Brian McGilloway - Gallows Lane

‘I need to wait for Mr Harkin,’ she explained. ‘He has the inventory list to compare.’

‘Looks fairly deliberate,’ I said. ‘Only two doors opened of the four, which suggests that they were looking for something in particular.’ I gestured around the shop. In the corner stood a glass display cabinet with digital cameras inside. Even that hadn’t been touched. ‘A very specific thief,’ I said, going over to the cabinet. ‘Have you a key for this?’ I asked.

Are you buying?’ Christine said, coming over to unlock the cabinet.

‘More borrowing, really,’ I said, reaching in and lifting one of the digital cameras. ‘I’ll need some batteries too,’ I added, causing Christine to raise an eyebrow quizzically.

When Paul Harkin arrived several moments later, I went out back and took photographs of the shoe prints that had been left in mud on the damaged rear door. By the time I was done, Harkin had already established what had been stolen.

‘Fucking breast cancer drugs!’ Gorman spat, starting up the car to go back to the station once we’d finished with Harkin. ‘What’s the world coming to?’

The thief had been extremely specific, it emerged. He had broken into the M-R cabinet for boxes of Nolvadex, which was used for the treatment of breast cancer. Several boxes of the drug’s generic form, tamoxifen, had also been stolen from the S-Z cabinet.

‘Why would a man steal breast cancer drugs?’ I asked, more to myself than Gorman.

‘Could it not be a woman?’ Gorman asked. ‘Seems more likely considering the drug.’

As she drove I had been flicking through the images on the digital camera I had ‘borrowed’ from Harkin. I held out to Helen an image of the footprint on the door.

‘Only if she’s the Hulk’s sister and wears size 11 trainers.’

‘Fair point,’ she conceded.

‘In fact,’ I said, turning off the camera, ‘might be worthwhile getting those printed out.’ I placed it in the glove compartment for her. Then added, ‘And I suppose you should leave it back with Harkin’s when you’re done.’

She nodded earnestly, as if the idea of doing otherwise had never entered her head. ‘What kind of sick bastard steals someone’s cancer medicine?’

‘Lorcan Hutton would be my bet,’ I said, naming our local drug dealer. ‘And when you bring him in, I’d like to talk to him about something as well.’

The inclement weather of the previous weeks had passed and the sky was brilliant blue. A few wisps of cloud hung raggedly over the hills behind Strabane and the sun was rising higher in the sky daily. The wild rhododendrons were flowering now in blooms big as a man’s fist, the leaves a lush green. I drove up past Croaghan Heights, along the top road which offered a panoramic view stretching from Lifford on into Donegal. I smoked as I drove, glancing down over Peter Webb’s land, across the three rivers into Strabane, where the five giant metal sculptures of dancers and musicians seemed to spin and swirl under the June sunlight.

I considered all that had happened over the past few days: the murder of Karen Doherty, the finding of the guns and drugs, the arrival of Kerr, the impending promotion within the station and the run-in with Patterson. A sense of unease had settled somewhere in my stomach and was spreading through me like a vibration, making my hands shake slightly as I smoked. My futile attempts to get my thoughts in order were interrupted by Burgess radioing through to me to announce that James Kerr was having lunch in a restaurant along the river-front. Superintendent Costello requested that I join Kerr there.

He held his soup spoon in his fist, hunched over in his seat, leaning towards the bowl rather than raising the spoon to his face. He still wore the same clothes that he had been wearing on the day I first met him, his hair a shadow on his skull. He had developed a hint of stubble. The blue canvas bag he had been carrying that day hung now over the back of his chair.

I nodded to the waitress and asked for a coffee when she approached, then sat opposite Kerr. I noticed that, although the restaurant was quite busy, most lunch patrons had sat well away from Kerr, thinking him a tramp, perhaps. I suspected that correcting their mistake by revealing he was an ex-con might not have set their minds at rest.

‘Sleeping rough, James?’ I asked. He grunted and continued shovelling the soup, pausing to scrape a spillage off his chin with his spoon, its edge rasping lightly against his fine beard growth. ‘Don’t mind me,’ I said to him, then thanked the waitress when she brought my drink, gesturing to her that she should use the ten-euro note I gave her to pay for both the soup and the coffee.

He nodded towards the retreating girl; ‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘You’ve no money, have you, James? That’s why you didn’t stay in the B amp;B — isn’t that right?’

He nodded again, tearing a chunk from the bread roll he had been given and smearing it thickly with butter.

‘How were you going to pay for that?’ I asked.

‘I figured one of you lot would turn up and cover it for me,’ he said, smiling.

‘And where are you staying?’

He crooned inharmoniously, ‘Wherever I lay my head, that’s my home,’ and went back to his food.

‘You can’t sleep rough, James, you do realize that, don’t you?’

‘What are you going to do — arrest me for vagrancy?’

‘If you want. You’ll get a dry room for the night; breakfast’s not great but at least there’s room service.’

‘No, thank you, Inspector. I travel as I am — if someone offers me food and shelter, then God bless him. If not, I will wipe the dust of this town from my feet as I leave.’ He spoke without a hint of irony, no sense of the absurdity of his words. He blinked, simplistically, then asked: ‘Can I get dessert as well?’

I stood up to leave. ‘James — I’m supposed to “drive you out of town”, so to speak. I’m not going to do that, because I think you’re on the level. Please don’t make my trust turn out to have been misplaced.’

‘I appreciate your candour, Inspector. I wish to speak to someone. When I have done that, I’ll be on my way; I promise you.’

‘Care to tell me who?’ I asked.

‘No. But I only want to speak, nothing else.’

‘No violence?’

‘None from me; on my honour.’ He raised his right hand as he spoke, his left hand placed on his chest.

As I left I handed the waitress another twenty euros. ‘Give him whatever he wants and give him back the change,’ I said as I left, then turned back to her. ‘And when he leaves, point him in that direction,’ I added, nodding towards Strabane.

‘God bless you, Inspector,’ Kerr called to me as I opened the restaurant door. I looked back. A family seated at a nearby table stared at him, the mother’s face pulled in revulsion, as though he had shouted an obscenity. When he winked at her, the family moved seats.

That evening I sat in the garden and watched Frank playing with a chew-bone. The sinking sun had suffused the air with a pink light of a quality that gave the puffed clouds the appearance of candyfloss and darkened the red azalea blooms the colour of blood. Shane sat beside me in his swing, twisting around in the orange seat, repeating ‘Gagga’ over and over, his tiny features drawn with determination. Debbie and Penny came out and sat on the step with me, each carrying a bowl of ice cream, which we shared. Our house is several miles from our nearest neighbour, so isolated that, over the humming of bees around the garden, the earth was silent. Debbie smiled at me as she handed me a spoonful of ice cream. The world might have been deserted and I wouldn’t have minded. Penny hugged into me, wiping ice cream off her face on to my shirt. I put my arm around her and ruffled her hair, guessing that her display of affection was a prelude to a request.