Andrews forked a piece of sausage and waving it under his nose gave a sniff and a growl of approval before popping it into his mouth and munching happily.
‘Ignore him, Ms Johnson,’ West said, ‘and tell me more about this man. He said your husband had borrowed the money from him? Did he say when or why?’
‘He said borrowed, but the way he said it...I don’t know, it just didn’t sound right...and then later he said Simon or Cyril, or whoever he was, had relieved him of the money. So I suppose he meant he had stolen it.’ She thought a moment. ‘He didn’t say when, or anything more about it, other than he wanted it back.’
‘And he definitely said he had murdered him?’
Kelly shuddered as she remembered. ‘No. He said he had exterminated him. He said he was vermin. He sounded so amused, sergeant,’ tears welled. ‘He thought poor Simon was a stupid man and he killed him.’
‘Not before Pratt told him about the money you had though.’ West said cynically.
‘No, and I don’t understand, sergeant, why did he kill him? I would have given him the money without a moment’s hesitation.’
West sighed. ‘Perhaps, if you could have provided the whole five hundred thousand, he might not have. I’ve seen men killed for a lot less than two hundred grand before, I’m afraid. A lot less. Men, like this John character, can’t afford to be seen to be soft. Gives other criminals the wrong idea.’
‘We could have sold the house. Do you think I would have hesitated a moment, sergeant?’ she said desperately.
‘In the current market? It might have taken months. He obviously wasn’t willing to hang around. Wanted what he could get and wanted it now.’ He considered a moment. ‘From the way he treated you, Kelly, I’d guess this man John likes causing pain, that he likes to kill. Whoever killed your husband, you know, more than likely killed Simon Johnson too.’
West, seeing the waiter passing raised a hand and indicated the empty cafetiere. The waiter nodded, returning moments later with a fresh pot, steam and aroma drifting from it in happy tandem. He removed their used plates, glanced briefly at Sergeant Andrews’ by now only half-empty plate and left with a smile.
West poured more coffee for all of them and frowning asked, ‘You’re sure you have never seen him before?’
‘Positive!’ she considered a moment. ‘You’d remember this man if you’d met him. There’s something about him, something really creepy, and, it’s not just because of what he did to me, it’s more...well, you feel he could do anything he wanted, that he wouldn’t consider consequences.’ She looked at the sergeant, her eyes wide, fear lurking at the edges, just waiting to take over. ‘You’ve no idea who he is either, do you? So how can you catch him? He could be anywhere.’ She bit her lip on a tremble.
West knew he had to tread carefully. She was scared and he needed her cooperative and safe. He chose his words and spoke slowly and calmly.
‘You’re right. We don’t know who he is. Yet. But, we’ll find out and we’ll catch him, Kelly. First thing we’ll do is get you back to the station, have you look through some photos; see if we can identify him.’
‘Mug shots?’
West and Andrews shared a smile. ‘Everybody watches CSI, Mike, I told you!’ Andrews grinned through his last mouthful of bacon.
Seeing Kelly’s puzzled look, West shook his head and continued. ‘Yes, mug shots. If you can’t identify him from those we’ll get you to work with our forensic artist, Robert, and see if we can identify him that way.’
She looked at him, fear in her eyes but knowledge in the tightening of her lips, ‘And if you can’t? What then Sergeant? And if, or should I say, when, he finds out I’ve spoken to the police, what then? Maybe I watch too many crime programmes, CSI included,’ she said with a look at Sergeant Andrews, ‘but if I were him, I’d want to get rid of me. After all, he has murdered before, hasn’t he?’
Andrews had finished his gargantuan breakfast at this stage and sat listening without comment.
‘Why would he need to get rid of you? You weren’t a witness to a murder, Kelly.’
‘He told me he murdered my husband, isn’t that enough,’ she said sharply.
West looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he admitted, ‘you say you’ve watched a lot of crime programmes, you must know that it takes more than your word against his. We need proof and so far...well, so far we have a finger print.’
‘A finger print?’
West shrugged. ‘We found a fingerprint inside your husband’s wallet.’
