In order to be heard clearly, we both had to lean towards the microphone in a manner that resulted in our sitting so close together our knees touched under the desk.
‘This is cosy, isn’t it?’ Morrison observed.
‘I imagine this must have been about the size of your cell. Am I right?’ I asked, smiling. I was aware of the rising panic of the presenter, Laurence Forbes, who sensed that his interview might be headed in a different direction from the one he’d intended.
‘We’ll just wait for the news to end, then we’ll start. I’ll come to you first, Inspector Devine, if that’s OK?’
‘Devlin,’ I said, a little embarrassed. I cleared my throat. ‘My name’s Devlin.’
‘Devlin,’ Forbes repeated, nodding. ‘And you’re Mr Morrison?’
‘Indeed I am,’ Vincent Morrison said. ‘Mr Morrison.’
I heard the producer’s voice over my headphones and Forbes held up his hand to let us know we were about to go on air. Just as he closed his fist and the light above the door turned red, Morrison muttered into his headphones: ‘My boy’s just dying about your Penny.’
The comment was so incongruous that I convinced myself that I had misheard. Still, it took me a moment to realize that Forbes was speaking to me.
‘Inspector?’ he repeated.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Could you repeat that?’
He looked at me quizzically. ‘I said, good afternoon, Inspector. I was afraid your headphones were playing up.’ He pulled a face and rolled his hand in the air, encouraging me to start talking.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘They’re working fine. I can hear perfectly.’
‘Maybe we’ll start by discussing the drugs problem on the border then,’ he suggested.
I ran through the spiel I had already rehearsed. There was no problem as such. The border region has always had some low-level drugs movement, though nothing too extreme. Dealers around the border tend to be small-time crooks. The difficulty was that the people who could help the police were too often those using the product these people were selling and who wanted to ensure that their supplier remained free to keep supplying.
Forbes turned to Morrison. ‘If there’s no problem, as Inspector Devine says, why does the border area need an organization such as The Rising?’
‘Well, I should point out that I’m not part of The Rising. I represent the community of Portnee. We believe that The Rising is taking a stand against drug dealers that needs to be taken,’ Morrison said. ‘We are simply a group of residents and parents, looking to voice our concerns about the availability of drugs in our schools and towns. The drugs problem in Ireland has moved out of the cities and into the rural areas, now. Our concern is that this has been, and continues to be, allowed to happen.’
‘I don’t think it’s a case of allowing it—’ I started, but Morrison continued unabated.
‘I suppose when there is a vacuum, something moves to fill it. For too long now, we feel there has been something of a vacuum in the policing of drugs in this area. We aren’t suggesting that groups like The Rising should replace the police. As a community group though, we appreciate the opportunity to express our frustration in a focused, non-violent manner. As Inspector Devine says,’ he continued, smirking, ‘we all know who these people are. We need them to know that they are no longer welcome in our community.’
Before Forbes could say anything, I interjected. ‘If I can come in there; the reservation that An Garda has about such things is that groups like this can drive people underground. Recently a protest was held outside the house of an individual to whom we wished to speak regarding recent activities in the area – though I stress at this point that the individual concerned is being sought only to help us with our inquiries. We have yet to locate that individual, perhaps because he has gone into hiding. We would prefer that such people are in the open where we can monitor them.’
‘Monitoring them doesn’t deal with the problem,’ Morrison countered. ‘The Inspector mentions a protest. The man in question was named as a suspect in the murder of a drug dealer. He himself is a drug dealer.’
‘Allegedly,’ Forbes stressed. ‘We have to be careful about what we say on air.’
‘I don’t want such people living in
my
community,’ Morrison said.
‘Your community,’ I commented. ‘I understood you lived in Derry, Mr Morrison.’
‘I live in Portnee, outside Lifford, not far from yourself, Inspector,’ Morrison said, smiling. ‘Sure our children are even in the same class at school. So, it is very much
my
community.’
