That One May Smile

by Valerie Keogh

  Number seven lacked even this attempt at diversity. Its front garden was a square of weeds that had probably, at sometime in its dim and distant past, been grass. Curtains were still pulled across the windows but they hung from poles that dipped badly in the middle so that a crescent of light showed at each window.

  Andrews checked his notes again. Ok, he decided, this was it. He climbed out and locked his car and walked slowly up the path to the house, listening for signs of life as he reached the door. If they were awake, they were very quiet, he thought. He checked his watch. Seven thirty. The kids were of school age; surely they would be up having breakfast at this stage. His kids were, he knew and smiled to himself, young Peter would be there with his Weetabix and little Sophia would have her ear to her Rice Crispies, listening to them snap crackle and pop until Joyce would yell at her to stop playing and just eat them. He hated missing breakfast with his family but that was the job.

  Well, if they weren’t awake they soon would be. Andrews pressed the door bell and waited. He couldn’t hear it ring but waited, patiently for about five minutes before ringing again. This time he pressed his ear to the door when he rang; he couldn’t hear a thing. He’d bet it wasn’t working. The letterbox had an integrated knocker so he lifted it and rapped it sharply hearing the noise reverberate in the quiet house. Five more minutes he waited before rapping it again, this time with more vigour.

  He was just about to look around the house for a back door when a light appeared at the top of the stairs and Andrews could see a figure silhouetted against it, a figure that disappeared for a few seconds only to reappear and come quickly down the stairs.

  Andrews heard a key being turned in the lock and then the door opened to the extent a safety chain, still firmly in place, allowed. A dishevelled woman peered through the gap at him.

  ‘What the fuck do you want at this hour of the morning?’ a gravelly voice asked loudly.

  Andrews showed his identification. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs Pratt. I wanted to ask you some questions about your husband.’

  ‘Cyril?’ Amanda Pratt queried, picking the sleep from her eyes with a dirty fingernail.

  How many husbands do you have? The question lingered in the air unspoken as Andrews waited.

  With a loud, irritated sigh, Amanda Pratt closed the door and he heard the rattle of the safety-chain as it was removed and the door reopened. ‘You’d better come in, I suppose, before someone sees you. You couldn’t be anything but a policeman, you know that?’ She led the way into a cluttered, untidy kitchen. She waved him to a chair while she filled the kettle and lit a cigarette coughing loudly and throatily with the first inhalation, letting the smoke come out her nose in two long trails. It was the nearest thing to a fire-eating dragon, Andrews had ever seen, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  Amanda Pratt was so involved in filling her lungs with as much nicotine as possible with each drag she was oblivious to his bemused stare. Hearing the kettle boil she turned to make coffee and broke the spell he was under. He’d have to tell the kids he’d met a dragon, he laughed to himself.

  As it turned out Amanda Pratt proved to be a dragon in more ways than one.

  ‘Coffee in one hand and cigarette in the other she demanded, ‘What’s Cyril been up to then? I answered a pile of questions yesterday and now I have a copper on my doorstep at a ridiculous time. Must be something serious?’

  Andrews gave her the standard reply that said nothing, gave nothing away. ‘We’re interested in talking to him, that’s all. He may be able to help us with our inquiries.’

  ‘D’you think I’m a fucking idiot?’ she barked at him, ‘Interested in talking to him, right! You know his record. He’s been up to his old tricks, hasn’t he?’

  Andrews didn’t see the point in lying. Pratt may not have murdered Simon Johnson but they had him for identity theft no matter what happened. They also had him for bigamy but he kept that to himself.

  ‘I’m afraid he is involved in some shady dealings, Mrs Pratt,’ Andrews conceded, hoping she would accept the euphemism without demanding details he didn’t want to share.

  ‘The bastard,’ she growled, ‘I warned him if he started messing around again he was on his own.’

  Andrews spent the next twenty minutes trying to see if Amanda Pratt knew anything about the five hundred thousand, asking oblique questions. He quickly came to the conclusion that she knew nothing. If Cyril got his hands on a lot of money, none of it ended up in Delaney Crescent.