Kelly looked puzzled. ‘But,’ she asked, ‘if you have a finger print can’t you find out who’s it is? Don’t you have data banks or some such thing?’
‘Yes, we do,’ West hesitated a moment. ‘It’s not on it,’ he admitted at last. ‘There’s the possibility, of course, that it’s a red herring but our forensic team say that it had to have been left there recently. We thought whoever murdered your husband was looking for something, and couldn’t search the wallet with gloves. He was careful but not careful enough. Unfortunately, not all criminals end up on our system. He may have a juvenile record but we have no access to that.’
‘So looking at mug shots is a bit of a waste of time,’ she muttered irritably.
‘I wasn’t asking you to look at them for amusement, Kelly. We have a number of photos of people who are, shall we say, of interest to us as opposed to having a criminal record. Possibly breaches all their civil rights, probably contravenes all data protection rules, but there it is, we have some and maybe, just maybe this John character will show up there.
‘When we find him we can arrest him for extortion and assault. If we can match his finger print to the one we found in Pratt’s wallet, well, then we’ll see what happens.’
‘If you find him?’
‘When.’ West said determinedly.
Kelly sipped her cooling coffee and considered what he had said. She didn’t really have a lot of choice. ‘So what happens now?’ she said tiredly, her head dropping back against the high back of the chair. Her hair fell back from her neck, for the first time exposing the damage John had inflicted on her neck. The bruising had intensified, outlining the bite mark against her unnaturally pale skin and the sight drew a collective sharp intake of breath from both men. It was a vicious branding that hinted at the depths this man was willing to stoop to.
West, still staring at her neck, was momentarily flummoxed. ‘What happens now? We go back to the station. We do our job and, with your help, we’ll put this guy away, Kelly, you can bet on it.’
She looked at him, weighing up what he said, trying to believe in him. ‘I can’t stop thinking about him.’ She closed her eyes tightly as though to shut the image off and whispered, ‘I keep feeling his hands on me, his mouth...and I feel sick every time. I don’t know if I can take anymore; it’s just one thing after another and I don’t know if I can keep going.’
West raised his hands in a gesture of resignation to Andrews who grimaced in return. It was never easy, both men knew, to ask victims to help put a perpetrator away. The ones who were eager to help were, invariably, the ones they didn’t need. Those who were too scared, too stressed or too disinterested were the ones they usually needed. Pressure could bring results, of course, but neither man approved of pressurising an already injured party, preferring to get information from other sources in those cases.
Some aspects of his job didn’t appeal to him, West decided, as he waited while Kelly tried to banish the memories that were guaranteed to haunt her for a long time.
Kelly was struggling. So much had happened to her in the space of a week that her mind was in a whirl. Finding a dead body, in retrospect, seemed to be the most normal part of the week, she thought, dampening the giggle that threatened. Bigamy, murder, extortion, sexual molestation, can my life get any more exciting.
She opened her eyes and raised her gaze to silently regard the two men who sat opposite, unspeaking. They exuded a quiet confidence that was compelling and r
eassuring. What choice did she have, she decided, laying her hands palm down on the table in front of her.
‘Ok,’ she finally said, her voice a little stronger. ‘I’ll help in any way I can.’ She saw a look of relief on the men’s faces and smiled a little. ‘Just one condition,’ she added, ‘I want to come back here. Stay here until you catch him, I can’t go back home until he is caught, ok?’
‘We could move you to a hotel in Dublin, Kelly. You’d be just as safe,’ West suggested.
She shook her head. She felt safe here, she wasn’t going anywhere else. If that made life hard for the gardai, well, tough. Her life wasn’t exactly a bundle of fun.
‘Ok, that’s not a problem,’ West conceded, ignoring, for the moment, the two hour each way drive. He glanced at his watch. ‘Do you need to go back to your room?’
She shook her head, she’d nothing to go back for. A nod brought the breakfast bill that West insisted be put down to departmental expenses. ‘It’s the least we can do,’ he insisted tucking the receipt into his wallet, ‘Especially,’ he grinned, ‘since Andrews here ate most of it.’
‘And enjoyed every mouthful. Makes up for all the meals I miss when working with you, Sergeant West,’ Andrews retorted quickly.
