Brian Mcgilloway - Borderlands (Inspector Devlin Mystery 1)

Borderlands

Brian McGilloway

Published 2007 by Macmillan NewWriting,

an imprint of MacmillanPublishers Ltd

Brunei Road, Basingstoke RG21 6XS

Associated companies throughoutthe world

www.macmillannewwriting.com

Copyright Brian McGilloway

For Tanya,

Ben and Tom,

and for my parents

Table of Contents

Saturday, 21st December 2002

It was notbeyond reason that Angela Cashell's final resting place should straddle the border.Presumably, neither those who dumped her corpse, nor, indeed, those who hadcreated the border between the North and South of Ireland in 1920, couldunderstand the vagaries that meant that her body lay half in one country andhalf in another, in an area known as the borderlands.

Thepeculiarities of the Irish border are famous. Eighty years ago it was drawnthrough fields, farms and rivers by civil servants who knew little more aboutthe area than that which they'd learnt from a map. Now, people live with theconsequences, owning houses where TV licences are bought in the North and theelectricity needed to run them is paid for in the South.

When acrime occurs in an area not clearly in one jurisdiction or another, both theIrish Republic's An Garda Siochana and the Police Service of Northern Irelandwork together, each offering all the practical help and advice they can, thelead detective determined generally by either the location of the body or thenationality of the victim.

Consequentlythen, I stood with my colleagues from An Garda facing our northern counterpartsthrough the snow-heavy wind which came running up the river. The sky above us,bruised purple and yellow in the dying sun, promised no reprieve.

Weshook hands, exchanged greetings and moved to where the girl lay, prone but forone hand, which was turned towards the sky. The medical examiner, a localdoctor named John Mulrooney, was kneeling beside the girl's naked body, testingher muscles for signs of rigor mortis. Her head rested at his knees. Her hairwas blonde at the ends, but honey-coloured closer to her scalp, her skin whiteand clean except for thin scratches across her back and legs caused by thebrambles through which her body had fallen. A SOCO leaned in close to her,examining the cuts as the medical examiner pointed them out, and tookphotographs.

Wewatched as three or four Gardai moved in to help turn her over. I stepped backand stared across the water to the northern side, where the arthritic limbs ofthe trees stretched towards the snow clouds, the black branches rattling in thewinter wind.

"Doyou recognize her, sir?" one of the northerners asked, and I turned backto the girl, whose face was now exposed. My vision blurred momentarily as abreeze shivered across the river's surface. Then my sight cleared and I movedover and knelt beside her, suppressing the urge to take off my jacket andcover her with it, at least until the Scene of Crime Officers were finished.

"That'sJohnny Cashell's girl," a uniformed Garda said, "from CliptonPlace."

Inodded my agreement. "He's right," I said, turning to the northernInspector, a man called Jim Hendry, whose rank was the same as mine but whoseexperience was vastly greater. "She's ours, I'm afraid."

Henodded without looking at me. Hendry was at least a head taller than me, wellover six feet, with a wiry frame and dirty, fair hair. He sported a thin, sandymoustache at which he tugged when under stress; he did so now. "Poorgirl," he said.

Herface was fresh and young; she was fifteen or sixteen at most. She wore make-upin a way that reminded me of my own daughter, Penny, when she played at being agrown-up with my wife's cosmetics. The blue eye-shadow was too heavilyapplied, contrasting with the redness of her eyes where the veins had burst inher final moments. Her whole face had assumed a light-blue hue. Her mouth waspartially opened in a rictus of pain; the bright red lipstick she had socarefully applied was smeared across her face in streaks.

Hersmall breasts carried purple bruises the size and shape of a man's hands. Onebruise, smaller and darker than the others, resembled a love bite. Snowflakessettled on her body as gently as kisses and did not melt.

Hertrunk and thighs were ivory white, though her arms and the lower parts of herlegs were tanned with cosmetics, the streaks and misapplication clear nowagainst her pallor. A pinkish colour was forming on her legs and chest. Shewore plain white cotton pants which were inside out.

"Well,Doc?" I asked the ME, "What do you think?"

Hestood up and peeled off the rubber gloves he had been wearing. Then he steppedaway from the body and took a cigarette offered to him by a Garda officer."Hard to say. The body is fairly stiff, but it was a cold night so I can'treally give you time of death. More than six hours, no more than twelve. You'llknow better when the autopsy's done. Cause of death - I can't be totally sureeither, but I'd say the bruising on her chest is significant. That blue tintingof the face is caused by smothering or crushing of the chest. That, and thechest bruising, would suggest suffocation, but that's an educated guess.Lividity indicates she was moved after she died, though you hardly need me totell you that. Naked women don't just appear in the middle of fields."

"Signsof struggle?" Hendry asked.

"Signsof something. Her fingernails are bitten so close I doubt you'll get anythingfrom under them. Sorry I can't be more help, Ben," he said to me. "Ican tell you that she's dead, and that someone killed her and dumped her here,so it's over to you now. The state pathologist will be here as soon aspossible."

"Presumablythis was sexual," I said.

"Don'tknow for sure. The pathologist will take swabs as a matter of course.Personally, I'd say fairly likely. Good luck, Ben. Take it easy." Withthat he dropped the gloves into his case, lifted it and walked up theembankment to his car, barely looking at the body as he passed it.

Ilooked again at the girl. Her hands rested on the leaves beneath her, thebright red nail polish a little incongruous on fingers so small and on nailsbitten so near to the quick. There was a little dirt around her nails, and soonenough a SOCO wrapped her hands in plastic bags which he secured at her wrist.I noticed that, on her right hand, she wore a gold ring set with some type ofstone. It looked too old-fashioned for a girl of her age; a family heirloom, agift from a parent or grandparent, perhaps. The stone was tinted green, like amoonstone, and surrounded by diamonds. I asked the photographer to take a shotof it. As he did so, the flash illuminated an engraving on the band.

"Lookslike something's written on it, sir," he said, crouching right down andholding the camera in one hand as he angled her hand slightly with his other.Then he focused the camera tight on the ring. "I think it says AC, sir:her initials."

Inodded for no particular reason and turned again to the group of northerners.

"Shittyenough one to get the week before Christmas, Devlin. Good luck to you,"Hendry said, nipping off the end of his cigarette, then putting the butt inhis pocket so as not to contaminate the crime scene. That was a bit of a joke.Our resources in the arse- end of Donegal are hardly FBI quality and, besides adozen or so policemen and the waiting ambulance crew and the group of poacherswho had discovered the body, God only knew how many other people had trampedback and forth past the body and along the roadway where those who dumped itmust have stopped.

Wewould look for distinctive tyre treads, footprints, and so on, and try to findwhatever forensics we could, but the spot where this body had been abandoned,though secluded, was only a few hundred yards behind the local Cineplex. Onweekend nights this whole stretch of lane was lined with cars, each respectingthe other's space, obeying an unspoken rule of privacy to which I had myselfsubscribed when younger, when I was finally allowed to take my father's car tocollect my girlfriend. The makes of cars had changed since then - and I tellmyself, in moments of righteous indignation (though I accept that it's probablynot true), that the kind of activities in which the couples engage has probablychanged too. However, the place remained the same - as dark and furtive as anyof the clumsy embraces which take place on back seats there at night. Indeed,it was possible that Angela Cashell had met her death in such a car.