  ‘I’d better let you get on with your day, Mrs Pratt,’ he said eventually, conscious time was getting on, wondering where her children were.

  ‘Nothing to do today,’ she informed him, ‘schools are closed so the bloody kids will be under my feet all day.’

  In the tiny hallway Andrews stopped to admire studio shots of the Pratt family that lined the walls. ‘These are really good,’ he said sincerely.

  Amanda gave a throaty laugh. ‘They can do wonders these days, Cyril wanted to have these done. I only agreed if they’d make me look slimmer. Worked well didn’t it?’ she stood admiring herself for a moment.

  ‘Why did he want them so much?’ Andrews asked, curious about Cyril.

  Instead of answering Amanda opened a door into a small sitting room and pointed to a mountainous pile of magazines.

  ‘These are Cyril’s,’ she explained with a sneer, ‘he was too embarrassed to go into the shop to buy them so he had them delivered.’

  Peter Andrews picked up the first few magazines; they were all popular celebrity magazines...Hello, OK, Heat...every magazine available. ‘Cyril liked these?’ he asked in surprise.

  Another throaty laugh came, ‘Yea, sad isn’t he? He’d have liked that lifestyle. That’s why he wanted those photos done, to prove we could be as good. Sad bastard. Then when he started wearing those Armani suits he really thought he was going somewhere. I used to laugh at him for being a fool.’

  Andrews’ ears pricked up at the mention of the Armani suits. ‘He must have earned a lot of money to be able to afford Armani, Mrs Pratt?’

  Mrs Pratt looked at him as if he were an idiot and then waved a hand to encompass the house. ‘Do we look as if we have money? He got those suits at some charity shop in the UK; I’ve read about them myself, where rich people give their cast-offs to charity. Cyril happened to visit one just as some stuff was left in and he bought the lot. Shoes and shirts too, all worn but in good nick.’

  She lit another cigarette and puffed smoke at Andrews. ‘He thought wearing those clothes made a difference, but he was still the same stupid fucker he was when I married him.’

  ‘Why do you stay married to him?’ Andrews dared to ask, curious as to why Cyril stayed married to her. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to divorce this woman and marry Kelly properly?

  Amanda considered a moment. ‘As a married woman I can have all the male company I like. Men know I’m not looking for anything permanent, so I have a good time, no strings attached, no questions asked. As a divorcee they would think I was looking for something more and they would vanish into the woodwork. As a matter of fact Cyril asked me for a divorce about a year ago. I told him to get stuffed; I was in it for keeps. Third time lucky, you know.’

  Andrews looked puzzled and she laughed.

  ‘I was his third wife, don’t you know? His first marriage when he was seventeen was annulled after six weeks,’ Amanda laughed raucously. ‘I think his young wife found the sex bit a bit much to take. The second wife was killed in a car crash when he was twenty four and then he was lucky enough to meet me. So you see, third time lucky.’

  Andrews nodded. So Cyril had wanted a divorce. He’d seen a way out of his life here and he had taken it. Andrews looked at the pile of magazines and then at the smoke that still poured from Amanda Pratt’s nose.

  He didn’t blame Cyril a bit.

  Back in the small hallway he was thanking Amanda for her help when two small, incredibly thin children appeared at the top of the s
tairs. Big eyes stared at him wordlessly before the two wraiths vanished to wherever they had come from.

  He looked at the fleshy, well-fed body of Amanda Pratt.

  No, he didn’t blame Cyril a bit. Except, perhaps, for leaving two small children in her care.

  NINETEEN

  Sergeant Mike West was back from his car within minutes carrying the over-filled briefcase with difficulty. He hefted it onto his desk with a grunt. Seeing the grim look on Peter Andrews’ face he paused and asked him in some concern, ‘You ok, Pete?

  The grim looked lightened. ‘Oh, it was that Pratt woman, Mike. She was a piece of work, you know?’

  ‘Tell me about it, Pete, we can tackle this,’ he indicated the bulging briefcase, ‘afterwards.’

  Andrews smiled and without glancing at his notes quickly filled West in on his interview with Amanda. ‘She didn’t have much regard for husband, Mike, according to her he was a lousy husband and even lousier father, spent more time away from home than he did in it, and could be gone months at a time.

