‘“Come to good,”’ he read aloud, raising an eyebrow at Andrews. ‘Mean anything to you?’
Andrews took the scrap of paper in his gloved hand and read it for himself, shaking his head. ‘Could mean anything.’
‘Or nothing,’ West muttered, taking the scrap of paper back and putting it into an evidence bag. He handed it to a technical officer for processing, with a request for a copy as soon as possible. Their examination over, they stepped back to allow the body be taken away, stripping off their gloves as they moved.
‘Organise a house-to-house on all the residences around the graveyard, Pete, someone might have seen or heard something. Dr Kennedy’s estimate is ten hours ago, give or take an hour, which gives us between ten and one.’ He looked around the graveyard. ‘What the hell was he doing here at that time of night? Hardly the place for an assignation.’ He pointed up at the church parapet where light fittings could be seen. ‘Check what time the lights are switched off. If it’s before ten, they may have used torches. Someone may have seen lights moving around.’
He looked back to Edel Johnson’s house. ‘Her house has the best view over the churchyard. Now that we have a time frame, I’ll go back and see if she can remember noticing anything.’
It took a while before the doorbell was answered and this time he wasn’t asked inside.
‘Sorry to bother you again,’ he said smoothly. ‘The pathologist has given us a time of death between ten and one. Did you happen to notice any lights or activity around that time?’
‘No,’ she said bluntly.
He was about to offer thanks and leave when he paused. ‘Just one final question?’ As she hesitated, he continued, ‘Do the words, “come to good,” mean anything to you?’
It was a shot in the dark and he thought he had nothing to lose by asking. He certainly didn’t expect her to go weak at the knees and clutch at the door. He reached out to her, shocked at her unexpected response, but she quickly backed away, moving the door so it stood like a barrier between them.
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 West standing on the doorstep, a look of astonishment on his face.
He spotted Andrews in conversation with a group of gardaí. As he approached, they headed off with loud voices and backslapping.
‘When I tell Inspector O’Neill that one of his lads found the murder weapon, it will make his day,’ Andrews said.
‘What?’ West had been looking intently around the graveyard, watching the slow movement of men as they searched, mentally planning his strategy.
Andrews beamed 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, just dropped behind a shrub near the main church gate, waiting for us to find it. Come on, I’ll show you where.’
Clipped box shrubs edged the pathway from the main church door to the road. Andrews stopped beside the final one and pointed to the slightly overgrown grass behind. West saw traces of blood where the knife had lain; he 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 the village?’ he asked.
‘Yes, it’s just a couple of minutes’ walk.’
They went through the gateway, and West eyed the concreted surface of the car park. It was crisscrossed with a multitude of tyre tracks and footprints. Was it worth trying to take impressions from every one of them, even if they could? He doubted it. ‘He probably parked here,’ he said. ‘Arranged to meet the victim and had 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 them to squint uncomfortably. ‘Why here?’ Andrews said. ‘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 appropriate for a night in a posh club than a seedy meeting in a graveyard.’
West thumped him lightly on the shoulder. ‘But it’s not any old graveyard. This graveyard. Right beside Edel Johnson’s house.’
Andrews frowned, puzzled. West could see his mind working, wondering if he had missed something. He could almost hear all the little wheels and cogs being checked.
He put him out of his misery. ‘I haven’t filled you in on my final visit with her. 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 and checked his watch. ‘Let’s go get some lunch, and I’ll fill you in.’
3
‘You know Foxrock better than I do, Peter,’ West said as they walked down the road from the church to the centre of the village. ‘Anywhere good for lunch and a decent pint?’
‘Not sure how you can refer to Guinness as being a decent pint,’ Andrews said with a sniff. ‘But there’s a nice pub on the edge of the village.’
Sitting in the fairly quiet pub, they drank 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, West was glad that the pint, at least, lived up to expectation. He drank with pleasure, extolling the virtues of Guinness to the unconvinced Andrews, who was glad when the conversation turned to the much more interesting discussion of why Edel Johnson had 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,’ he said. ‘I could even see where that might have a bad effect 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 meant something to her, that’s for sure, and she wasn’t sharing it with us.’ He sipped his pint, thinking. ‘Good detectives don’t believe in coincidence, do they?’ he asked finally. ‘Edel 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, a good complicated case to stop us getting bored.’
Andrews placidly continued to drink his pint. ‘I’m as happy to plod through a dull case as a complicated one but the missus will be happy with the overtime pay even though she’ll moan about the longer hours.’
‘Joyce never moans,’ West remarked absent-mindedly. He 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; ask for extra staff and overtime payment 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 hadn’t been that simple, they’d 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 th
en 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 drained his glass and set it down on the beer-glazed table and turned to Andrews who was still nursing his pint. ‘You want Guinness, again?’
