"Right. Maybe I've seen her round the town or something. It'll come to me eventually."
I thought of driving out to Powell's house to tell Miriam that I had spoken to her father-in-law, despite the fact that I knew that she and her husband would once again make me the object of some new private joke. In fact, I made it as far as the house, a massive Victorian manse which Powell Sr had bought from the Anglican Church after their minister moved out to Raphoe from Lifford in the early '60s. Oaks and sycamore, trunks heavy with vines and ivy, surrounded the house. The wall around their two-acre estate was added maybe forty years ago, built, I remember being told by my father, from bricks from the old jailhouse that had been demolished in 1907. They were unidentifiable now under the thick, wet moss that cushioned the coping stone and had broken off layers of the brick, which lay shattered on the pavement beneath.
I sat opposite their driveway gates and peered beyond to where Miriam had parked her BMW next to the Land Rover that her husband drove, as befitted one of the landed gentry. Powell Jr lived off the rent collected from his father's various properties – wealth to which, as far as anyone knew, he added very little. The jailhouse bricks were typical of Powell Sr: an extravagance that no one would notice, so that he retained his image as one of the common men, while the rumours of opulence added to his enigmatic status. The Land Rover, meanwhile, was indicative of his son, adding to the image of ostentation he had created for himself.
I debated whether or not to go in, then decided against, partly because Powell Jr would be there. As I shifted into gear I couldn't help but feel that I was being watched.
I was washing up the dinner dishes that evening, while Debbie cleared the table. The kids were in the living room, watching Toy Story for the umpteenth time. Debbie dropped two knives into the dishwater and began to wipe the counter.
"Don't forget that Penny's singing tomorrow night, at Mass," she said.
"I won't," I promised.
"You'd better not. She'll never forgive you."
"I won't," I said, a second time.
She nodded. "Did I see you at Miriam O'Kane's today?" she asked, not looking up from her work, as though this were part of the normal conversation.
"Who? Miriam… Oh, Mrs Pow- Miriam Powell. Yes, I was going to call in to see her husband. He asked me on Sunday to look into an intruder in his father's room. Remember – after Mass?"
"Oh. Is that what you were talking about? I thought maybe Miriam had asked you."
"No. I haven't seen her since… I don't know when."
"This morning, apparently. So your Sergeant said. Caroline, isn't it? Miriam was there when I phoned you, she said."
"Yes, that's right. Just called in to see what progress had been made."
"I'm sure she did. You didn't mention it on the phone."
"No, I didn't think much of it, I suppose."
"Mmm," she said. "Did you make any?"
"Any what?"
"Progress," she said, then went in and sat with the children, while I finished the dishes in silence.
Terry Boyle
Chapter Five
Tuesday, 24th December
I answered the phone on the second ring at 3.30 a.m. that morning, having had difficulty sleeping. Debbie lay beside me, hunched away from me so that, even in sleep, her resentment over the re- emergence of Miriam Powell in our lives was clear. She stirred with the ringing of the phone, but I answered it before it woke the children. It was Costello. A body had been found in a burned-out car on Gallows Lane by a local farmer, Petey Cuthins.
Gallows Lane was so called because, several hundred years ago, before the courthouse was built, this was where local criminals were executed, left hanging from the branches of three massive chestnut trees on the approach into the town, a warning to all visitors. On a good day it provided a panoramic view of Counties Donegal, Derry and Tyrone.
The fire had abated by the time I arrived, a hoar of mist sizzling lightly off the scorched bodywork of the car. Costello had already arrived on the scene with two uniforms whom I recognized but couldn't name, their faces pale, eyes red-rimmed, working silently through their tiredness. Petey Cuthins was standing against his gate, several hundred yards away from the wreckage, trying to keep his pipe smouldering. He nodded a greeting when I got out of the car and muttered "Merry Christmas" through teeth still clenched on the pipe-stem. His face was dark under the hood he wore. I nodded over at Costello, who was telling the uniforms where to place the crime-scene tape. I took a quick glance inside the car, thought better of looking more closely, and went back over to Petey to wait for my stomach to settle.
"Heard the bang – must've been the petrol tank. Nearly sent my cattle haywire." He gestured with a slight nod of his head towards the charred body in the car. "Nothing I could do, Ben. Couldn't carry much in a bucket from the house. By the time I got here there wasn't much sense in getting the fire brigade out: fire was almost dead. Weren't gonna do him no good anyhow."
The registration plate, though damaged, had not been destroyed, the raised numerals revealing that it was a new car – a Nissan Primera, as far as I could tell. The driver was alone; from the size I guessed it was a man, but the body was so badly burned I couldn't be sure.
Costello sent the two officers about their business then approached us. The female officer smiled sadly as she passed with a roll of blue and white tape which she tied onto the hedge behind us and began to unwind.
"Do you think it crashed?" Cuthins called, reluctant to go any closer to the car. To the right of the driver's side I could see a pool of vomit in the grass – presumably Petey had seen more than enough already.
"I don't think so," Costello said, patting me on the back as a gesture of greeting. I guessed he was right: there was no sign of denting on the bodywork, no signs of impact on the area around where the car had stopped. I peered in at the body of the driver, the smell of burnt flesh thick in my mouth and nostrils. "The handbrake is on," Costello pointed out. "And the ignition is turned off." Which meant the car was parked when whatever happened to it had occurred. Costello shook his head slowly, "An awful business, boys. An awful business."
I stepped away from the car and spat the taste from my mouth as Costello took out his phone and called Burgess who had reached the station, giving him the registration number to trace. "Best get a doctor up here. And a few more pairs of hands. It's going to be a long night."
The SOCO officers had to go over to Strabane first to borrow arc lights and a generator from the PSNI. Occasional needles of sleet darted now through the mist, trapped in a fluorescent glare, just as the first gash of red cracked on the horizon. Burgess called back, having run the registration number through Garda Central Communications. The charred remains still strapped inside the car now had a probable name – Terry Boyle, an accountancy student from Dublin, whose parents lived in Letterkenny. Costello asked me to break the news to the family, sending female officer, Jane Long, with me. Just as we were about to leave, I saw John Mulrooney struggling up Gallows Lane towards us to fulfil the slightly ridiculous task, as medical examiner, of pronouncing dead something which was little more than skeleton and pulp.
"Jesus, Ben, it's Christmas Eve," he said, stopping beside us and stubbing out his cigarette, which he had held clamped in his mouth as he'd slipped plastic galoshes over his shoes. I noticed that he was still wearing his pyjamas under his corduroy trousers, the paisley material creeping out over his shoes. "What have we got?" he asked, gesturing towards the car.
"Spontaneous combustion?" I suggested.
Mulrooney steeled himself and went over to the car, holding his breath against the smell. I watched him take a biro from his pocket and use it to poke at the skull, angling it slightly for a clearer view.