That One May Smile

by Valerie Keogh

  THAT

  ONE

  MAY SMILE

  ONE

  They had bought the bed linen together, four hundred-thread Egyptian cotton sheets that cost, Simon had jokingly groaned, more money than he made in a month. Crisp, yet soft to touch, they had slept, laughed, and loved between them, and when he vanished, Kelly Johnson swaddled herself in them, burying her head in the pillows, smelling him, his body, his hair, the essence of him.

  She refused to wash them, and they became lank and grubby. Lifeless. Just like me, Kelly decided, before her need for the first coffee of the day forced her to throw back the sheets and head downstairs. Feeling groggy, she held onto the oak staircase. Perhaps she should eat something? She had a vague memory of eating beans-on-toast a couple of days before, and definitely remembered having a pizza. She just wasn’t sure when that was.

  It didn’t matter. She just needed coffee. Switching on the kettle, she reached for the coffee-jar which stood nearby, lid askew, spoon-handle peeping over its rim, her hand stopping, eyes closing on a groan. She had emptied the jar yesterday. Picking it up, she peered in, just in case, before throwing it across the room where it landed on an untidy pile of letters and papers, rolling onto the floor with a soft clunk. The spoon, more dramatically, went flying, hitting the glass front of a cupboard, cracking it, top to bottom.

  Kelly took a deep breath and let it out in a shudder that sent a greasy strand of hair falling across her face. Brushing it back, she wondered when she had washed it last. Or herself. Bending her head, she sniffed. Not too bad, she decided, ignoring the sour, unwashed smell. Coffee, she needed coffee, anything else could wait.

  Back in her bedroom, she pulled a baggy blue sweatshirt over her pyjamas, finishing off the ensemble with a pair of trainers. Looking down, she reckoned she was as well dressed as half the youngsters she saw around Foxrock village.

  Moments later, keys and wallet in hand, she opened the front door cautiously, alert to movement from the nosy neighbour’s house across the road; she didn’t want sympathy or insincere concern, she wanted coffee.

  Her house was the last on a road that ended in large ornate gates, a back entrance to the church grounds that was open during services, but at other times was locked with a heavy padlock and chain. A key to the gate came with the house, a right-of-way through the church grounds written, to Kelly’s fascination, into the deeds. It was another quirk to a house she had fallen in love with on sight. Separating the key as she walked, she inserted it smoothly into the padlock, turning to close the gate behind her, looping the chain around the gate and joining the ends together with the padlock.

  She followed the path as it wound through the graveyard, before exiting the main church gate. Within minutes, she was in the centre of the small village, and minutes later was heading home, her shopping dangling in an ugly, orange plastic carrier bag which she’d had to pay for the privilege of using since she had forgotten, once again, to bring a bag with her. The gate was, as she had left it, the padlock on her side. More clumsy than usual, she dropped the padlock on the ground where it fell heavily between her feet, forcing her to turn awkwardly to scoop it up, managing at the same time to drop her keys.

  Reaching for them, something caught her eye. A bag of rubbish? It wouldn’t be the first time someone had dumped rubbish in the church grounds. Curious, and almost unaware of doing so, she moved slowly from the path, her mind registering and processing what she was seeing on the buff coloured stone of a box grave, not fifteen yards from the path.

  She wished it were rubbish, but it definitely wasn’t.

  It was a body. Head and body lying on top of the grave, legs bent, feet on the ground, arms dangling over the sides like a stringless puppet. It appeared to glisten in the morning sun, and, as Kelly slowly approached, she understood why. Blood, saturating the body, had trickled to the surface of the grave before overflowing in thick, congealed tears down the sides.

  ‘It is blood,’ she whispered, admitting aloud what she refused to believe, and it was as if her voice, soft as it was, unfroze the action, because suddenly she heard the awful buzzing of insect life and caught, on the slight breeze, the metallic smell of congealed blood, the acrid smell of urine, and another stomach churning smell she didn’t want to identify. She saw, as if at a great distance, the face of the man, eyes open, as if in disbelief at this end, mouth open, as if in one final question, or maybe, Kelly thought sadly, one final plea. With a shudder, she watched a huge bluebottle land on his lip, and crawl inside.

