That One May Smile

by Valerie Keogh

  She laughed shakily, ‘I’m sorry. I think the shock is beginning to take effect. I feel a bit weak, I think I’d better go and lie down.’ And with that, she closed the door softly leaving the two men standing on the doorstep, a look of astonishment on both their faces.

  ‘Well, that was unexpected,’ Morgan said with a gift for understatement, ‘what made you bring that up?’

  West gave a short laugh. ‘I’d really love to impress you, Andy, and say I had it all planned but, truth is, I have no idea what just happened.’ He stood a moment, lost in thought, and then, with a nod to Morgan, he headed back to the graveyard. ‘I think I’ll see what Andrews makes of this,’ he muttered as they walked together back through the church gate. ‘Join in the search Andy; I doubt we have enough hands.’

  He spotted Andrews in conversation with a group of gardai and as he approached they headed off to search the further reaches of the churchyard. ‘That’s the whole area covered, Sergeant,’ Andrews announced with satisfaction. ‘I borrowed some staff from Stillorgan and Blackrock for the morning. The lads were only too happy to avoid what had been planned for the day.’ He grinned again, ‘Inspector O’Neill had wanted a garda-check-point in both places to check tax and insurance. You know how boring that gets.’ Andrews continued, ‘He wasn’t too happy at having his plans scuppered but when I played the murder card, he couldn’t really argue!

  ‘Anyway, when I tell him his lads found the murder weapon, it will make his day!’

  ‘What?’ West said startled. He had been looking searchingly around the graveyard, watching the slow movement of men as they searched, mentally planning his strategy and only half listening to Andrews.

  Peter Andrews grinned in satisfaction. ‘They found the murder weapon!’

  At West’s raised eyebrow and look of disbelief he laughed. ‘Honestly! A large bladed, blood stained kitchen knife, can’t be anything else, can it! It wasn’t even hidden, Matt, just dropped beside the pathway near the main church gate, waiting for us to find it. Come on, I’ll show you where!’

  They walked the short distance to where the knife was found in the slightly overgrown grass that edged the pathway from the main church door to the road. West stopped and looked back to the crime scene and then to the gateway in front of him through which he could see a small car-park and a tarmac road. ‘That road leads back to the centre of town?’ he asked and Andrews nodded.

  They walked through the gateway and eyed the concreted surface of the car-park with a frown; it was criss-crossed with a multitude of tire-tracks and footprints. Was it worth trying to take impressions from every one of them, even if they could? West doubted it; they wouldn’t get any evidence from here.

  ‘He probably parked here,’ West surmised aloud. ‘Arranged to meet the victim here, arrived with the knife secreted on his person somehow. After the murder, he headed back to his car, cool as you please and just dropped it on the way. Arrogant sod didn’t even attempt to hide it. I bet we’ll find it’s a commonly sold knife and the bastard will have worn gloves and not left a print on it.’

  Both men stood a moment looking back through the graveyard gates, the sun causing each to squint uncomfortably. ‘Why here?’ Andrews mused, ‘Why would you arrange to meet someone in a graveyard? Wouldn’t the victim have been a little bit suspicious? Wouldn’t he have expected trouble and have been prepared when it came? Instead, he comes dressed in an expensive suit more suited for a night in a posh club than a seedy meeting in a graveyard!’

  Mike West grinned knowingly and thumped Andrews lightly on the shoulder, ‘But it’s not any old graveyard, Pete. This graveyard. Right beside Kelly Johnson’s house.’

  Andrews frowned, puzzled. West could see his mind working, wondering if he had missed something, all the little wheels and cogs being checked. Christ, West thought, he could almost hear it!

  With a smile, he put him out of his misery, ‘I haven’t filled you in on my conversation with Kelly Johnson, Pete. We have a connection, albeit a loose one, between her and our victim.’ Registering the relief on Andrews face, West smiled to himself, he was so transparent.

