No Simple Death (2019 Edition)

by Valerie Keogh

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

  Just how many husbands did she have? He kept his mouth shut. When looking for information, sarcasm didn’t help.

  With a loud, irritated sigh, Amanda Pratt had 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 and 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-breathing dragon Andrews had ever seen, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She 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. With a shake of his head, he filed it away as a story to tell Petey who was particularly keen on dragons.

  She hadn’t offered him coffee, making a mug for herself and standing, coffee in one hand and cigarette in the other, glaring down at him. ‘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 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! 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 had spent the next twenty minutes trying to see if Amanda Pratt knew anything about the five hundred thousand euros and quickly came to the conclusion that she knew nothing. If Cyril had got his hands on a lot of money, none of it had ended up in Delaney Crescent.

  ‘Is that your son?’ he asked finally, pointing to a framed newspaper cutting of Cyril and a small skinny child.

  She puffed smoke. ‘That’s my Trevor,’ she said without any pride or pleasure. ‘Cyril dragged him to a festival of some sorts and they took that. He wasn’t happy with it being in the paper, said they’d never asked permission.’ A laugh ended on a hacking cough. ‘You’d have expected him to be delighted, him with his celebrity complex, to be in the Cork Echo, but no, he went on and on about it until I told him to fuck off.’ She laughed again. ‘Funnily enough, that was the last time I saw him.’

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

  ‘Nothing to do today,’ she informed him. ‘The school is closed so the kids will be under my feet.’

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

  She 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.

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

  ‘Those are Cyril’s,’ she explained with a sneer. ‘He is too embarrassed to go into the shop to buy them so he has them delivered.’

  Andrews picked up the first few; they were all popular celebrity magazines. ‘Cyril likes these?’ he asked in surprise.

  Another throaty laugh. ‘Yeah, 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. When he started wearing those fancy Armani suits, he really thought he was going somewhere. I used to laugh at him for being a fool.’

  His 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?’

  She 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 that kind of money? He got those suits at some charity shop in Dublin when he was there on a job. I’ve read about them myself, ones where rich people donate their cast-offs. Cyril happened to visit one just as some stuff was left in and he bought the lot. Shoes and shirts too, all barely worn.’

  She lit another cigarette and puffed smoke at him. ‘He thought wearing those clothes made a difference, that his shit didn’t stink, but he was still the same stupid fucker he was when I married him.’

  Andrews, normally unshockable, hid a grimace at her vulgarity. He was embarrassed by the sneering tone in her voice, the contempt she obviously held for her husband. ‘Why do you stay married to him?’ he dared to ask, curious as to why they stayed together. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Cyril to divorce this woman and marry Edel properly?

  She considered him a moment through smoke-narrowed eyes as if wondering if she should tell him the truth, and then gave a careless shrug. ‘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’d vanish into the woodwork. 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, didn’t you know? His first marriage when he was seventeen was annulled after six weeks.’ She laughed raucously. ‘I think his young wife was frigid. 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.’

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

  He didn’t blame Cyril a bit.

  At the front door, he was thanking Amanda for her help when two small, thin children appeared at the top of the stairs. 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.

  19

  West was back from his car within minutes, carrying the overfilled briefcase with difficulty. He hefted it onto his desk with a grunt. Seeing the grim look on Andrews’ face, he paused and said in some concern, ‘You okay?

  The grim look lightened. ‘Oh, it was that Pratt woman, yesterday. She was a piece of work.’

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

  Without glancing at his notes, Andrews quickly filled him in on the previous day’s interview with Amanda. ‘She didn’t have much regard for him, 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 sometimes 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.’

  ‘I don’t think he would have cared, she said he’d asked her for a divorce.’

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

  ‘She said he asked her about a year ago, and that ties in with when he met her, so I suppose so. 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.’ And what a contrast to his bigamous marriage to Edel. He remembered how happy she’d said they were, and sighed. ‘When was Cyril home last?’

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

  ‘Edel said they went away two or three times a month to hotels around Ireland and the UK,’ West said. ‘I bet if we had the envelopes he sent to Amanda, we could match the dates there too. What a conniving so-and-so he was.’ 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. Certainly, from all appearances there is no money to spare in the Pratt house. It’s a too-small house in need of refurbishment and,’ he added, remembering the house in detail, ‘a good cleaning. Kids look small, undernourished; 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 him about the celebrity magazines and the press cutting from the Cork Echo. ‘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.’ Shaking his head, he finished, ‘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 he bought the lot.’

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

  ‘She said the clothes were obviously not new and she had read about charity shops where you could buy designer stuff cheaply.’