TWENTY-FIVE
By Midday Kelly was in Foxrock looking at photographs. She looked at each intently, willing John to be among them. None were even close.
‘Don’t worry,’ West reassured her. ‘It was always going to be a long-shot. I’ll take you down to meet Robert, our part-time forensic artist. He’ll do a sketch for us, he’s very good.’
West escorted her down a floor to a small, well-lit room over-looking the car-park at the back of the station. He introduced her to Robert, a quietly-spoken man of uncertain age who greeted her with a shy smile and invited her to sit beside him at the large table that dominated the room. West smiled down at them both and left with a casual wave.
When Robert opened a sketch pad, she looked at it quizzically. ‘I thought there would be a computer programme to do this,’ she said with an obvious air of disappointment.
Robert’s smile widened and he nodded. ‘There is,’ Mrs Johnson, ‘and they allow us to do a creditable composite but to be honest, if you can give me a good description, the likeness I draw is more likely to be correct.’
‘You’re better than a computer?’ she grinned in disbelief.
His smile turned gleeful. ‘Much, believe me.’
He was right. After a frustrating hour changing noses and hairlines, mouth and eyes, he came up with an eerily close sketch of John.
He held it up. ‘What do you think?’
She stared at the sketch, picturing so easily in her mind the face of a man she hadn’t known existed twenty four hours before. ‘His eyes,’ she murmured, ‘the eyelids are heavier.’
With a couple of deft pencil strokes, Robert changed the sketch’s eyelids and suddenly it was John.
Kelly reeled back, her reaction a confirmation of the likeness. ‘That’s him. My God, that’s him.’ She held the sketch up with trembling fingers and then carefully put it on the table in front of her, wiping her fingers on her jeans as they had been contaminated.
‘There’s nothing else you want to change?’ Robert asked, as a formality, knowing by her reaction to the sketch that the answer would be no.
She shook her head vehemently, staring at the sketch on the table with loathing, ‘That’s him,’ she repeated firmly.
Satisfied, he left her sitting while he went in search of Sergeant West. Fifteen minutes later, muttering an apology for his delay, West arrived and sat in the vacant chair beside her. Picking up the sketch he examined it carefully, mentally filing away, for future use, the specific details that would pick this man out in a crowd – the heavy eyelids, the receding hairline, the unusually thin top and bottom lips and incredibly small, even teeth. Yes, he decided, he’d remember this face.
‘You’re sure this is a good likeness, Kelly?’ he asked glancing at her.
Kelly picked up the sketch then put it down again, a look of distaste on her face. ‘It could be a photograph of him, sergeant; it’s that good a likeness.’
West nodded, satisfied. Putting the sketch into a folder, he asked Kelly to wait another second and headed back to the main office. It was, in fact, another twenty minutes before he returned and Kelly was getting restless, and, to her surprise, hungry. She glanced at her watch and was surprised to see it was almost three. She gave a weary sigh just as the door opened again and West returned.
‘I am sorry for the delay,’ he apologised again as he sat and faced her. He caught and held her gaze noticing the sadness in her eyes. ‘Thank you for your help, Kelly. We’ve put that sketch in the system. We should be able to find out who this guy is, and once we do...well, you’ll be able to...’ he stopped himself trotting out the clichéd, get back to normal just in time, and with a cough he continued, ‘you’ll be able to go home and try to start sorting your life out.’ It didn’t sound much better, he realised in annoyance.
‘Sort my life out,’ she echoed, avoiding his gaze. ‘Yes, I can get back to a life where my husband, who wasn’t actually my husband at all, bought a house with money that wasn’t his. So I’ve no husband, probably no home and definitely no money. It should be easy, Sergeant West,’ her voice was rich with sarcasm.
Embarrassed, he stood. ‘I’m sorry, Kelly. I should know better than to resort to cliché.’
Now it was her turn to be embarrassed and her pale skin flushed a soft pink, ‘No, I’m sorry, Sergeant West, that was very rude of me. You were trying to be kind. I’m just tired. Doing that sketch was pretty exhausting, having to concentrate on all the details and everything. Having to remember.
