Borderlands Read Online Free PDF

in spelling - though I trusted they
had not reached polysyllables like that in Primary Two.
    "Outside,
kids," I said and waited until Penny pulled the door quietly shut behind
her, hefting Shane in her other arm. "What do you reckon with the tablet?
E?"
    "Could
well be. We'll find out soon enough. Check with the family about drugs history.
Check about epilepsy as well. If she'd never had a fit before, 'twould fairly
much guarantee that it's drug- related in some way."
    I
nodded. "Still, this mention of someone small would seem to suggest Whitey
McKelvey."
    "Looks
that way, Benedict," Costello agreed. "I'll put out a description,
see if we can't pick him up. Either that or hope the northerners get him before
Cashell's extended family go out and buy more petrol."

Chapter Three
     
    Monday, 23rd December
     
    On
Monday morning I stopped off at the station early and was informed by Burgess,
the Desk Sergeant, about Tommy Powell's father, who had reported seeing an
intruder in his room at Finnside Nursing Home. Neither Burgess nor I felt it
warranted much of an investigation: a seventy-five-year-old man, placed in a
home because he suffers from dementia, claims someone was in his room, in a
place where the nurses check on the patients every hour or so, night and day.
It seemed like a no-brainer. On the other hand, Powell was not only very rich,
but also influential, with a mouthy son who would think nothing of going to the
local papers about how Garda carelessness left his poor father prone to intruders
in his own bedroom. I told Burgess I would follow it up myself when I got the
chance, just to keep Powell Jr quiet.
    I
phoned ahead to the cinema to make sure that Martin, the manager, was there,
then drove round and took his statement, which simply confirmed all that
Costello had told me. Martin knew the Cashell girls; he'd recognized Angela
because of her blonde hair, and her two sisters - one older, one much younger.
Better still, he was able to show me the CCTV recording for that afternoon.
    We
sat in the back office of the cinema, the building strange in daylight without
the smell of heating popcorn. Martin fast- forwarded the video until 2.45 p.m.
and we watched. A few minutes later a group entered the shot, coming into the
cinema. But the girl who should have been Angela was not wearing the jeans and
blue hooded top her father had described. In fact, she was wearing a short
skirt and a red coat. It was difficult to identify her for certain because of
the graininess of the shot, but Martin was convinced.
    "That's
them," he said, pointing to the group.
    "Are
you sure? That's not what we were told she was wearing."
    He
sighed and looked at me as though I had disappointed him. "I'm telling
you, that was them. I served them myself; I remember Angela Cashell. My wife
calls that thing she's wearing a greyhound skirt."
    "Why?"
    "
'Cause they're just behind the hare." He laughed at his joke.
    He
forwarded further through the tape, seeming to know where to stop and I
suspected that he had gone over it a few times already in preparation for a
visit from the Guards. At 4.03 p.m. Angela Cashell walked out of the cinema
with her sisters. Despite the graininess of the footage, I think she laughed as
she spoke to the other girls. I hope she did.
    "The
younger one was the problem," he explained: "why we asked them to
leave. The older two could watch the horror movie, but not the young girl. It
would give her nightmares."
    I
nodded and silently considered that the murder of her sister might have a more
lasting impact on her than a horror film.
    Before
getting back into my car, I walked the few hundred yards from the cinema to the
spot where Angela Cashell had been found. The grass was well-trodden now and
some locals had left bunches of flowers lying just beyond the spot where she
had lain. Blue and white crime-scene tape fluttered in the breeze and tangled
in the branches of the old hawthorn tree to which it had been tied.
    I
went over to