I saw a flash of something in Caroline Williams's eyes, and then her face softened and became unreadable. "It's still his daughter, though. Biological or not."
"So," I said, "the questions are: where did she spend Thursday night? Who was she with on Friday night? Who gave her the change of clothes? Where are they now? Who gave her the ring? I don't think she bought it; it looked very good quality, a family heirloom.
Williams spoke first. "Might be worth checking pawn shops, local second-hand jewellers and so on to see if any of them sold it."
"Check lists of stolen goods too," I replied. "This might have been part of a stash. Someone lifted it and gave it to her. It's a safe bet her boyfriend, whoever he was, didn't buy it for her."
"The whole ring thing might be a little tenuous, Inspector," Costello suggested. "Might be best to follow up the drugs angle too."
"What about clubs?" Holmes said. "If drugs were involved, she got them somewhere. She was spotted clubbing on Thursday night; chances are she was out again on Friday. Maybe we could find out who she was with."
"Good," I said. "This is all good. If you each want to take your own suggestion and follow it. Caroline, ask Burgess on the front desk to pull you up lists of stolen goods for the past six months, say. Jason, start with the Strabane clubs and move onto Letterkenny. We meet everyday at 9.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. to review status. Okay?"
Costello wished us success from behind his desk, and then we were dispatched to our new office. It was actually a storeroom whose contents – mostly cleaning products – had been removed. Two desks had been set facing each other, each furnished with a phone and a plastic chair. Behind one of the desks, a corkboard had been nailed. I was busying myself with pinning up crime-scene photographs and a timeline for the case when Burgess phoned through from the front desk, despite the fact that it was only fifty feet away.
"Detective Devlin," he said, with a formality designed only to impress the public, "there's a lady here to see you."
I stuck my head out the doorway of the office and saw, standing beyond Burgess's desk, Miriam Powell, wife of Thomas Powell Jr. I said earlier that I had known him when we were younger, but it was not the whole truth. I knew Powell because, when we were eighteen, he had started dating Miriam Kelly, unbeknown to me, despite the fact that I was her boyfriend at the time. In fact, they had been dating for four months before she told me.
We were parked below the waterworks station, along the back road to Strabane, lying on the back seat of my father's car. She had returned from holiday and her skin was tanned. It seemed to radiate with heat and light, even in the darkness of the car, and I could smell and taste coconut off her shoulders and neck as I kissed them, pushing off her blouse and fumbling with the clasp of her bra until she reached back and opened it for me. She unbuttoned my shirt and ran her hand down my chest. Her breath fluttered in my ear and tickled against the soft skin at the back of my neck, which affected me in ways I could not express.
Less than ten minutes later we were driving out onto the main road again. She did not look at me as I apologised for my lack of control. Nor, indeed, did she look at me as she smoked the cigarette that I gave her and told me why she did not wish to see me anymore and that she wanted me to run her home. As I watched her walk up the driveway to her father's house, I was disturbed by the notion that she had provided for me out of pity, a last charitable act which caused her no more thought than the cigarette butt she flicked onto the driveway.
Three nights later, at a local dance that my brothers had forced me to attend, I watched her dance close to Thomas Powell with an ease that only intimacy can achieve. She pressed her stomach against him while they swayed under the flashing lights, and I watched her hand slide into his pocket as his slid onto her buttocks. She whispered something to Powell and he looked over at me watching them. Then, the two of them laughed at a shared secret, which I was sure involved me and the incident in the back seat of the car. Consequently, I can never meet Powell without seeing his smiling face in my memory. Likewise, I can never see his wife without the same, overshadowed by the memory of the urgency of her breath, hot against my neck, and the scent of coconut from sun-kissed skin.
Burgess pointed to me and I watched her now walk down towards our storeroom office, deftly swaying from side to side to avoid the corners of desks and filing cabinets which cluttered up the main working area of the station. She wore a linen suit to accentuate a tan achieved despite the fact that it would be Christmas in two days. Her brown hair was cut short and slightly spiked. She held a small handbag under her arm and held out a perfectly manicured hand to me. Unsure whether to kiss it or shake it, I opted for the latter and invited her to sit. She did so and crossed her legs in a languid manner, straightening the right leg of her trousers to ensure the crease fell properly. She wore sandals even though it was freezing outside. I noticed she had a tiny gold ring on her little toe.
"Benedict. Lovely to see you. How's… your wife?" Miriam had attended college with Debbie and they had lived together for a year, around the time when Debbie and I started dating. Although she still invited us for drinks every so often and sincerely promised to meet soon for dinner when we bumped into each other coming out of Mass on an occasional Sunday morning, we all knew that the polite invitations were just that, formalities which both sides hoped the other would not insist upon honouring. "Deborah, that's right."
"Debbie's great, Miriam. It's good to see you, too. How can I help you?" I tried to avoid eye contact, but I believe that Miriam sensed my discomfort.
"Thomas told me that he saw you at Mass yesterday. I believe he behaved deplorably towards you, Benedict, and I wish to apologise. He's very upset about his father, you see. Sometimes Thomas has difficulty in telling his friends from…" She faltered mid-sentence, flicking open her handbag as though it might contain the words she wanted.
"His enemies?"
She laughed gaily, dismissing the word with the slightest wave of her hand. "We're all terribly worried about Tommy Senior, Benedict. Especially after this scare, when he saw someone in his room."
"What do you want from me, Miriam?"
"Thomas is afraid that, after his behaviour yesterday, there might be some… animosity between you that would hamper your willingness to investigate what happened with his father. That's all." She paused, but when it became clear that I was not going to speak, she continued. "Tommy Senior did a lot for this county. He was a great TD in his time. A great advocate for this area. Thomas wants to ensure that his father is afforded the best treatment he can get. In all things."
Tommy Powell Sr had indeed been a TD, a member of the Dail, the Irish government, right through the worst of the Troubles. He had remained resolutely independent, switching allegiances between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, depending on which promised him most for Donegal. He had secured a number of large textile lactones for the area, bringing with them several hundred jobs and a boost to the economy. On the negative side, most of them set up along rivers and pumped effluent into the water, leading to some high-profile environmental protests. In every case Tommy Powell Sr appeared in the local media and decried the types of liberals who would put fish before people and seaweed before food on the table. His earthy, common-man rhetoric made him immensely popular, and even those who personally disliked the man – and there were many – had to admire the charisma he brought to the job. He had retired two years earlier, after suffering a minor stroke, and rumours were circulating that, in the next election, Thomas Powell Jr would follow in his father's footsteps and enter the world of politics. Certainly he had the wealth and media savvy to undertake such a venture as a vanity project, regardless of his sincerity or likely success.