  Glancing back through the church-gates again, he saw the search proceeding as planned, slowly and methodically. If there was anything to be found, they would find it. He checked his watch. ‘Let’s go get some lunch, Peter, and I’ll fill you in on our curious conversation with Kelly Johnson.’

  THREE

  You know Foxrock better than I do, Peter,’ West said as they walked down the road from the church to the centre of Foxrock, ‘anywhere good for lunch and a decent pint?’

  A year working with Sergeant West had taught Andrews that a ‘decent pint’ meant Guinness so they headed to a small pub on the edge of Foxrock, a brisk five minute’s walk away, where he knew they would be guaranteed the pint, if not the lunch.

  Sitting in a quiet seat, in the fairly quiet pub, they supped their pints and munched on the best the pub had to offer in the line of food. Since this turned out to be sandwiches of dubious origin and even more dubious date, Andrews was glad that the pint, at least, lived up to the West’s expectation. West drank with evident pleasure, again extolling the virtues of Guinness to the unconvinced Andrews who was glad when the conversation turned to the much more interesting discussion of why Kelly Johnson lost it at the mention of the words come to good.

  ‘If you had said come to no good I might have understood it better,’ Andrews mused. ‘I could even see where that might have a bad effect on the woman since her husband is still missing.’

  West shook his head. His grey eyes glinted with certainty, ‘Well I didn’t. I said come to good and it bloody well meant something to her, that’s for sure, and whatever it meant she wasn’t sharing it with us.’ He supped his pint for a moment, thinking.

  ‘Good detectives don’t believe in coincidence, do they?’ he asked finally. ‘This Kelly Johnson moves to Foxrock, then five months later her husband goes missing and three months after that she happens to stumble on a dead body.

  ‘To cap it all she recognises words that we found written on a scrap of paper in the dead man’s pocket!’ He raised his pint in a salute. ‘Just what we need, Peter, a good complicated case to stop us getting bored.’

  Peter Andrews placidly continued to drink the pint that, try though he may, he just couldn’t develop a liking for. He didn’t get bored easily and knew that many of his colleagues referred to him, half in jest, as Garda Plod, and he was as happy to plod through a dull case as a good complicated one. He knew what complicated cases meant though, long hours and overtime pay. His wife wouldn’t be too keen on the first but would be happy enough with the latter.

  Sergeant West, draining the last of his pint with relish, was already mentally preparing a case board and preparing carefully worded requests for extra manpower and concomitant overtime payment, both of which, he knew, would be refused. It was the way the system went, he had learned, ask for extra staff with overtime for both the existent team and the overtime staff and you would be sure to get, if not the extra staff then at least the overtime payment for the existent team. If you didn’t ask for both you wouldn’t get either. He sighed resignedly. So much time wasted on petty bureaucracy. But he had learnt his lesson the hard way on his first case in Foxrock.

  Eager to show his expertise in his new posting he had refused to ask for more staff, telling the Inspector his team could manage without. Of course the case wasn’t that simple, they had had several problems and the team had had to work extra hours. When he then asked for extra staff his blasé remark was quoted back to him and he had had to grovel before they eventually assigned more staff and agreed to overtime payment. From then on he had played the game, seething frequently at the stupidity of his wasted time but knowing he couldn’t ever change rules chiselled in granite.

  He set his glass down on the beer-glazed table and turned to the sergeant who was still nursing his pint. West smiled. ‘You got Guinness, again?’

  Andrews raised his ha
lf-full glass slightly and grimaced. ‘I keep thinking if I try it often enough, I’ll grow to like it.’

  ‘How long have you been trying?’ West asked, curious. They got on well, he and Andrews, but they rarely socialised together and he couldn’t remember the last time they had had a pint together.

  Andrews shrugged and smiled slightly, ‘Years! I’ve even tried it with blackcurrant. Still tastes disgusting!’

  ‘Blackcurrant!’ West grimaced, ‘Why do you bother? Why don’t you just drink something else?’