  ‘As far as I could tell she didn’t care, as long as he sent money home which he did at irregular intervals. He never told her where he would be working; she said she could tell where he was, from the postmark on the envelope he sent the cheque in, but I doubt if she really cared where he was.

  ‘Not exactly a happily married couple, eh?’ West said.

  ‘Not exactly. She mentioned having other men, was quite blatant about it.’

  ‘I wonder if Pratt knew.’

  Andrews shrugged. ‘I don’t think he would have cared, he had asked her for a divorce.’

  West opened his eyes at that. ‘So he could marry Kelly?’

  ‘Amanda Pratt said he asked her about a year ago and that ties in with when he met her so I suppose so.’ Andrews agreed. ‘She wasn’t letting him go though.’ He explained Amanda’s reasoning.

  West’s face clearly showed his disgust, ‘She wanted to stay married because it was easier to be married and have extramarital affairs than to be a divorcee? Bloody hell, Peter, what a bitch!

  Andrews nodded.

  West shook his head. ‘When was Cyril home last?’

  ‘About three months ago. Dates match when he went missing from Foxrock. Up to that he was home a couple of nights a month. I’d guess if we questioned Kelly Johnson, we’d find the dates he was in Cork correlate with dates she thought he was working away.’

  West nodded. ‘Kelly said they went away two or three times a month to hotels around Ireland and the UK. I bet if we had those envelopes he sent the cheques to Amanda, we could match the dates there too. What a conniving so-and-so he was too.’ He shook his head. He had met so many shady types he shouldn’t really be surprised. But he always was. ‘Any indication Amanda knew about his many and varied scams?’

  ‘She says he was honest about his past when she met him six years ago.’ Andrews struggled but failed to keep a weary cynicism from his voice as he continued, ‘He promised he was a reformed character, so she married him and as far as she was aware he had been straight since.’ He sighed, ‘Certainly from all appearances there is no money to spare in the Pratt house. It’s a too small council house in need of refurbishment and,’ he added, remembering the house in detail, ‘a good cleaning. Kids look small, malnourished; any spare money isn’t being spent on them.’

  The two men sat a moment, thinking. West broke the silence first, ‘Big contrast between his two lives, wasn’t there?’

  ‘Definitely,’ Andrews agreed. He told Mike about the celebrity magazines. ‘He was fascinated by the lifestyles of the rich and famous. He had studio photographs taken a few years ago and they’re hanging in their hallway. Amanda said he wanted to show everyone they could look as good as any celebrity family.’

  Andrews shifted in his chair, he had been embarrassed by the sneering tone in the wife’s voice, the contempt she obviously held for the man who was her husband. She had laughed at him, at his attempts to look and sound different to the way he was. ‘He thought his shit didn’t stink,’ she had said to him at one stage, the vulgarity shocking the normally unshockable Andrews.

  He shook his head now as he remembered. ‘About a year ago he brought home a pile of fancy designer clothes. He said he bought them in a great charity shop he had found. That he happened to be there when they were left in and so he bought the lot’

  ‘And she believed him,’ West asked with raised eyebrows. ‘Armani suits and shirts and handmade Italian shoes.’

  Andrews grinned, ‘She said the clothes were obviously not new and she had read about charity shop where you could buy designer stuff cheaply so...!

  ‘Simon Johnson’s wardrobe,’ West said shaking his head. ‘All the clothes he had left behind, all the Armani suits and other stuff. Johnson had very expensive taste, Pratt must have thought he’d died and gone to heaven when he found they all fit him. Of course,’ he added, ‘Pratt was passing himself off as Simon Johnson so he had to look the part. Then he met Kelly, glamorous, attractive and the play went on, the actor continuing to dress the part.’

  ‘He must have known it would come falling down when Johnson came home, Mike.’

  ‘But he wasn’t supposed to be home for another year, remember? Anyway, Pratt had already gone missing by the time Johnson discovered the scam. Something else caused Pratt’s world to come crashing down. He’d finally got what he had wanted, beautiful classy wife...’ He stopped abruptly noticing the half smile hovering on Andrews’ lips, ‘What,’ he demanded, ‘You don’t think she’s beautiful, Peter?’

