That One May Smile

by Valerie Keogh

  When they were both sat in the car he gave her a quizzical look. ‘You told him everything didn’t you?’

  ‘A shortened version,’ she admitted. ‘I thought he deserved it. He has been very kind to me.’

  West’s Ford started with a diesel growl and he turned out of The Inn’s car park onto the narrow main street of Come-to-Good. He predicted making good time, the weather was good and there were no road-works on his planned route to the airport. Just as he had finished this mental prediction his mobile rang. He slowed to a stop, fishing it out of his pocket. ‘West,’ he answered and listened.

  Kelly, watching, thought he must make a good poker player. She couldn’t tell if he were hearing good or bad news although a sideways glance at her made her think it was something to do with her, or perhaps her wonderful husband she thought, with that lick of bitterness creeping in again. She’d have to watch that she realised, she refused to become one of those terrible embittered women whose lives centred around the man that done them wrong.

  West was agreeing with whoever spoke to him, she noticed. But he wasn’t happy about it, she guessed, seeing his knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. He finally hung up and then instantly redialled. This time he spoke and the other person listened as West barked a list of orders and demands down the line. She followed some of it. Some of the names were familiar, some not. She waited, wondering what was happening and if he would tell her. He hung up abruptly and sat a moment thinking before he turned to her. She could see him struggling to find the right words and suddenly she knew.

  ‘It’s Simon, isn’t it? Or Cyril, I suppose, to be absolutely correct, maybe I should just refer to him as my husband, although I suppose...’ she knew she was babbling and stopped. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Just tell me whatever it is!’

  Sergeant West drew a breath. He had to give bad news many times, but he had never before had to give bad news in the too close confines of a car.

  ‘They found your car,’ he started gently. She thought for a minute that was it, just finding the car, but then saw his expression, the sadness in his eyes. ‘They found the body of a male answering the description of your husband, Kelly, I’m sorry.’

  She closed her eyes on the hot tears that welled up but couldn’t prevent them escaping to run slowly and quietly down her cheek. Memories flooded back, times they had laughed together, long romantic walks, trips to the theatre, sitting over breakfast, dining by candlelight; a million moments that were, each of them, precious. It suddenly didn’t matter what name he went by, it didn’t matter that they weren’t legally married; he was her husband and she had loved him and had felt loved by him in return. Nothing could change that; not the revelations that were coming fast; not the law that would dictate that their marriage was void. She had married him, had loved him and had missed him and she would mourn him.

  She felt a hand take hers and opened her eyes. ‘I am so sorry for your loss,’ he said simply. What more could he say? He held her hand another moment before letting it go and restarting the engine. ‘I’m afraid they have asked for you to identify the body. Do you feel up to that?’

  Kelly nodded. ‘Yes, of course. I would like to see him. I need to see him, I need to say goodbye. What’s that overused expression? Oh yes, closure. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to look for now? I’ll go and see his poor, dead body and get closure and it will all be ok.’

  West heard the bitterness lacing her voice and knew the reason. She’d never get the answers she needed now.

  Almost as if she could read his mind, she said, ‘I know what you’re thinking, Sergeant West, you’re thinking you’ll never get the answers you want from him, never be able to solve your case now that he is dead. That’s all you are worried about now!’ Her voice rose as she spoke, growing shrill. Her eyes were filled with anger and hatred as she looked at him.

  West considered saying nothing, letting her believe what she wanted. It was mostly grief talking anyway, he knew that. But he couldn’t let her believe his only interest was the damn case. ‘I was thinking that you won’t get the answers you wanted, Kelly. My case will be ongoing; your husband’s death just makes it more complicated, that’s all.’

  His calm, gentle tone of voice banished the anger and hatred. It wasn’t his fault, Kelly knew. He was just the messenger.

  ‘There’s no point in shooting you, really, is there?’ she muttered then sniffed and searched her bag for a tissue. West indicated the glove compartment and she opened it gratefully and pulled out a handful of tissues. A thought struck her. ‘It was a car crash, wasn’t it? That’s why he never came back to the cottage. That’s why he didn’t come back to me, why he didn’t come back and explain. He drove away from the cottage so fast; I saw the car speeding down those narrow roads, saw the tail-lights flashing.’ Kelly felt guilt join the whirlpool of emotions. ‘He always did drive too fast, sergeant. I was always asking him to slow down. Poor Simon. I’ve been criticising him, condemning him for not having come back.’ And all along, she thought in horror, he had been lying injured in a crash.

  West left her and get out of the car, walking out of ear-shot to make some calls. To his annoyance he couldn’t get hold of Andrews so he was forced to ring Inspector Duffy and fill him in on his late night dash to Cornwall. He interrupted the inspector’s tongue-lashing to tell him of the discovery of Cyril Pratt’s body.

