Borderlands (27 page)

"Who
was that?" I asked. The Three Rivers was derelict now, and had been for as
long as I could recall.

"I
don't remember," Duffy said, averting her eyes from my mine. "As for
the children, I haven't seen them in twenty-five years."

"Do
you know what happened to them?" Williams asked. Duffy looked at her and
her face reddened. Her eyes began to moisten and she bit lightly at her lip in
a vain attempt to stop the tears.

"I
took them," she said, finally, as she wiped carefully at her tears.
"I know it was wrong, but I took them to Dublin. Left them in an orphanage
in South Circular Road - St Augustine's. I gave them a photograph each of their
mother from that same batch you're looking at."

"That
was it? You just decided to take them away, for no reason?" I asked
incredulously. "What if she'd come back?"

"Someone
told me to do it - someone who was very fond of Mary. He gave me money to take
them. Gave me a hundred punts to give to them. He told me to do it."

"This
man told you to give someone else's children away to an orphanage and you did
it?" Williams's voice rose so quickly it cracked and she had to swallow
back her last words.

"Yes.
He told me she wouldn't be back. Said it would be better for the children if
they were kept away from Strabane for a while. I thought they might be in some
danger. I couldn't look after two children. I did what he said. It wasn't my
fault," she said.

"Who
was he, Ms Duffy? We need a name."

"I
can't tell you."

"Ms
Duffy," I said, as reasonably as possible. "Whoever told you to take
those children away probably knows what happened to their mother. In fact, he
may have been responsible for what happened to her. Now, please, who told you
to take them?"

She looked
from Williams to me and back again. Then she looked at her hands, clasped in
her lap, and finally back at me, a note of defiance clear in her voice and in
her eyes. "Costello, his name was," she said, then preened herself
slightly in vindication at her reluctance to speak, as we struggled to make
sense of what she had told us.

On the
journey home, we tried to examine all the pieces of the case as objectively as possible.
Costello had been having an affair with a prostitute with two children. She
vanishes and he pays a neighbour to have the children taken to Dublin and left
in an orphanage. Twenty-five years later a hood's daughter is killed and her
body is dumped wearing the ring Costello had given to the prostitute.

"Costello
seems to be fitting the frame more and more," Williams said grimly, though
neither of us wanted to consider what would happen if we proved decisively that
he was responsible for Knox's disappearance.

"It
looks that way," I said resignedly, and decided on one final stalling
measure. "The best thing for us to do is to try to locate those children:
it's the only solution."

"Are
you going to speak to him about this?" Williams asked, as we drove through
Porthall, approaching Lifford from the east.

"Not
yet," I said, though I knew that eventually I would have to face Costello,
as surely as I would have to deal with Frank and the attacks on Anderson's
livestock. "What are you doing now?" I asked.

The sky was
darkening, although it was only just after four o'clock. The moon hung low in
the sky, still little more than a sliver of ice. Three or four stars stood out
in the navy sky; a bulkhead of cloud building in the west promised snow by
morning. We had already overtaken a number of the local farmers out spreading
salt on the minor roads.

"No
plans. I'm meeting Jason later for dinner. In fact, he's cooking."

"Fancy
doing one last thing for us before you shoot home? Check out who owned the
Three Rivers when Knox was about. I'll try this St Augustine's place and see
what I can find."

The only St
Augustine's in the book was a church, though the priest was able to give me a
number for a nun named Sister Perpetua, who had worked in the orphanage until 1995
when it had closed down. Sister Perpetua, or Sister P as she announced herself
on the phone, was a northerner and proved to be as voluble as her memory was
remarkable.

"I
remember the Knox children, Inspector, yes," she said, her Fermanagh
accent mixed with just a hint of the shorter Dublin twang. "Sean and
Aoibhinn." She pronounced the girl's name
Eveen.
"A sad case.
They arrived with us just after New Year, 1979.1 remember because we took some
of the children to see His Holiness in Drogheda that year and the Knox children
were among them. From what I recall they arrived with next to nothing. An aunt
left them off, I think; gave them fifty punts, which was fairly generous in
those days." Though still leaving her with fifty punts profit, I thought,
for all her socialist beliefs.

She told me
the story of the Knox children. It took many months for them to settle into
their new home. Their accents, a mix of English and Northern Irish, stood out
vividly against the southern brogue of their peers. The girl was subdued and
unwilling to participate in any games. The boy was fiercely protective of her
and got into more than one fight with people whom he felt were criticizing her.
Finally, in September of that year, they were placed with two foster families,
on either side of Dublin. The girl lasted four days, the boy less still. They
had both cried inconsolably for the other, and, indeed, the boy had attacked
his foster mother when she tried to put an arm round him to comfort him. And so
they ended up back together again and became suddenly much more settled and
content.

It was
agreed by all the staff at St Augustine's that the children were precocious
with regard to matters of the body. They frequently used coarse language and
sexual slang. The boy had to be reprimanded several times for peeping up
girls' skirts and, on one occasion, hiding in the girls' toilets.

The
children were placed, unsuccessfully, with a number of foster homes, always
returning happily to St Augustine's where, for perhaps the first time in their
lives, they experienced some stability. Over the next number of years they
drifted in and out of foster homes, running away from them before they had a
chance to integrate fully. When Sean turned eighteen he left St Augustine's
and rented a flat in Dublin, making money doing odd jobs on building sites.
When the girl was seventeen she saw an advertisement for a Garda recruitment
drive and entered training for An Garda when she turned eighteen.