His comments took me so much by surprise that I had little to say in response. Forbes, clearly sensing this, thanked us both and wrapped up the interview before hitting a button on his console which started a Johnny Cash number.
‘Thought it was appropriate,’ he commented, looking for us to share his assessment of his own sense of humour. ‘Thanks, gents, that was . . . umm, interesting,’ he added.
We left the studio without speaking. Only when we reached the front door and paused before launching out into the rain again, did we acknowledge that the other was still present.
‘Big disco tonight, isn’t that right?’ Morrison said. ‘The kids’ll love it.’
‘What the fuck are you at?’ I asked. ‘That bullshit about community. What’s the angle?’
Morrison shrugged, as if unaware of my meaning. ‘No angle. I want my kids to grow up somewhere nice. Your crowd are doing fuck all to deal with drugs around the borders. I joined a peaceful community group. I did my time, no complaints. I believe in fresh starts, so I’m prepared to let it slide.’
‘I don’t believe a word of it.’
‘That’s up to you. Sorry about the “Devine” thing – I couldn’t help it.’ Then he winked and stepped out into the rain, his hands in his pockets, as if impervious to the elements that raged around him.
By the time I had finished up some paperwork back at the station in Lifford and made my way slowly through the flood-water that was threatening to make our road impassable, it was already past dinner time. Penny was in our room, trying on clothes while Debbie offered advice and Shane squatted on the rug, playing with his dinosaurs.
When I came up the stairs Penny ran out to meet me, her eyes almost disappearing in the breadth of her smile.
‘What do you think?’ Debbie prompted, nodding towards Penny. I realized she was dressed in her best clothes for the disco. She wore jeans and a top her granny had brought her from their holidays. I noticed that her cheeks were slightly rouged, her neckline broken with a thin silver cross on a necklace we had bought her for her confirmation. She looked prettier and older than I had ever seen her before and both of those realizations made my heart constrict in my chest.
‘You look lovely, sweetie,’ I said. ‘You’d best get changed though – you can’t go to the disco; it’s raining too heavily.’
‘What?’ Debbie asked, before Penny could even formulate the same response.
‘It’s too rough out. Maybe next time,’ I said. ‘Let’s watch a movie together instead.’
Penny looked from me to Debbie. Redness was already flushing her neckline and cheeks.
‘It’s not that bad out,’ Debbie said. ‘If you could get in and out to work, we can get her to the disco. She’s been looking forward to it all week.’
‘She’s not going,’ I said, a little more forcefully than I had intended, for I noticed Debbie’s jaw set, an expression that was mirrored on our daughter’s face.
‘That’s not fair,’ Penny stamped. ‘Everyone is going. You said I could go.’
‘It’s too wet, sweetie,’ I said.
‘It’s not,’ she snapped. ‘And don’t call me sweetie. I’m not your sweetie.’
‘Penny,’ I warned, my voice rising.
‘Maybe we should talk about this, Daddy,’ Debbie said.
‘Mummy,’ Penny said, pleadingly.
‘Mummy and Daddy will talk about it,’ Debbie said, though with not enough conviction to prevent Penny from dropping onto the top step and beginning to sob into her hands.
I placed my hand on her shoulder, noticed the tiny fingernails of her hand painted pink. ‘Honey, honestly, it’s too—’
She shrugged away my hand and spat ‘I hate you’ before getting up and running into her room, slamming the door behind her.
Shane, sat in the middle of our floor, held aloft a model tyrannosaurus. ‘What’s wrong with Penny?’ he asked in a gruff voice, moving the toy with his hand as if it were speaking.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Debbie hissed to me. ‘It’s her first disco. She was dying for you to come home and see her.’
‘I met Vincent Morrison today,’ I said.
‘What of it?’ Debbie asked quizzically.
‘His son is in Penny’s class. He’ll be at the disco tonight.’