  ‘At least, I am here on the spot, Inspector,’ he offered. ‘He was our main suspect in Simon Johnson’s murder. If there are similarities in the cause of death we may be looking elsewhere. We will need the continued cooperation of the Devon and Cornwall constabulary in order to identify any suspects they may have.’ He paused and then offered a very large olive branch. ‘I know that is your forte Inspector so I would be grateful if you could make some calls.’

  Inspector Duffy wasn’t immune to flattery and agreed. It was only when he had hung up that he realised he hadn’t had a proper explanation for why West had gone careering off to Cornwall in the first place. A niggling suspicion that he had been played, tickled the back of his mind. He chose to ignore it, for the moment anyway. Ignore it but not forget it. Frowning, he lifted the phone and was soon in deep conversation with the Devon and Cornwall superintendent.

  West breathed a sigh of relief. That hadn’t gone too badly he thought. He’d learned the hard way to lick ass if he had to.

  He redialled Andrews’ number and was inordinately thankful to get a dial tone and to hear the reassuring Tipperary accent of his partner. ‘Peter,’ he said quickly, ‘Where are you?’

  Peter Andrews had just returned to his car after visiting Bareton Industries and was still in the car-park. He turned off the engine. He wasn’t the most intuitive of people but it wasn’t hard to miss the tone of seriousness in West’s voice. ‘Just leaving Bareton Industries, Mike. Is everything ok?’

  He listened in silence as Mike gave him a quick rundown on the evening and mornings events culminating in the news that Cyril Pratt had been found murdered.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Andrews retorted, ‘I only left his wife a couple of hours ago. Do you want me to go back and break the news?’

  ‘No, leave it to the locals, Peter, they can handle it. Give them a buzz and fill them in. Devon and Cornwall will probably be in contact with them anyway, if they haven’t already. I need you back in Dublin to stop Duffy going ballistic.’

  ‘Great!’ Andrews said sarcastically. He could hear West’s chuckle and then the click as he hung up.

  Climbing back into the car, West cast a glance over Kelly who appeared calmer and concentrated on turning the car in the narrow road. They had to return to Falmouth, to the Divisional Headquarters whose morgue now held the body of Cyril Pratt aka Simon Johnson.

  ‘Where did it happen?’ Kelly asked once the car was heading in the right direction. In her mind she was picturing Simon injured in his car, calling for her. She closed her eyes tightly on the image. My poor Simon!

  West’s words shattered the image. �
�It wasn’t a car-crash, Kelly,’ he told her. He looked at her quickly seeing the expectant look on her face. There was no easy way to say it. There never was. ‘Your car was found on the outskirts of Falmouth yesterday evening. Simon was sitting in the front seat. He had been strangled.’

  Kelly gasped. ‘He was murdered?’ She gave a high-pitched hysterical laugh. ‘Of course he was murdered, idiot. It’s impossible to strangle yourself.’ She wrung her hands together in distress, tears now flowing freely down her face. Simon was murdered, Simon was murdered, the three words repeating on a loop she thought she would hear forever.

  Looking at her, West pulled the car over and parked. He undid both their seatbelts and, without ceremony, pulled her into his arms where she sobbed against his shoulder. Words were superfluous and he just held her till the sobs became soft snuffles. With a final gulp she pulled herself away, sitting back in her seat and wiping her face with the wads of paper tissue.

  West watched her a moment, saw her withdrawing into herself, her body instinctively going into self-protection mode. He had seen it too many times to be surprised – shutters and barricades going up; the polite charade of civilised behaviour, the stiff upper lip so beloved of old English manners. He was never too sure if he didn’t prefer the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth that were its polar opposite. Holding it all in or letting it all out, why was life lived in extremes? He heard her gulp and clear her throat; now would come the apology, he thought sadly. Sorry for being human, for having emotions, for daring to show them in public, in front of a stranger, no less – how vulgar! He could almost hear his grandmother’s voice echoing in his ear, boys don’t cry, be a man!, when he had fallen and returned with painful, bloody knees looking for comfort that never came. Not from her anyway. His own mother, as if in reaction to her mother’s ideology, had cosseted and loved him, cried over him, for him and once, just once with him. His own philosophy was a combination of both his grandmother’s stoicism and his mother’s compassion, it worked for him.

  Once again, however, Kelly proved she wasn’t going to fit into that round hole he had chosen for her. Instead of an apology she fastened her seatbelt and blurted out tersely, ‘Let’s get it over with,’ before turning her face to the window and sitting silently until they reached Falmouth.

  West parked in the visitor car park outside the mortuary building. The drab old building did nothing to disguise its function, utilitarian and grey it fused with the dark storm clouds gathering sullenly behind it. He opened the passenger door and Kelly stepped out, her eyes puffy from the constant tears that waited furtively to slip out from under her control like an errant child and wind their way down her cheek. She held onto the door a moment, a solid mass in her shattered world, before stepping away from it with a look of grim determination held firmly, if precariously, in place.