  A stalactite of blood thick with flies suddenly broke away, landing with an obscene squelch to send droplets of congealed blood in a ricochet, one landing with a soft plop on the front of Kelly’s shoe causing her to recoil in horror. The flies, deprived momentarily of their feast by the collapse of the stalactite, flew up in an angry cloud before settling on the flatter shape it became.

  Backing away, she stumbled, falling heavily to the ground where she lay breathless for a moment, picking herself up and brushing herself down almost hysterically. She took a few more steps backward, eyes fixed on the awful scene, afraid to turn her back on it until, with a steadying breath, she turned and ran back, and through the gate, leaving her carrier bag lying, forgotten, on the ground behind her. Reaching her front door, seconds later, she groped frantically for her keys, remembering with horror that she had dropped them at the church gate. With a short cry of despair, knowing she had to go back, she gulped, turned and ran, grabbed her keys and ran back. Breathless, hands sticky, she fumbled, finally managing to open the door, and all but fell into the house. She grabbed the phone, and hit 999.

  ‘Police!’ she breathed out when she connected. Seconds later a voice was asking for information that her tongue couldn’t seem to provide. ‘There’s a dead man!’ was all she could say. The voice on the phone persevered, speaking in such a calm, quiet tone that Kelly’s breathing slowed.

  ‘My name...yes, Kelly. Kelly Johnson. Address…it’s…number 6…’ What was the name of her road? Looking around frantically, panic bubbling rapidly to the surface, she saw the pile of unopened post, grabbing a letter with a sigh of relief. ‘Wilton Road, Foxrock’. The voice on the phone, remaining calm, told her someone would be with her as soon as possible.

  Kelly’s knowledge of police procedure was derived from crime novels and television programmes, so when she opened the door she expected to see a full team of police and crime scene investigators led by some tall, dark, tortured sleuth. What she got was a ruddy-faced, balding, middle-aged officer who introduced himself, haltingly, as Garda Morgan, and who viewed her with an air of weary scepticism.

  Seeing her surprise, he checked his notebook for confirmation and asked, doubt edging his voice, ‘Are you Kelly Johnson?’

  With a shaky smile, Kelly nodded, showing him into the kitchen with a wave of her hand. Unsure how to proceed, she decided on the conventional. ‘Would you like some coffee?’ She turned as she asked, reaching for the kettle before remembering the coffee sitting in her bag at the gate. She closed her eyes, opening them to find him looking sharply at her. ‘I’m sorry...’ she mumbled, ‘tea, I have tea. But, I’ve no milk. That’s what I was doing when I found the …the…’

  Feeling suddenly weak, she sat heavily at the kitchen table, clasping her hands to her face, fingers pressing her eyes as if to prevent the image of the dead man reappearing.

  Garda Morgan had been down in the village when the call came, and he arrived at her door with the healthy scepticism borne of long years of experience walking the streets of Dublin. Suddenly, he began to wonder if perhaps, this time, it wasn’t a false alarm like the last two reports had turned out to be. In one case, a man had stopped for a rest on a riverside bench taking a break from his new da
ughter’s nightly screams. He wasn’t pleased at being woken by the investigating garda’s tentative push. In the other, a large black-plastic bag filled with rubbish, dumped in an overgrown, dark corner of a field, had spooked a lady walking her dog who ran screaming to the nearest house. Most annoying with that one, Morgan remembered, was that she had insisted he take the rubbish with him. His car stank the rest of the day.

  Eyeing the woman before him, mentally calculating her dependability, he reached for the open mind he was supposed to bring to these situations. ‘Can you tell me what you saw?’ he asked gently, moving a pile of old newspapers to the floor, and sitting opposite her. Taking a small notebook and pen from his pocket, he waited.

  Kelly was about to argue that it would surely be more simple to show him, but didn’t have the energy left. Haltingly, she told him what she’d seen, stopping to answer a question or to clarify a point. It didn’t take long and the garda, a frown now wrinkling his forehead, pocketed his notebook and pen, and stood.