  Andrews shrugged again. ‘My father only ever drank Guinness. He bought me my first drink in our local,’

  ‘In Tipperary?’ Mike West asked remembering some mention of the county before.

  Andrews nodded. ‘There was never any question of drinking anything else. A real man’s drink, my father used to say and he would hold it up to the light before downing it in a couple of mouthfuls. I still remember the way he would hold the pint up, and how beautiful it looked and how I was always disappointed in the taste but was afraid to tell him.’ He grinned, ‘I suppose I still am!’ He lifted his glass and drained the contents in one long drink.

  Sergeant West lifted his glass and did the same.

  Both men stood and Andrews took the glasses to the bar and nodded at the barman, who nodded in return glad to see the two guards leave. They might be in plainclothes but they might as well have Garda printed on their foreheads, he thought in disgust. Put his regular customers off their pint, it did, he thought, thinking, rightly, that some of his customers had a closer relationship with the police than they liked to admit.

  Back in the centre of Foxrock the traffic was stalled at the lights and shoppers were crossing impatiently between cars, dashing from one side of the street to the other, hopping from shop to shop. Crossing through the stationary traffic the two detectives walked through the village and up Wilton road to where their car still sat outside Kelly Johnson’s beautiful Victorian house. They stood a moment tying up loose ends, dividing up responsibilities, and making plans for the remainder of the day.

  Andrews headed back to the crime scene with a nod, his head full of plans and instructions, his mind busy making lists, ticking items off as they were filed away. West watched him go with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. He was lucky to have Peter Andrews as a partner, he knew. Solid, reliable and completely dependable. If he asked Peter to do something he knew it would be done; never had to worry about it again.

  West watched him go then turned and stared up at the old Victorian house with narrowed eyes. If he had hoped to catch a glimpse of Kelly Johnson, he was disappointed. There was no sign of life in the house at all. It was a beautiful house, he thought admiring the architecture, but there was an ineffable sadness about it, as if it had absorbed some of the pain of the woman within.

  Why had she reacted to those words, he wondered, his eyes lingering on the uncurtained kitchen window, searching for one last glimpse of Kelly Johnson. What was the meaning behind come to good? What was the connection? Because there was one, that was a definite. They just had to find out what it was.

  With a final glance, he got into the car and drove back to the station to begin the first of an almost unending morass of paperwork. As he wrote, as he filled out form after form, he tried to put sad, shimmering eyes and come to good out of his mind.

  FOUR

  Kelly had leaned against the closed door listening to the mumble of the men’s voices the other side, until they eventually faded and she was sure they weren’t coming back. She peered out the window beside the door watching as they walked out her gate leaving their car parked in her drive. She raced down the hallway, up the stairs and into her bedroom. Pulling open the wardrobe doors, she searched frantically within, rummaging on the racks, searching the shelves. Not finding what she wanted, she dragged clothes from the shelves until they piled in a tumble at her feet.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ she cried and almost fell as she stepped back, her feet tangling in tee-shirts and jumpers. Where had she put it? She raced into the front bedroom and wrenched the wardrobe door open so forcefully that it moved on its antique feet and threatened to topple over. Steadying it, she peered into its recesses pulling clothes out, searching frantically for one particular yellow jacket. With a yelp she saw it, at the very back where she had buried it several weeks ago. It was the jacket she had been wearing the day she and her husband, Simon, had gone to Belfast for a day’s shopping. The day he had disappeared.

  Simon used to tease her about the yellow coat, saying he’d never lose her when she was wearing it, it was so very bright.

  But he was the one who got lost, she thought with a moment’s anguish, holding the jacket close and remembering Simon’s smile, wondering for the hundred millionth time what had happened to him. ‘Oh God, Simon’, she whispered into the soft fabric, ‘where are you?’