  Peter hastily made a backing off gesture with his hands and, tucking the smile away for another time, he agreed. ‘Absolutely stunning, Mike, no doubt about it. At least,’ he reconsidered, ‘she is in her photographs. Don’t forget I haven’t met her yet, and Morgan’s description wasn’t that attractive. Skinny, he called her; don’t like skinny women myself.’

  West eyed him in irritation but with a shrug continued, ‘Beautiful house, designer clothes and respect...don’t underestimate the desire for respect Peter. Something must have happened to threaten it all, he would have been exposed as a fraud, a failure to everyone, especially to the woman he had fallen in love with.’ He stood and paced the room a moment. ‘I think that was Pratt’s downfall, the reason he couldn’t walk away, he’d fallen in love.’

  ‘With Kelly Johnson or the glamorous lifestyle?’ Cynicism laced Andrews’ voice.

  West smiled. ‘You really think he was intelligent enough to have differentiated between the two? No, I think he fell in love with the whole package, couldn’t face going back to his former life. He had already met Simon Johnson, don’t forget, when he rented the apartment from him. He knew what kind of man he was - naive and gullible beyond belief. Goodness knows what story Pratt spun him to prevent him contacting the police, because, for whatever reason, we know Johnson didn’t. He took down the name of the village in Cornwall and then, for some as yet unknown reason, he turned up here in Foxrock.’ West stopped pacing a moment, thinking.

  ‘Pratt must have been desperate, you didn’t see the cottage he was living in Peter, an absolute pigsty.’

  He turned, stepped over some papers on the floor with a frown and sat.

  ‘Maybe there was a change of plan and Pratt arranged to meet him here.’ Andrews suggested.

  ‘But Pratt didn’t murder Johnson, remember?’ West started twiddling a pen around his fingers, dropping it and starting again, until Andrews wanted to get up, take the pen and throw it out the window.

  ‘Since we think a third party killed both men, was it this person Johnson was meeting in the graveyard?’West asked, and oblivious to the irritation he was causing, continued with his twiddling. ‘Why did Pratt go missing? Kelly Johnson says he was a Pushaway – a man forced to go missing. So what forced him? What happened three months before Simon Johnson came home to force Pratt to give up, even temporarily, the life he had so carefully built up?’ Leaning back precariously in his chair and to Andrew
s' relief, tossing the pen to one side, West smothered a yawn and considered the situation.

  ‘He is hiding from someone else?’ Andrews offered.

  ‘Yes, and, like us, that someone else couldn’t find him, not until Johnson came home and put the cat among the pigeons. Did he give Pratt’s phone number to someone else, and if so who? Have we spoken to the friends Johnson was supposed to have met? Maybe he let it slip in conversation.’

  Andrews shook his head. ‘I spoke to them. Three guys he knew from college. His sister was right too they all live around Ballsbridge and Donnybrook; they only meet up once or twice a year. The plan to meet was made before he arrived home and then he didn’t turn up. They weren’t overly concerned, assumed something had come up and were genuinely shocked and upset to hear of his murder.’

  ‘And I suppose they had no idea who he would have met?’

  Andrews shook his head. ‘One of them did mention that Simon was one of the most gullible guys he had ever met. Dangerously so he thought, and it appears he told him that on several occasions. He was more than upset to have been proved right!’

  ‘Pratt told Kelly he had an important meeting, that he was going to sort everything out and they could get back to normal.’ West remembered, with a sudden burst of clarity that sometimes comes when you least expect it. ‘Whoever he was meeting, then, had to be the reason he had gone missing in the first place, if you remember he went missing before Johnson came home. So it was nothing to do with Johnson’s return.’

  Andrews struggled to keep it all straight in his head. ‘But we’re still in agreement that whoever killed Simon Johnson, here in Foxrock, is the same guy who killed Pratt in Falmouth.’

  West nodded, ‘But don’t forget Pratt didn’t know Johnson was dead, he had no reason to be suspicious of his killer.’ He stood with a new sense of purpose.