"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 that in Primary Two.
"Outside, kids," I said and waited until Penny pulled the door quietly shut behind her, hefting Shane in her other arm. "What do you reckon with the tablet? E?"
"Could well be. We'll find out soon enough. Check with the family about drugs history. Check about epilepsy as well. If she'd never had a fit before, 'twould fairly much guarantee that it's drug- related in some way."
I nodded. "Still, this mention of someone small would seem to suggest Whitey McKelvey."
"Looks that way, Benedict," Costello agreed. "I'll put out a description, see if we can't pick him up. Either that or hope the northerners get him before Cashell's extended family go out and buy more petrol."
Chapter Three
Monday, 23rd December
On Monday morning I stopped off at the station early and was informed by Burgess, the Desk Sergeant, about Tommy Powell's father, who had reported seeing an intruder in his room at Finnside Nursing Home. Neither Burgess nor I felt it warranted much of an investigation: a seventy-five-year-old man, placed in a home because he suffers from dementia, claims someone was in his room, in a place where the nurses check on the patients every hour or so, night and day. It seemed like a no-brainer. On the other hand, Powell was not only very rich, but also influential, with a mouthy son who would think nothing of going to the local papers about how Garda carelessness left his poor father prone to intruders in his own bedroom. I told Burgess I would follow it up myself when I got the chance, just to keep Powell Jr quiet.
I phoned ahead to the cinema to make sure that Martin, the manager, was there, then drove round and took his statement, which simply confirmed all that Costello had told me. Martin knew the Cashell girls; he'd recognized Angela because of her blonde hair, and her two sisters – one older, one much younger. Better still, he was able to show me the CCTV recording for that afternoon.
We sat in the back office of the cinema, the building strange in daylight without the smell of heating popcorn. Martin fast- forwarded the video until 2.45 p.m. and we watched. A few minutes later a group entered the shot, coming into the cinema. But the girl who should have been Angela was not wearing the jeans and blue hooded top her father had described. In fact, she was wearing a short skirt and a red coat. It was difficult to identify her for certain because of the graininess of the shot, but Martin was convinced.
"That's them," he said, pointing to the group.
"Are you sure? That's not what we were told she was wearing."
He sighed and looked at me as though I had disappointed him. "I'm telling you, that was them. I served them myself; I remember Angela Cashell. My wife calls that thing she's wearing a greyhound skirt."
"Why?"
" 'Cause they're just behind the hare." He laughed at his joke.
He forwarded further through the tape, seeming to know where to stop and I suspected that he had gone over it a few times already in preparation for a visit from the Guards. At 4.03 p.m. Angela Cashell walked out of the cinema with her sisters. Despite the graininess of the footage, I think she laughed as she spoke to the other girls. I hope she did.
"The younger one was the problem," he explained: "why we asked them to leave. The older two could watch the horror movie, but not the young girl. It would give her nightmares."
I nodded and silently considered that the murder of her sister might have a more lasting impact on her than a horror film.
Before getting back into my car, I walked the few hundred yards from the cinema to the spot where Angela Cashell had been found. The grass was well-trodden now and some locals had left bunches of flowers lying just beyond the spot where she had lain. Blue and white crime-scene tape fluttered in the breeze and tangled in the branches of the old hawthorn tree to which it had been tied.
I went over to the bouquets at the base of the tree, reading the cards attached with grim curiosity. There was a bunch left by the Cashell girls. Sadie had left an old battered teddy bear with "From Mummy and Daddy with love" written on a piece of foolscap tucked into the ribbon around its neck. The whole thing reminded me of the fairy trees people used to talk about in the west of Donegal. Locals would tie talismans of some sort around the tree and in return, the fairies would bless them. The base of this tree was covered with Mass cards and rosary beads, sympathy cards and flowers. Among them I saw a photograph, clearly taken decades earlier. In it, a young woman was sitting on a set of concrete steps. Behind her, I could see children playing on a beach. I assumed the woman was a grandmother of Angela's and replaced the photograph, tucking it behind a vine of ivy that snaked up around the hunk of the tree. I read a few more of the messages, laying each card gently onto the bed of damp moss at the tree's base.