‘If I could just go back to the hotel now, I’d appreciate it. I could do with a long, hot bath. Thinking of him makes me feel dirty.’
She stood and, the room being small, standing brought her close to the sergeant. A tall woman, she came only to his shoulder and she had to raise her eyes to meet his. His were grey and long lashed, she realised, with a return of that frisson of unexpected attraction, and they held hers unwaveringly.
The door opened behind them, startling them both into movement, Kelly bending hurriedly to pick up her bag and West, stepping back guiltily.
Andrews, opening the door, caught the awkward movements and gave West a quizzical look. West ignored the look, refusing to meet his partner’s eye.
Andrews, with an inward smile, addressed Kelly. ‘There is an unmarked car outside waiting to take you back to Cork, Mrs Johnson. The plainclothes officer will escort you to your room, check it out for you.’
She smiled at him gratefully and, tucking her bag under her arm, she turned to say goodbye to the sergeant, holding out her hand. ‘I look forward to hearing that you’ve caught our friend, Sergeant West.’ She lifted an eyebrow and her smile widened a little. ‘Then I can start the sorting out business.
He took her hand in his, conscious of how soft it was, then, as she shook his hand, he noted her strength. Then a dry cough from the doorway alerted him that he was holding her hand just a trifle too long for convention and he reluctantly dropped it.
‘Stay in your room. If you have any problems, if you have any strange phone calls, anything, ring us, ok?’ West reminded her.
She nodded and turned to follow Andrews.
West called her back. ‘Just one thing you should know before you go, Kelly,’ he said remembering. ‘The house.’ Kelly looked at him quizzically and waited. ‘It’s in your name only,’ he said.
TWENTY-SIX
Contrary to their hopes, the next day brought them no nearer to identifying the mysterious John. They had sent the sketch to other divisions and departments, national and international without even a glimmer of interest.
Frustration mounted and tempers started to fray with more than one phone being banged down in annoyance. They had pinned their hopes on identifying John West knew, to give the case the boost
it needed. Looking around now he knew he had to refocus the team and he called for a general update.
‘Ok, listen up,’ he called, when they had gathered round. ‘All right, we still don’t know who this guy John is, but let’s focus on what we do know. Because...’ he stopped as the men started muttering. ‘Because,’ he said louder this time, ‘even when we do identify this guy we have no proof he murdered Cyril aka Simon.’
The muttering stopped as the men realised the truth of this.
Jarvis raised his hand. ‘Don’t we have a finger print, sir?’ he asked.
‘We have one finger print found on the inside of the victim’s wallet. Even a mediocre solicitor would call that circumstantial evidence; a good solicitor would laugh and dismiss it outright.’ West told them.
The men, remembering that the sergeant had been a solicitor in a former life, looked crestfallen.
‘So we work with what we do have.’ He looked around the room and then back at the case board. ‘We work with what we have,’ he repeated firmly. ‘So what do we know?
‘Victim number one. The real Simon Johnson.’ He tapped the photo on the board. ‘Advertises his prestigious Cork apartment for rent on a noticeboard in Bareton Industries. Rents it to a man, by the name of Adam Fletcher, who he believed also worked in Bareton Industries but who we know was Cyril Pratt. Johnson plans to be away for two years and to come back to a healthy bank balance. He has to come home early for a funeral, checks his bank and discovers he has nothing. So what does he do?’ He paced in front of the men, tossing a pencil from hand to hand.
‘He goes to his apartment to face Adam Fletcher; finds the tenant is one Alberto Castelione who insists he is paying rent to a Simon Johnson...’ he turned and tapped the photo of Cyril Pratt with one of the pencils, ‘Alberto identified this man as Simon Johnson.’
He nodded at Jarvis, who took up the tale. ‘Mr Castelione gave Simon Johnson, Cyril Pratt’s phone number so we assume he rang him and arranged to meet. The next day Johnson took a flight to Dublin and hired a car. The car was found abandoned not far from the graveyard where he was murdered. The mileage on the rental indicated a journey of twenty five miles which is roughly the distance from Dublin Airport to Foxrock.’
That One May Smile Page 24