The Cashell brothers walked the half-mile to Strabane from Lifford, each carrying a can of petrol, and were spotted around 3.30 a.m. crossing the bridge above the point where the rivers Finn and Mourne merge into the Foyle. What they did for the next hour is unclear, but they entered the traveller camp at 5 a.m., just as the first tendrils of grey crept into the pre-dawn sky.
Once there, they doused as many of the houses and caravans as they could with petrol, then they each took out cigarettes and disposable lighters, lit their smokes, and then the houses and caravans around them. The four brothers did not run away, but rather sat on the massive boulders which had been placed at the mouth of the encampment to prevent any more caravans from entering. Johnny listened dispassionately as screams began to shudder through the flimsy metal of the burning caravans.
A passing taxi driver radioed for the police and fire engines and watched while Johnny and his brothers cheered as one traveller family after another stumbled from the burning caravans, screaming and crying. Then Johnny spotted one person in particular – a thin boy who looked no more than twelve or thirteen, with hair so blond it was almost white. Johnny was seen shouting at him. Then he and his brothers ran after the boy, who scuttled like a rabbit through the bushes behind the encampment and across the fields beyond, his bare back luminous in the moonlight.
It was not clear who realized the Cashells' culpability first, but by the time the police arrived, someone had beaten Johnny's brothers so badly that they were unidentifiable. The youngest, Diarmuid, had been rushed to Altnagelvin hospital. A female taxi-driver had described how she had watched two of the travellers, barefoot and bare-chested, yet seemingly oblivious to the winter night (or, perhaps, heated by the flames and the adrenaline of the situation) grab Diarmuid by his straggled hair and throw him to the ground. As he cowered against the boulders blocking the entrance to the estate, they took turns kicking and stomping on him with enough force to shatter his teeth and his jawbone, which soon hung loose and useless as a dead man's.
Frankie Cashell was dragged to the ground by the jacket his wife had made him wear and, though he cursed her when it gave the travellers something to grab, the padding buffered most of the kicks he received to his trunk so that, although his skull was fractured, his ribs were only bruised.
The third Cashell brother, Brendan, was set upon by a number of women, one of whom bit off one of his ears. By the time the police found it later that day, spat into the bushes beyond the smouldering wreck of a caravan, it was beyond saving.
Johnny himself, bleeding profusely, had been found lying in the field across which he had reportedly pursued the traveller boy. The boy had turned on Johnny, pulling a knife on him. Only when Johnny was in the ambulance did it become clear that he had received only a superficial wound, and so he was arrested as soon as he was discharged from hospital and taken to Strabane. Hendry had heard all about it that morning when he arrived for work. Recognizing the name from our exchange the day before, he contacted me.
Johnny sat on the metal frame which doubled as a bench and bed in the holding cell, his fingers exploring under the bandage which had been taped around his abdomen. He looked up when he saw me enter the cell, but went back to his work, testing the wound for tenderness and inspecting the dressing for blood.
"Well, Johnny. Do you feel better now?"
"Piss off, Devlin. You're not allowed in the North. You shouldn't be here."
"Neither should you, Johnny. I'm off duty. This is a social call. What were you playing at, taking on the travellers?" I asked, but his attention remained focused on his dressing. Hendry kicked at Johnny's foot when he still didn't look up.
"I've nothing to say," Johnny muttered. "Have you a fag?"
"Aye," I said, taking the cigarette packet out of my pocket. "But I've forgot my lighter. Have you got one?"
"Ha, ha! Stick it up your arse, Devlin."
"Oi! Mind your mouth, son, you're not in the South now," Hendry said. "Jesus, Devlin, what class of criminal are you lot breeding over there?"
I squatted down beside Cashell, hoping to get his attention. "What had this to do with Angela, Johnny?" I asked, and saw, for a second, the slightest glimpse of recognition. "It was Angela, wasn't it, Johnny? You see, that's why Inspector Hendry here has contacted me – on account of what happened to Angela. But this won't bring her back, Johnny." I didn't intend to sound as patronizing as I did.
He looked up at me fiercely, anger and pride defiant in his face. "And you will, will ye Devlin? Fucking resurrect her? Is that it? You couldn't catch cold in a snow storm. You're a joke. Fuck you." He grew more animated as he spoke, getting angrier and angrier until he almost spat in my face, "Fuck the lot of you!" Then in the silence that followed, his venom spent, he sank back onto the metal frame again. He buried his face in his hands, as would any grieving father who has vented his anger and frustration at the person nearest him because of his failure to do so at those who actually deserved it.
"The boy he was seen chasing was Whitey McKelvey. His real name's Liam or something, but everyone calls him Whitey. A bad wee bugger, too," Hendry told me as he walked me back to my car, where Debbie and the children were waiting for me. "He looks about ten but he's nearer eighteen. Undernourished. Some of the lads here reckon it's deliberate so he can slip through windows more easily when he's robbing a place. Whitey's been in and out of detention centres. He hasn't done anything yet to do real time for, but it'll happen soon enough. Wouldn't surprise me if he's involved in the girl's death. Knives are his thing, mind you. I don't know if he'd be strong enough to lift a body, either. He's wiry but fairly weak. Vicious rather than strong, you know."
"I know him," I said. "He's popped up once or twice on our side too. White-blond hair, FA Cup ears? Let us know if you lift him. Cashell obviously thinks he knows something."
We shook hands. "Surely," Hendry said, "though I hope you get him first. Last time we lifted Whitey, he left the place in a right mess."
Later that evening Superintendent Costello arrived at our house. He does this fairly frequently; part of his personable, policing-thecommunity bit. He squeezed into the armchair in the corner furthest from the TV and held in his hand the teacup and saucer Debbie had given to Penny to bring him. The coffee table upon which a plate of biscuits sat was just a little beyond his reach and the effort required to set down and pick up the cup was evidently too much to make it worthwhile. The cup looked tiny in his hand and he seemed awkward drinking from it.
"Quite a good response from the RTE thing," he said, holding the cup just below jaw-level, his third and fourth fingers jutting out, the handle of his cup too small to accommodate them. "Twenty-three calls. Twelve nutcases."
For the press conference we had decided not to mention that Angela's body had been dumped naked but for her underwear, nor the ring which she had been wearing, in an attempt to weed out the cranks from those with genuine information.