"She
was a beautiful girl, Inspector," Sister Perpetua said, "but
troubled. I think she saw the Garda as a chance to join a new family. They were
both awful lonely - apart from each other. So ... what have they done"

I was a bit
taken aback, and she clearly sensed it. She continued, "They're not dead
or you'd have said. I can only guess that one or both of them are in some sort
of trouble. Am I right?"

"You
should have been a policewoman," I said.

"I
notice that you haven't answered my question."

"I
know," I said, laughing.

"Fair
enough," she replied. "I can take a hint. Do me a favour, though?
You'll think I'm some kind of wishy-washy liberal in this, but don't be judging
those children too harshly. They were dealt a fairly stinking hand in life, do
you see?"

I thanked
Sister Perpetua and hung up the phone. I could not easily dismiss her parting
words, though I reminded myself that I needed to reserve my sympathy, in the
first instance, for Angela Cashell and Terry Boyle, more than anyone else.
Still, regardless of where the brother had gone, I now knew that aged eighteen,
in 1992, Aoibhinn Knox had joined the Garda.

I looked
around the station for Williams but she was nowhere to be seen. It was nearing
5.30 p.m. and I wanted to catch the Garda training centre in Templemore before
it closed. I dialled and asked to speak to the recruitment officer. A Sergeant
O'Neill introduced himself and listened while I explained that I needed a name
from the list of recruits for the 1992 recruitment drive and details of that
person's postings. He told me that the college would have details only of the
first posting of each trainee, if that would be of any help. He put me on hold
but, after a few minutes of piped music, he returned and confirmed that
Aoibhinn Knox had joined in that drive and had been stationed in Santry for her
first posting.

I thanked
him and dialled through to Santry, asking to be put through to the officer in
charge of new recruits. Again I was put on hold, before, eventually,
Superintendent Kate Mailey introduced herself.

"There
can't be too many woman Supers, ma'am," I said, having introduced myself.

"Just
the four of us, so far," she replied. "But we're doing the same work
as the 170 men in our position."

"I
don't doubt it ma'am," I said. "I need information about the posting
of one of your starting officers."

"I
know," she said. "The sergeant told me. I know everyone who's gone in
and out of this station in the past twenty years or so. Who are you looking
for?"

"A
recruit called Aoibhinn Knox. She would have been posted to you in 1993
probably."

"I
remember her - a lovely girl."

"That's
quite a memory you have, ma'am." I said jokingly.

Her reply
was deadpan. "I can't forget Knox. She married one of my own team members.
He was killed in 1997 in a ballsed-up drugs bust. I never forget officers
killed in duty."

"No,
ma'am," I said. "Of course not. I'm sorry."

"Officer
Knox left An Garda soon afterwards, Inspector, though by then she was called
Coyle. Oh, and by the way - you're pronouncing her name wrong. She's not
Eveen. Her name's
Yvonne:
Yvonne Coyle."

I bumped,
quite literally, into Williams in the corridor, hardly able to tell her the
news. On our way to the car, I tried Hendry's mobile. When he finally answered,
I told him what I had learned and asked him to get to Coyle's home in Glennside
and arrest her.

Williams
drove across into Strabane and, while overtaking tractors and avoiding traffic
islands, she relayed what she had discovered.

"The
Three Rivers was originally owned by an Indian businessman named Hassem, but
he sold up and developed a chain in the North. Now it gets kind of complicated
here, because a consortium bought it over in 1974. Five local businessmen and
budding entrepreneurs: Anthony McGonigle, Sean Morris, Gerard McLaughlin,
Dermot Keavney and, leaving the best to last, a certain Thomas Powell
Senior." She smiled over at me, proud of her efforts, then focused back on
the road, someone's horn blaring as we sped past them on the inside.

"Shit!
You're kidding me."

"I kid
you not, boss. It keeps coming back to the same people. Looks like Knox had a
thing going with both Powell and Costello."

"The
question is, did one of them have her killed? And why?"

"You
don't think Ratsy acted off his own bat?" Williams asked, risking a glance
across at me.

"I
don't see it. He'd no reason to. Someone paid him."

We pulled
into Glennside, though there was no need for me to direct Williams to the
house, for a PSNI car was already parked outside, its flickering blue lights
intermittently illuminating the trees in Coyle's garden.

The house
was in darkness. Two uniformed officers walked around the side, shining torches
in the windows, using their gloved hands to minimize glare. I went up to the
front window. Her furniture was still in its place but, as best I could see,
all books, pictures and ornaments were gone.

Hendry came
round the front of the house, alerted to our arrival by one of his officers.

"Come
on round, Inspector. She's left the back door unlocked," he said grimly.

I felt a
wave of nausea wash through me. A cold sweat broke on my skin, prickling on my
arms under the heat of my overcoat. I was sure we would find her hanging
inside, or lying on the floor, her body discoloured and stiff, or white and
drained in a crimson bath. Yet none of those things awaited us. The house was
simply deserted, the rooms stripped of anything personal. In the fridge, milk
had begun to sour a little, smelling out the other contents. A bunch of bananas
had begun to soften and blacken in the fruit bowl. A few circulars lay on the
hall carpet behind the front door. The house itself was chilled from several
days without heating.

Hendry sent
the uniforms to canvass the neighbours while we sat in the kitchen and had a
smoke. Hendry and Williams introduced themselves formally and exchanged pleasantries,
then I explained the path that had led us to Coyle. I told Hendry about
Cashell, Boyle and Donaghey, and my belief that Ratsy had abducted and killed
Knox, with Cashell acting as an accomplice at worst or as driver at best,
although we had no proof of this. I did not tell him my suspicions about
Costello, nor the fact that Powell's name had appeared more than once during
the investigation.