Regardless of the implicit threat that my attack on Whitey McKelvey would surface once more, I was reluctant anyway to hand things over to the National Criminal Investigation Bureau. My handling of the case had hardly been exemplary, but I felt I was at last on the right track.
"The first question is, how did Ratsy Donaghey end up with the ring?" I said, trying to ignore his comment.
"Well, either Mary gave it to him or he took it from her," Costello said. "And she may not have cared for me, but she cared for that ring. It cost a fortune."
I started the engine and indicated to turn back towards Lifford. "Where are we going?" Costello said.
I looked at him but could not answer.
Chapter Thirteen
Monday, 30th December
At 9.30 on Monday morning, I met Williams in our storeroom office. She and Holmes had secured an artist's impression of the girl with whom Terry Boyle had been spotted on the night he died. Unfortunately, for all that effort, the picture could have been of any teenaged girclass="underline" small, fair hair, attractive; no eye-colour, no distinctive tattoos or piercing. The e-fit would be released to the press, but even Williams admitted that she didn't hold out much hope. Holmes was continuing his suspension at home, watching daytime TV and phoning suspects whose names had been bandied about in connection with Boyle. It was a thankless task, but he was using a Garda cellphone, so it wasn't costing him anything.
"She looks like somebody I know," I said, turning my head to one side, as though looking from a different angle might help me see more clearly.
"She looks like anybody I know," Williams said. "That's the problem. How's the Cashell case moving?"
I told her all that Costello had told me. When I finished she shook her head in disbelief, then said, "I guess you were right when you said the ring was a message. Do you think it was meant for Costello?"
"Maybe. It's something we'll have to consider. First we figure out what Ratsy Donaghey had to do with all this. I have a feeling that, if he's involved, Mary Knox didn't voluntarily give that ring away."
"Well, I have two bits of news," Williams said. "First off, I checked that video again. Bad news is there was no sign of Whitey McKelvey."
"But we saw her going in with him."
"No," she replied, raising a finger in the air in a way that reminded me of one of my old school teachers. "We saw someone going in with Cashell, whom we assumed to be Whitey. Remember, the guy with the short blond hair and jeans. White shirt?"
"I remember," I said. "What about him?"
"He appears again later. Going to the toilet. I had to go and check in the bar myself last night. He went into the girls' toilet. He was a she."
"Are you sure?" I asked, though I knew it was a stupid question.
"As best I can be. It's hard to tell. The white shirt is kind of baggy. A small-breasted woman, short hair? Yeah, could be a woman. Maybe Whitey McKelvey was telling the truth. He doesn't appear anywhere on the video."
"If he was telling the truth about that, maybe he did sell the ring," I said.
"Let's say he did. How did it end up on Cashell's finger? Unless someone bought the ring specifically for that purpose. Which would have meant tracking down Whitey. Which meant they knew the ring had been stolen. Or maybe Ratsy told them it had been stolen. Maybe that's why he had cigarette burns all over his arms. Maybe they tortured him until he told them about it. They trace it back to McKelvey and buy it from him," Williams added. "Then plant it on his girlfriend's body to make it look like he did it. But why?"
"What if McKelvey wasn't the link. What if the message wasn't for McKelvey or Costello? What if it was meant for Johnny Cashell?"
"It's possible. Should we go see him?" Williams suggested.
"I guess we'd better," I said.
We didn't get any further, though, for my own cellphone rang. It was Kathleen Boyle, Terry's mother, and she had received something unusual in the mail.
"I don't usually open my husband's mail," she explained, sitting on the same sofa as she had the night her son had been murdered. "Only at Christmas. Well, some people don't realize we're separated, you see. They still send cards to both of us, but in his name. You know, Mr and Mrs Seamus Boyle. I open them and send his on to him."
"No need to explain, Mrs Boyle," Williams said, impatient to find out what exactly had been sent.
"Well, I knew this was a Christmas card when it arrived today. I just thought it was late. But the card was blank you see – no message, nothing. Just this inside…" She held out a photograph, its subject unclear as the light shimmered with the shaking of her hand across the glossy finish.
When I took the picture from her, I was both surprised and strangely comforted to see the familiar image of Mary Knox, sitting on the steps, frozen in a moment that must have held significance for whoever had taken the photograph – or whoever was attaching it to murders twenty-odd years after her disappearance.
Mrs Boyle caught the glance between myself and Williams. "Do you know who she is?" she asked.
"The question is, do you?" I replied.
"No idea. I've never seen her before. I just thought… Well, you said if I thought of anything unusual to get in touch."
"You're sure you don't know her?" I asked again, desperate now to find the link, the relevance of this picture.
"No, I've never set eyes on her, I swear."
"The card was sent to your husband, Mrs Boyle. Would he know her?"
"I… I don't know," she said, suddenly taken aback by the thought. "She might be one of his… women. But the picture looks so old."
"Can we contact your husband, Mrs Boyle?" I asked. "To see if-"
She nodded vigorously. "Oh, he'll be here later. For the funeral tomorrow." She looked from Williams to me and back, as if somewhere in the space between us she might find an explanation for the death of her son.
After assuring Mrs Boyle that she had done the right thing in calling us, we sat in the car and discussed our progress. There was no discernable link between Ratsy Donaghey, Angela Cashell and Terry Boyle, yet someone had murdered the three of them, and Mary Knox's picture had turned up in connection with all three crimes. Ratsy Donaghey was the same generation as Johnny Cashell and, though I didn't know Seamus Boyle, Mary Knox's photograph had been sent to him, not his wife. I decided the only thing left to do was to confront Johnny Cashell and Seamus Boyle. Before we did, I called Hendry to see if he had found out anything more about Knox's disappearance. He had spent the morning going over case notes for me.
"I told you yesterday. The main line of inquiry at the time was IRA involvement. Of course, that meant that it never went any further."
"Does the name Ratsy Donaghey mean anything? Druggie from Letterkenny."
"Tony?"
"That's him."
"Tony's name appeared once or twice. One of the neighbours said she had seen him a couple of times around the house before the girl vanished. Not just him, mind," he added.
"No word on the kids yet?"
"Nothing. My guess is if she's alive they're with her. Otherwise, one of her neighbours wasn't spotted for a few days after the disappearance. Went to Dublin to a sister, she said. She and Knox were very close; she looked after the kids, apparently, when Knox was working. Joanne Duffy her name was. Lives in Derry now, somewhere. Why do you ask about Tony Donaghey?"
"His name's come up on this side."
"What did you call him? Ratsy?" Hendry asked, and I explained.
When Donaghey was a teenager he used to hunt and catch rats in the farms around Lifford. On summer days, when the weather was stiflingly hot, he went into Letterkenny and hung around by traffic lights, a live rat in the pocket of his coat. If a single female driver stopped at the lights, with her window down because of the heat, Donaghey would throw the live rat onto her lap. Generally, the driver's first reaction was to leap out of the idling car. Donaghey could then jump in and drive off. He did it six times before he was caught. Rumour also has it that the officer who caught him, who is now a superintendent, broke the bones of Donaghey's two hands with a truncheon as a salutary lesson in the summary justice of Donegal.