  ‘Do you think you could show me?’ he asked, needing to have visible confirmation before phoning it in. Grabbing her keys, Kelly nodded and they left the house. The old wrought iron gate hung open as she had left it, her orange shopping bag like a bunch of wilted marigolds in its portal. It was quiet in the graveyard, the soft growl of traffic carried on the air from distant motorways providing a low background noise, but Kelly, her hearing attuned to another low hum, paled visibly and stopped at the gateway, unable to step through. She could hear it, that insect orchestra playing their deathly tune; she didn’t want to see it again, she knew what they were doing.

  ‘Can’t you hear?’ she whispered, so softly Garda Morgan was forced to bend down and ask her to repeat what she had said. ‘The noise, can’t you hear the noise?’ Kelly repeated.

  The big man regarded her with suspicion then sighed; it was going to be one of those cases, just his luck. ‘I don’t hear anything, Mrs Johnson,’ he reassured her, keeping his voice calm and quiet. ‘If you can just show me where you think you saw the body, I can clear this all up and we can get home.’

  Kelly, keeping her face averted, raised her hand and pointed.

  Garda Morgan, with a soft sigh of exasperation, and in a less kindly tone, told her to wait.

  Within seconds, Kelly heard the heavy footsteps returning, this time moving in haste. She turned to see Garda Morgan, paler now, speaking rapidly to the station. She took a shaky breath. It was true then, there really was a dead body. At least she wasn’t going mad. Garda Morgan bustled her back to her house and, moments later, she was sitting in her kitchen on her own, with instructions to wait; to sit and wait. She had no difficulty with that instruction. She was an expert at waiting.

  She’d had the presence of mind to pick up her bag of shopping as she left the church grounds, so she put the kettle on to boil again. Sipping a cup of coffee at last, she tried to think calmly. She needed to talk to someone, but realised, with a shocking moment of clarity, that there was nobody she was close to anymore. Her relationship with her husband, Simon, had been intense and exclusive from their first meeting over a year ago, and she had lost contact with everybody. Their registry office wedding nine months ago had been attended by an old friend, Joan, whom she hadn’t seen since.

  They used to share everything, she remembered now wistfully, clothes, gossip, support. She recalled with a sense of shame that Joan had rung a few times after the wedding and then again when they had moved from Drumcondra to Foxrock. Kelly had promised to invite her down to see their house, and had, in fact, discussed the idea with Simon. ‘Let’s not, Darling,’ he had said when she had broached the idea, arguing that he didn’t want to share her with anyone and, flattered, she had agreed. Soon the phone calls had stopped.

  Reaching into a cupboard she took out a bottle of whiskey and added a shot to her coffee. She sat and took a long drink, the alcohol, within minutes, softening the edges of the panic that simmered.

  The sudden shrill echo of the doorbell made her jump, coffee sloshing from the still full mug to trickle down her sweatshirt and onto the already dirty table.

  Grabbing a less than clean dishcloth, Kelly made an ineffectual swipe at the spilt coffee on the table causing it to drip to the floor, using the same cloth to dab the stain on her sweatshirt. The doorbell rang again; stinking of whiskey, and swearing audibly, she hurried to answer it, wrenching open the door and glaring at the two men standing there.

  TWO

  Garda Morgan’s call to the police station had been transferred automatically to the detective unit where Detective Garda Sergeant Mike West had been enjoying his own, much deserved, mug of coffee. Like most of his colleagues, he hated paperwork and, like most, he let it build up until he got an earful from higher up. He was determined, today, to get it all or, at least, most of it, out of the way. Sipping his coffee, he was mentally calculating how much more time he would have to spend to clear the remainder when his partner popped his head round the door.

  ‘Report of a body at All Saint’s Church.’

  ‘Suspicious?’ West queried, swallowing the last of his coffee, grey eyes expectant.

  Detective Garda Andrews came into the room, nodding. ‘Garda Morgan rang it in. He’s no fool. The body is lying on a box grave.’

  ‘A what grave?’ West queried, stretching his long legs out with a groan and leaning his chair back so that it balanced, creaking, on its back legs.

