slow
children, "but Powell
owned
it. Cauley was just a manager."

Williams
and I stood outside the museum while I had a smoke. Across the street we could
see Costello moving around in his office, his blinds pulled back to let in the
December sun. At one point he walked over to the window and stared across at
us, then moved into the shadows of his room again.

"So,
what now?" I said.

"Try
to track the kids, I suppose." Williams said. "And Coyle. What about
Powell? Are you going to speak to him?"

"Maybe,"
I said. "But not quite yet. Costello said this morning about bringing the
Investigation Bureau in on this."

"Are
you going to?" Williams asked, looking a little surprised.

"No.
But I think they can help us with one thing."

As well as
the local Garda stations around the country, An Garda has a centralised
Criminal Investigation Bureau which helps in serious-crime cases. It is just
one, however, of a number of support systems. We had already called on the
Water Unit. I decided that perhaps it was time to contact the Research Unit as
well. The Research Unit does exactly what its name suggests. Over years it has
collated information passed on from all the other strands of the Garda system
and filed it for future reference. No other section of An Garda could access
information on companies or national initiatives as quickly. Or so I hoped.

I returned to
our office and phoned through to the Command and Control Centre in Harcourt
Street in Dublin and asked to be transferred to Research. I was put through to
an Officer Armstrong, and asked him to find whatever he could on Ratsy Donaghey
in connection with IID. I decided not to mention Tommy Powell just yet,
assuming that the name would turn up anyway once IID was researched. I also
mentioned the rumour about the fraud investigation and the chairman, Joseph
Cauley. Armstrong told me it might take a few days.

I then
tried contacting Hendry again about Yvonne Coyle, but he was still not
available. I sat in the storeroom, watching Williams scan phone directories and
electoral registers for Derry in an attempt to locate Joanne Duffy, Mary Knox's
friend. Then I sat beside Williams and helped her. After a number of false
leads, three coffees and a shared tuna sandwich, we found her.

Monday, 30th December

Duffy had moved
from Strabane to Derry in 1983, marrying a man called Edgar van Roost, a
Belgian political analyst who was lecturing in Peace and Conflict Studies at a
local university. They met at a political rally at which van Roost spoke,
comparing the conflict in Northern Ireland with the conflict in the Middle
East, while Duffy sold copies of
Socialist
Worker
to an indifferent crowd.

They now
lived in an area of Derry known as Foyle Springs, in a modest semi-detached
house which required painting. However, inside, the house was far from what we
had expected from a socialist. The plush-carpeted hallway, despite being quite
narrow, was dominated by a huge chandelier which hung so low I had to walk
around rather than under it.

Duffy had
clearly aged gracefully, though, perhaps aided by a little surgery, for her
eyes were unnaturally free of wrinkles or laughter lines and her lips were
full and perfectly pink. Her cheeks were accentuated with blusher and her hair
was a steely blonde, set high in a bun.

She smoked
a long, slim, brown cigarette, drawing lightly on it and releasing the smoke in
a single puff, as if unaccustomed to smoking.

"I
can't inhale," she explained, noting my curiosity, and gesturing vaguely
with the cigarette, "because of my asthma. I shouldn't smoke at all, but I
can't help it."

Williams
nodded with understanding. "Ms Duffy, as I explained to you on the phone,
we're trying to trace the family of Mary Knox."

Duffy
nodded, her bun tottering on her head. "Mary, God rest her. Have you found
her? Is that it?" She leaned forward a little in her seat as an indication
of concern.

"No,
Ms Duffy," I said. "We're re-examining her case. Do you have any idea
what happened to her?"

"Oh,
Mary's dead," Duffy said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Mary was dead the
day she disappeared. I've always known that."

"How?"
Williams asked, smiling uncertainly.

"You
just do. We were very good friends. I would watch her children for her when she
was ... you know, when she was working." She broke the tip off her
cigarette and laid the unsmoked half in the ashtray beside her. "Would you
like to see her?" she asked, standing up before we had a chance to answer.
She went over to a heavy mahogany cabinet in the corner of the room and opened
it to reveal shelves packed with books and photo albums. Duffy flicked through
one or two, then located the picture she wanted, removed it from the album and
gave it to Williams, who looked at it and passed it to me. "That's her and
the children," Duffy said, standing above me, her head tilted to see the
picture in my hand.

The picture
was clearly from the same batch as the one we had already seen. In the
background, grey clouds had massed, but it did not detract from the sunny
disposition of the three figures. Mary Knox was still sitting on the concrete
steps to the beach, but in this shot her children were on either side of her.
She had obviously been an attractive woman. A black swimsuit was visible
through the large white T-shirt she wore. Her hands rested demurely on her bare
knees, which were pressed together. Clearly visible on her left hand was the
moonstone ring.

To her left
was a boy of about eight, his blonde hair cut bowl- fashion. He wore nothing
but green shorts. His ribs stood out a little through his skin, and he was
grinning so much that his eyes were little more than slits. He had one arm
around his mother's neck, the other jauntily resting on his hip. Small bruises
were visible on his legs and shins.

On the
other side of Mary Knox sat her daughter. She too smiled into the camera, but
her body was closed, her hands clasped in front of her. She retained a tiny
distance from her mother. Her face was thin and her skin light, contrasting
with the darkness of her hair, which hung in curls around her face and
shoulders. She was wearing a blue swimsuit with a beach towel around her
shoulders like a shawl. Something about her expression was familiar and
strangely sad. Perhaps it was just that I knew how this family would turn out.

"When
was this taken?" I asked.

"Should
be written on the back," Duffy replied. "Around Halloween, before she
disappeared. The weather was beautiful for so late in the year and we all went
to Bundoran for a day out. We had a great day." The dates certainly fitted
with Costello's buying the ring.

"That's
a nice ring she's wearing," I said. "Looks expensive."

"It
was. Didn't stop it breaking, though. In fact on the way home that night she
noticed one of the stones had fallen out. Had to send it back to be
fixed."

"Where
did she get it?" I asked, trying to make the question sound as casual as
possible. Still Duffy viewed me with suspicion.

Finally she
decided to answer. "I suppose you know anyway. Mary had a lot of men. Made
a bit for herself on the back of it. One of her men bought it for her."

"Do
you know who?" Williams asked.

"Someone
with money. Someone important. One of the important people."

"What
do you mean, 'one of?" I asked.

"There
were several," Duffy replied, and smiled coyly, as if to suggest she had
gone as far as she could.

"Who
were they?" Williams asked, reading my thoughts.

"I
don't remember names. Some businessmen, important people. The owner of the
Three Rivers Hotel was the biggest of them, though."