Andrews raised his half-full, half-pint 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, socialised on occasion and he frequently ate in Andrews’ house, but he couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a pint together.
‘Years. I’ve even tried it with blackcurrant.’
‘Blackcurrant?’ West grimaced. ‘Why do you bother? Why don’t you just drink something else?’
Andrews shrugged. ‘My father only ever drank Guinness. He bought me my first drink in our local.’
‘In Tipperary?’ West asked, remembering some mention of the county before.
‘Yes, Thurles, to be exact. 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, how beautiful it looked and how I was always disappointed in the taste but was afraid to tell him.’ He looked at West. ‘I suppose I still am.’ He lifted his glass and drained the contents in one long drink.
Both men stood, and Andrews took the glasses to the bar, the barman nodding his thanks. ‘I think he was glad to see us leave,’ he said to West when they were back out on the street. ‘I got the impression he was afraid we were putting his regular customers off their pints.’
West sniffed. ‘I’d say some of his customers have a closer relationship with the gardaí than they’d like to admit.’
Back in the centre of Foxrock village, 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 vehicles, the two detectives walked through the village and up Wilton Road to the graveyard where they stood a moment tying up loose ends, dividing responsibilities, and making plans for the remainder of the day.
Andrews headed back to the crime scene. West watched him go with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, knowing his head would be busy making more lists. He was lucky to have him as a partner. Solid, reliable and completely dependable. If he asked him to do something, it would be done; he never had to worry about it again.
He turned and stared up at Edel Johnson’s old Victorian house. If he had hoped to catch a glimpse of her, he was disappointed. There was no sign of life at all. It was a beautiful house; he admired the architecture even as he decided that there was an ineffable sadness about it, as if it had absorbed some of the pain of the woman within.
Why had she reacted so badly to those words? 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 eyes and come to good out of his mind.
4
Edel had leaned against the closed door, listening as the footsteps faded until she was sure the garda sergeant wasn’t coming back. She peered out the window beside the door, watching as he walked through the gate, before she turned to hurry 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 out until they were piled in a bundle at her feet.
‘Hell and damnation,’ she cried and almost fell as she stepped back, her feet tangling in T-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 Simon had gone to Belfast for a day’s shopping. The day he had disappeared.
He 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. With a moment’s anguish, she held the jacket close and remembered his 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 imagined him slipping in beside her so clearly that she could almost feel his skin as it brushed hers. It was so real she could almost feel his warm breath stirring her hair as his face came closer. So real she could feel his lips on hers. And then she would realise again and again, the sting as sharp each time, that he wasn’t there, he wasn’t coming back.
Her hands gripped the jacket, knuckles white as the pain of heartache 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 released her grip on the jacket and searched for the pockets set deeply into side seams. Reaching inside, she found the scrap of paper she was looking for. She took it out and unfolded it. There, 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. That train journey to Belfast. 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’d 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 she might, she could never remember why it was he hadn’t been keen on going. Just one of the innumerable conversations that are part of everyday living, generally forgotten as soon as finished, never meant to be remembered, never mind examined and 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 important.
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. She remembered feeling happy and smugly content. Bitterness soured her stomach at the memory. 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 on the station platform with tales of whomever he had met.
When he wasn’t there, she had been surprised, then perturbed. Maybe he’d gone to the toilets; she’d kept her eyes on the door to the men’s room as the train pulled away behind
her and faded into the distance. The last stragglers crossed the overhead bridge and vanished. For a moment, she was alone on the platform, and all she could hear was the sound of 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, there was silence and she had felt the first tickle of fear.
She couldn’t even try his mobile, he’d left it at home, liking to get away from it when he could. It never seemed a problem, after all, she always carried hers. Now, she cursed this quirk of his as she stood waiting, hoping that he would turn up, thinking that, perhaps, for some reason he had missed the stop and would catch the next train back, or the next. Only when, two hours later, she had been assured by officials that there were no more trains, did she give up. 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. He wasn’t there, of course, and she had stood, looking around, wondering what to do.
Crying, partly in frustration and partly in fear, she’d reached into her pocket, looking for a tissue, and had pulled out the scrap of paper. It had fallen to the ground and, for a moment, she had almost ignored it. Then, she’d picked it up and read what was written on it but was too worried about Simon to give it much thought and had shoved it carelessly back into her pocket.
Later, she had put the jacket away because it reminded her too much of that day and she had never wanted to see it again. She had planned to bring it to a charity shop with some other unwanted clothes but, like a lot of things recently, she hadn’t done so.
No Simple Death Page 3