  ‘Simon Johnson’s wardrobe,’ West said, rubbing a hand over his face. ‘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 fitted him. Of course,’ he added, ‘Pratt was passing himself off as Simon Johnson so he had to look the part. Then he met Edel; glamorous, attractive – and the play went on, the actor continuing to dress the part.’

  Andrews shuffled in his seat and crossed his arms. ‘He must have known it would come falling down when Johnson came home.’

  ‘But he wasn’t supposed to be home for another year, remember? Anyway, don’t forget, Pratt had already gone missing by the time Johnson discovered the scam. Something else caused his 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?’

  Andrews hastily made a backing off gesture with his hands and, tucking the smile away for another time, agreed. ‘Absolutely stunning, 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 great. Skinny, he called her; I 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. 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. ‘I think that was Pratt’s downfall, the reason he couldn’t walk away, he’d fallen in love.’

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

  West considered the question for a moment. ‘You really think he was intelligent enough to have differentiated between the two? No, I think he fell in love with the whole package and 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.’ West stopped pacing a moment, thinking. ‘Pratt must have been desperate, you didn’t see the cottage he was living in, it was an absolute pigsty.’ He turned, stepped over some papers on the floor and sat in his chair with a frown furrowing his brow.

  ‘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. ‘Since we think a third party killed both men, was it this person Johnson was meeting in the graveyard?’ Leaning back precariously in his chair, he tossed the pen to one side and smothered a yawn. And why did Pratt go missing in the first place? What happened three months before Simon Johnson came home, to force him to give up the life he had so carefully built?’

  ‘Pratt is hiding from someone else?’

  ‘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?’

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

  ‘Pratt told Edel 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 came when he least expected it. ‘Whoever he was meeting, then, had to be the reason he had gone missing in the first place. That was before Johnson came home, so it can’t have been anything to do with his 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.’

  ‘But don’t forget, Pratt didn’t know Johnson was dead, so he had no reason to be suspicious of his killer.’ West stood with a new sense of purpose. ‘Pratt was trying to sort out the problem that had forced him into hiding three months ago, not any problem due to Johnson’s return, that’s why he told Edel their life could return to normal. From what she said, I think the time spent
in that isolated cottage may have made him realise he couldn’t live a lie forever. He told her he would explain things to her, hoped she would understand.’

  ‘We’re back to why did he go missing in the first place?’ It was Andrew’s turn to smother a yawn.

  West rubbed his head and swallowed a groan of frustration. Speculation country was an exhausting place to spend time in, it required mental dexterity, a capacity to make connections between tenuous links and the ability to start again from the beginning when, as sometimes happened, the connections fell apart like a playing-card house. ‘It’s the money,’ he said. ‘Something to do with the money, I’ll bet on it. We just have to find out how, where and who.’

  ‘No problem, then,’ Andrews said, his voice dripping sarcasm.

  ‘What about Bareton Industries?’ he asked, remembering the second of Peter’s visits in Cork. ‘Anything of interest turn up there?’

  ‘Nothing we hadn’t already guessed. I was lucky enough to get to talk to Tom Bareton; he is semi-retired and only pays a courtesy visit once in a blue moon which happened to be the day I called. He was more than delighted to be of assistance and quickly rubbished the signature on the reference. He showed me his, Pratt didn’t even try to copy it.’

  West leaned back. ‘It was on headed paper. Johnson wouldn’t have doubted its veracity for a moment. Did you get to speak to…?’

  Andrews supplied the name. ‘Adam Fletcher?’

  ‘That’s the man.’

  ‘No, my luck didn’t hold there, he wasn’t in work. I did manage to catch him by phone at home and asked if we could meet. He got quite snotty, Mike, told me he was having a day off with his wife and children and, if we really needed to speak to him, he would be available next week. I persuaded him to answer a few questions over the phone but he wasn’t happy about it. He said he had no idea why Pratt would have picked his name, or how he knew that he’d never met Simon Johnson. He did admit, that it wouldn’t have been hard to find out their work rota and it was fairly obvious from that, that they wouldn’t have had a chance to meet, at work anyway. He didn’t have anything else to add. I told him we’d be in contact next week, if we needed to. D’you know what he said?’ He waited for West’s headshake before continuing. ‘That if I wanted to ask him further questions, he wasn’t wasting personal time and I was to make an appointment with the Bareton Industries secretary. If we do need to speak to him, I’m volunteering you.’ He yawned tiredly. ‘I suppose Pratt took a chance picking his name to use. Con men do, don’t they? Fletcher was quite indignant that his name had been used in a scam, wanted to know if it would have any repercussions, if it would affect his credit rating.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘The things people worry about. Anyway, I reassured him that, as far as we knew, Pratt had just used his name to gain access to the apartment and nothing else. I did advise him, however, that it might be a good idea to have his credit rating checked, to be on the safe side.’