  How many times had she asked that question over the last few months? She rubbed her eyes, brushing away the always-ready tears and, for the moment, those searingly painful memories. They’d come back. They always did. Usually in the small hours of the morning when she tried to sleep and he crept in beside her, so real she could almost feel his skin as it brushed hers. So real she could almost feel his warm breath stirring her hair as his face came closer to hers. So real she could feel his lips on her lips, felt her mouth open to greet his tongue. And then she would realise again and again and again, the sting as sharp each time, he wasn’t there, he wasn’t coming back. He was never coming back because surely if he could have he would have done by now, if he could have he would never have gone in the first place.

  Her hands gripped the jacket, knuckles white as the pain shot through her. Was it never going to ease? Tears speckled the jacket, darkness on the bright fabric that Simon had loved.

  She sighed, the sound shuddering through her and she realised her grip on the jacket and searched for the pockets set deeply into side seams. She reached in and found, as she knew she would, a scrap of paper. Taking it out, she dropped the jacket on the bed, and carefully unfolded the paper. It’s the same, she thought in horror and disbelief. Clearly written in Simon’s unmistakeable writing, come to good.

  Sitting heavily on the bed, she remembered when she had first found the note. Three months ago. They had gone to Belfast by train for a day’s shopping. Her idea, she remembered. She had a vague memory that he hadn’t really wanted to go but she had persuaded him. They had shopped, buying this and that, a dress for her, a shirt for him. They had lunch in a smart and very expensive restaurant, and had sauntered through the streets to catch an early evening train home. It had been a lovely day. They had laughed and talked about...she frowned; they hadn’t talked about anything important. Or had they? Had she missed something? There wasn’t a day over the last three months that she hadn’t gone over every moment of that day, every conversation, every nuance, trying to come up with some reason for his disappearance.

  She had enjoyed the day so much, had she missed something not right with him. And, try as much as she could, she could never remember why it was he hadn’t been keen on going. Just one of the myriad conversations that are part of everyday living, generally forgotten as soon as finished, never meant to be remembered, never mind examined, taken apart, word by word. She had berated herself so often for not remembering, for being so self-involved that she must have missed something really, really important. She must have.

  They had got back on the train in Belfast, several bags of shopping in tow, and had sat back in their reserved seats with a sigh. I remember feeling happy, she thought now, happy and so smugly content. She could feel the bitterness souring in her stomach, remembering. The train had departed only minutes later and, almost immediately, he had got up and said he was going for coffee, did she want some. She didn’t and he went and she had sat back and closed her eyes and drifted into a doze with the sway of the train. Twenty minutes later he hadn’t returned and she remembered smiling to herself thinking that he must have met
someone he knew and wasn’t it lucky she had said no to the coffee. When the train arrived in Dublin, almost two hours later, she was annoyed that he hadn’t come back to help her with all the shopping, but not particularly concerned, expecting to see him grinning at her on the station platform with tales of whomever he had met.

  When he wasn’t there she had been surprised, then perturbed. Maybe he’s gone to the toilets she had thought, and waited a few minutes more watching the train pull out and keeping her eye on the door to the men’s toilet. The train faded into the distance. The last stragglers crossed the overhead bridge and vanished. For a moment she was alone on the platform, and all there was to hear was a crumpled piece of paper being pushed scratchily along the platform by the wind that had begun to pick up. It had travelled erratically the length of the platform before being blown onto the track and, abruptly, she had felt afraid.

  She had waited on the platform for two hours, hoping that Simon would turn up. Thinking that, perhaps, for some reason he had missed the stop and would catch the next train back, or the next... He hadn’t caught the next train or the one after or the one after. Only when she had been assured by officials that there were no more trains, did she give up and go home. Thankfully, she had the car keys and drove with unaccustomed speed back to their home. Even then, she had hoped to find him sitting on the doorstep with some wildly unbelievable tale to tell her. She had stood there and looked around wondering what to do. She had been crying and, reaching into her pocket looking for a tissue, she had pulled out the scrap of paper. It had fallen to the ground and, for a moment, she had almost ignored it. Instead she had picked it up and, opening it, had read the words written there but, too engrossed in her worry over Simon, she had shrugged and put the paper, carelessly, back into her pocket.