  ‘Box. It’s what they call those graves that are like…well boxes.’ Andrews explained. ‘The churchyard is famous for them. They date back to the eighteen hundreds or maybe the seventeen hundreds...I don’t know...old anyway. The crime scene blokes are on their way. I told them we’d be there in ten’.

  Sergeant West ran a hand through his almost too-short, blonde hair with a sigh of relief, and gathering the remaining paperwork, dumped it back into his pending tray. ‘That can pend a little longer then can’t it!’ he said with a relieved grin. Standing, he grabbed his jacket from the back of the door, slipping it on as they walked out, side by side, his six foot frame easily matching that of Andrews’.

  Foxrock Garda station was situated in an industrial area, about two miles from the centre of the village. Andrews drove steadily, giving Sergeant West the facts as Garda Morgan had told him, and they soon turned into Wilton Road. A narrow road, it offered little in the way of parking, and what space there was had been taken by the mix of police and crime scene personnel already at work. Andrews edged his way past a white transit van, Crime Scene Investigations in discreet writing along its side, turned into the driveway of number six, and parked. Turning off the ignition, he nodded at the house.

  ‘That’s where the woman who reported the body lives. You want to talk to her first?’

  West shook his head. ‘Let’s get to the crime scene.’

  Andrews opened the boot of the car, revealing a well stocked crime-scene kit. Kitted out, they walked together toward the church gate nodding to the two young gardai who were posted there, ignoring the breathless reporter who had rushed up from the office of the small local newspaper when he had been tipped off about strange goings-on in the cemetery.

  The sun was warm for May, and despite best efforts and the amount of people now in attendance, the swarm of insects persisted and there was an audible buzz as they carefully made their way to the body down a yellow scene-of-crime delineated pathway. On either side of the taped-off pathway, West noted with satisfaction, scene-of-crime officers were already searching.

  They stopped a few feet from the body, silently taking in the scene before them as the dead man’s eyes stared relentlessly back.

  A short, handsome man stepped forward to greet them. ‘Mike, Pete, long time no crime!’

  West smiled in response. ‘Niall, it has been a while, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Thirty five days, to be exact. Not that I’m counting, you understand!’

  West and Andrews circled the grave, taking in what details they could.

  ‘Wh
at can you tell us,’ West asked the pathologist, swatting flies away with his hand as he spoke.

  Dr Niall Kennedy took a step backwards, shaking off a particularly aggressive bluebottle. ‘Rigor is almost complete, I’d estimate he’s been dead at least ten hours, give or take an hour. Cause of death, probably that bloody great hole in his belly. I’ll know more when I have a closer look but I didn’t want to move anything till you came.’

  Sergeant West nodded his thanks and stepped closer to the body, the combination of odours rising from the warming body causing his insides to do a gentle flip-flop. The box grave was roughly three feet high, three feet wide and about five feet long, he guessed, and was covered now with the bulk of the dead man’s body. The man had been sitting on the end of the grave; West surmised looking at the position of the body. He was either pushed back or had fallen back, arms akimbo, legs still dangling over the front. His right arm extended out at an acute angle from the body, the hand drooping downward, purple with congested blood. Blood had oozed from the body and congealed on the cold stone of the grave, here and there overflowing in long rivulets to the ground where ants and other insects were now making merry. The man’s face was turned towards him, eyes open, turning milky in death, mouth open as if to talk to them or to plead for another day.

  West looked closely at the face but it didn’t appear to be one of the many that were known to the Foxrock station. Andrews shook his head at the unasked question, he didn’t know him either. West called to Garda Morgan, standing nearby, ‘You recognise him, Andy?’ and got a shake of the head in reply. He stepped back. ‘Ok, Niall, do your stuff.’

  The pathologist moved in and, with latex covered hands, carefully peeled back the blood-sodden shirt to reveal a large gash in the upper abdomen. He batted away a relentless fly and nodded, ‘Just as I thought, a single stab wound to the stomach.’

  He paused a moment while the police photographer photographed the exposed area and then measured the wound, waiting again while the photographer again recorded the move.