Bleed a River Deep (27 page)

Fifteen minutes later I watched as he hugged his wife, son and daughter, and then was led away to start a fourteen-month sentence for fuel-smuggling and evasion of duty. With good behaviour, he would be out in half that time.

As they left the courtroom, his son turned and stared at me angrily. And then he started to cry for his father.

Early last week, Natalia and Karol called on us. Following the hospitalization of Strandmann and the collapse of the immigrant-smuggling case, Natalia had been told her evidence was no longer required. Four days later she received a letter telling her that, as an illegal immigrant, she would be deported back to Chechnya by the end of the month.

The day they called was chilled, the air sharp with the scent of decay. The boughs of the apple tree at the front of our house bent heavy with the rotting fruit of the autumn. Natalia stood outside our house, Karol at her side, as in her best broken English she thanked Debbie and me for our hospitality and kindness.

Debbie listened while she spoke, her eyes moist with tears, her fingers playing with the necklace that Weston had given to me just a few weeks ago. When Natalia had finished speaking, they embraced tightly, as old friends might.

‘You take care,’ Debbie said, holding her hand.

‘I’m sorry for everything,’ I said. Karol began to translate but Natalia held up a hand to silence both of us. She spoke quickly in Chechen, then turned and looked at Karol.

‘Don’t apologize,’ he translated. ‘You opened your home to me. You made me welcome.’

Her words were not enough though to assuage the guilt I felt at all that had befallen her.

‘I tried my best,’ I said, my own eyes filling. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘No sorry,’ Natalia said. ‘Family. Thank you.’

‘I—’ I started to speak, but could think of no expression as eloquent as the one she had just made. ‘Thank you,’ I said, finally.

Karol spoke himself then, without prompting. ‘I’m going to go with her.’

‘Are you coming back?’ I asked, though I already knew the response.

He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I’ll stay with Natalia until she finds her feet. Then we’ll see what happens. Who knows?’

‘Are you two—?’ I began, but Debbie thumped my arm and rolled her eyes.

Natalia laughed.

‘Friends,’ Natalia said, smiling warmly at Karol in a manner that left her answer open to question. Then she leant down and kissed first Penny and then Shane on their foreheads.

Karol approached them too and, stooping, offered his hand to shake. Penny pulled her hand away from him and stepped back a little.

‘Penny,’ Debbie said sharply.

Karol smiled gently at her. ‘I must say sorry, Miss Devlin. I said bad things to your daddy when we met in the shop. I was wrong. He’s a fine man.’

Penny looked up at me, then back at Karol. Finally she put out her hand and shook his.

‘He’s a fine man,’ he repeated to her, and she rewarded him with the gift of her smile.

When we had said goodbye, Karol and Natalia climbed into his car and he started the ignition. Debbie, who had been standing beside me, gripping my hand, suddenly let go and ran down to the car. She bent down at the passenger-side window and tapped on the glass.

Natalia rolled down the window and smiled uncertainly. Then Debbie reached up to the clasp of the necklace she wore and, having unhooked it, passed it in through the window to Natalia.

‘For you,’ she said. ‘God bless you both.’

With that, she patted the roof of the car and came back up the driveway to me. She stood beside me, her hand in mine, and in that single gesture made me feel that I could, perhaps, begin to forgive myself too.

One morning, after stopping in at the station, I drove out to the Carrowcreel. As I pulled to a halt under the cover of the fir plantation, several cars passed me.

I walked upstream with a bunch of flowers to leave at the spot where Helen Gorman died. I stood by the river and said prayers for the happy repose of her soul. And, in the silence of the woodland, as the river passed with hushed whispers, I like to think that my prayers were heard.

On my way back downriver, towards the car, I spotted Ted Coyle. He was wading upstream, a sieve in his hand. He dipped and lifted a handful of silt from the riverbed and dropped it into the sieve. He then held it just at the water surface and let it wash away the dirt. He inspected the remnants, then upturned the sieve and spilt the contents back into the river. When he saw me he waded back downstream.

‘You’re not leaving then?’ I asked, nodding towards the now almost deserted car park – only my car and his van remained.

‘No,’ he said, drawing the word out. ‘First here, last to go.’

‘Have you anywhere to go?’

He looked at the river, then turned his face towards the sky. ‘Sure where else would you go? Where could be nicer than this?’

I took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘You can’t stay here for ever, Mr Coyle. Go home. There’s nothing left to find here. Your kids must miss you.’

He squinted at me from behind the lenses of his glasses. ‘I suppose so. I’m just . . . I thought it might be nice to wait until I make a find – a real find. Let me leave with my head held high, you know?’

‘You could be waiting for some time. Orcas had no gold in the end,’ I said. ‘Apart from that first vein. There was nothing else.’

‘One vein is all you need, Inspector,’ he said. ‘That’s all it takes.’

I regarded the man and his attempts to retain some sense of pride. His own gaze shifted from me to the river and back again, and I could sense that he was waiting for me to leave.

I held out my hand. ‘Good luck to you then, Mr Coyle.’

‘And you too, Inspector Devlin,’ he replied, shaking my hand in his.

Then he pushed his glasses up his nose, turned and stepped back down into the river.

Just this morning I saw Ted Coyle one more time. He was smiling from the front page of the local newspaper, holding in the palm of his hand a twisted nugget of gold. He had discovered it a few days before, while panning the river. He could not believe his luck, he said.

The last of the prospectors, and ultimately the only man to profit from the gold vein in Donegal, was finally leaving the Carrowcreel. The paper speculated that the nugget was worth up to €15,000. I suspected that its true value was much greater; it was all that the man might need to return to his family, to face his children with a sense of dignity.

That is, perhaps, the best for which any of us may aim.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to all who helped in bringing
Bleed a River Deep
to fruition, not least Ed Harcourt for permission to use the name of a great song for the title.

Thanks to my friends and colleagues in St Columb’s who have been incredibly supportive of the Devlin novels, especially Sean McGinty, Nuala McGonagle, Tom Costigan, Eoghan Barr and the members of the English Department. Special thanks to Bob McKimm.

I received valuable advice on various aspects of this book from Moe Lavigne of Galantas Mining, and Paddy McDaid and Carmel McGilloway, who offered advice and help with legal procedures. Any inaccuracies are entirely my own.

Thanks to the various bookshops and libraries that have been so supportive of these books, especially to Dave Torrans in No Alibis and Dave and Daniel in Goldsboro.

Thanks to Peter Straus and Jenny Hewson of RCW, and Will Peterson and Emily Hickman of The Agency, who have been terrific in supporting and developing my writing. Also Pete Wolverton and Liz Byrne at Thomas Dunne Books, Eva Marie Von Hippel and AJ at Dumont, and all involved with Pan Macmillan: Maria Rejt, Caitriona Row, Ellen Wood, Cormac Kinsella, David Adamson, Sophie Portas and especially my UK editor, Will Atkins, to whom this book is dedicated and without whom the Devlin series could not have come this far.

Thanks to Michael, Susan, Lynda, Catherine, Ciara, Ellen, Anna, Elena, Karl, Paul, Rosaleen, Jessica, Zenita, Phelim and Alex.

Special thanks to my parents, Laurence and Katrina, for everything that they have done and continue to do, and likewise to my sister and brothers, Carmel, Joe and Dermot.

Finally, as always, this book is for my wife, Tanya, and our children, Ben, Tom and David, with all my love.