‘What of it?’ Debbie repeated. ‘You can bring suspects and witnesses to our house when it suits you, but Penny can’t go out to a disco in case someone’s eleven-year-old son is there. Catch yourself on. She’s going.’
‘I said she’s not,’ I said.
‘And I said she is. And she’ll love it. And you’ll tell her how pretty she looks and sound like you mean it.’
‘I know she looks pretty. That’s not the point. What if Morrison is trying to . . .’
‘Trying to what?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t trust him.’
‘So I heard. You need to start listening to yourself, Ben. Do you know how you sounded on the radio? Petty. And you’re being petty now. She’s going to that disco, and that’s final.’
‘I said she’s not going,’ I started, though my mobile began to ring, cutting me short. I glanced at the phone. Letterkenny. As I flipped the phone open, one finger held out in a request for a moment’s quiet, I heard Debbie mutter, ‘Fucking typical. Off you go, back to work.’
Shane’s mouth opened into a wide O. ‘Mummy said a bad word,’ he said.
Distracted, I had to ask twice for the desk sergeant in Letterkenny to repeat himself. Finally I managed to piece together his message. An old-style blue Volkswagen Beetle with an orange door had been discovered, abandoned near Barnesmore Gap.
I said my own share of bad words as I negotiated one pool of water after another on my way first to Ballybofey, then on through to the Gap. Streams had gouged red mud scars out of the mountainsides flanking the road, the water thick with dirt washing onto the road ahead of me. The car slid on one particularly bad corner and my headlights raked across withered bunches of flowers that had been taped to the crash barriers, marking the site of an earlier fatality on this stretch. The rain thudded off the windscreen, the wipers serving little purpose beyond distracting my attention from the road. Finally I spotted the blue winking light of a Garda car and pulled over.
The Beetle had been left in the picnic area of a small forest just off the main road, parked far enough back that only someone driving into the picnic area would see it, which was unlikely to happen too often here in mid-February. In fact, I idly wondered why the Guard who had found it had come in here at all.
Whoever had abandoned the car had wanted to destroy it for the doors all lay open, the interior was burnt, the dash console blackened twists of moulded plastic. The rain though had been so heavy that, despite some tarnishing of the metal of the roof, the bodywork was remarkably clean, which meant that there might be the possibility of prints, though no dusting could be completed on the outside of the vehicle in this weather. There was no doubting that it fitted the description given to me by Nora Quigley of the vehicle she had seen outside Kielty’s house on the night of his death.
The rain had also, however, prevented the lower half of the bodywork being too badly damaged and the car’s registration plate – and Northern number – was clear. I climbed back into my own car and radioed through to Letterkenny to request a Forensics team. Then I called Jim Hendry.
‘It’s my night off,’ he said upon answering.
‘How the fuck do you think I feel? I’m sitting in a hurricane in Barnesmore Gap looking at a burnt-out car – a car from your side of the border.’
‘What? Misery loves company, so you thought you’d phone me?’
‘I need a registration number run, Jim.’
‘Can it not wait till tomorrow?’
‘I think it’s connected with the murder of Martin Kielty.’
‘The dealer?’
‘The very one.’
He paused for a second, and I could hear him slurping from a drink. ‘Leave it with me,’ he said finally.
I gave him all the details, then added, ‘Thanks. Sorry to spoil your night off.’
‘Fuck it; I’m sitting having a pint in front of the telly. What else have I to be doing?’
I laughed and hung up, then looked out at the storm that was whipping the fir trees on the incline above me. I wondered what I was doing here. Patterson’s invitation to run the station had been a poisoned chalice from the start. I needed some support, another full-time detective working the border with me. I had hoped when I’d heard from Caroline Williams that her entry back into my life might extend to her coming back into the Guards, too, but I realized that I had been deluding myself.
I ran across to the other car where an elderly uniform from Ballybofey was sitting smoking his pipe, listening to classical music.