  West, ignoring her first withdrawal, held her elbow in a supportive grip and walked with her to the reception desk feeling her tremble as they approached the desk.

  ‘Sergeant West,’ he introduced himself to the middle-aged receptionist, ‘DI Pengelly is expecting us.’

  Experienced and sympathetic, but unfortunately ill-informed, the receptionist looked at the sergeant and then at the pale, distressed lady beside him and jumped to the wrong conclusion. ‘I am sorry for your loss, Mrs Pratt,’ she said politely, continuing oblivious to her faux pas, ‘Inspector Pengelly is expecting you both. I’ll just give him a call. Please,’ she indicated seating behind them, ‘take a seat.’

  Kelly sat, leaving Sergeant West to have a discreet word with the receptionist who blushed scarlet and stumbled an apology looking over to where Kelly sat. Kelly watched West shaking his head emphatically before returning to take the seat beside her.

  ‘I’m sorry about that, Kelly. She should have known.’

  ‘That the dead body in their morgue is a bigamist, how could she have known? I think, Sergeant, I have more to be worried about than a receptionist’s well-meaning mistake.’ She turned on the uncomfortably hard seat to face him. ‘I feel like an imposter and I know I have no reason to, but somewhere, there is a woman with two young children who is being told that her husband is never coming home. A woman who then has to explain to those children, that their father is never coming home.’

  One of those annoying tears slipped down and she dashed it angrily away. ‘Do you know the worst thing? I hate her!’ She shuddered. ‘I hate her because she was really married to him, she had his children. I’ll never have that, Sergeant West. All I am left with is questions, questions, questions!’ Her voice, rising sharply as she spoke, failed on a sob and she held her hands over her face, hiding in the meagre darkness they provided.

  Unaccustomedly speechless, West was relieved to see a large boned, well fleshed man approaching them, recognising him immediately as Detective Inspector Pengelly, and rose to shake his hand, drawing him away as he did so, giving Kelly a moment to recover.

  Luckily for West they’d met several years before at a conference on International crime in London. Over the course of the three day conference they had developed a friendship that had survived infrequent meetings. He gave him a quick précis of the case and Kelly’s part in it.

  Watching her from the corner of his eye he saw she had pulled herself together so he turned and introduced her to the Cornish detective.

  ‘Detective Inspector Pengelly this is Cyril Pratt’s wife, Kelly Johnson.’ West said smoothly determined to avoid any confusion or embarrassment.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Ms Johnson,’ DI Pengelly said in his Cornish burr and she nodded. ‘Are you sure you are able for this?’ he asked, looking at her keenly.

  She nodded again wishing he would just get on with it. It had to be done. She had to do it. She felt her eyes burn with unshed tears and turned her head, pretended to cough then blew her nose.

  ‘Well, if you’d like to follow me, then,’ he walked ahead of them, through double doors and on to a room reserved for the purpose.

  It was all very straightforward and almost matter of fact, Kelly thought, as she went through the process of identifying her husband. She supposed they tried to make it as unemotional as possible, as painless as they could; cold, clinical and scientific rather than an emotional maelstrom. She didn’t feel pain, she realised, she felt completely numb. But she could hear, deep within, a shrieking and wailing against the coldness of it, the unfairness of it, the undeniable truth of it. She wanted to let it out, she wanted to scream this is the man I loved, the man I loved, the man I loved, loved, loved, loved. She wanted to tear her clothes and hair and run into the cold sterile walls until her bones cracked. She wanted to shriek her pain, her loss until the echoes joined in the chorus. She wanted to bleed, to break, to feel pain, to lay with him and die. As she shrieked inside, she looked calmly down at his face, ‘Yes, that is my husband.’

  That was it. She watched as they covered his body again and then she was being escorted from the room and she knew, this time, she would never see Simon again.

  Wiped out by the ordeal, Kelly was relieved to be left in the visitor’s room with a cup of coffee, while Sergeant West went to talk to his Cornish counterpart about the case.

  ‘We can use an office here, Mike. No point in dragging you down to the station,’ Pengelly said as he led the way. He had grabbed two coffees and handed one to West as they walked. ‘Milk, no sugar, I remembered,’ he said.

  The office was a large comfortable one. The Cornish detective lowered his large frame into the comfortably worn chair behind the desk and took a noisy slurp of his coffee before opening the slim folder in front of him.

  West hesitated, wondering whose office they had invaded. Pengelly looked up and grinned. ‘Sit down, Mike! Jesus, you haven’t changed a bit!’

  ‘Neither have you Joe, that’s what I’m afraid of,’ Mike West returned, remembering practical jokes the big detective had played on him and other attendees at the conference back in London.

  ‘Relax, seriously! Th
is office belongs to the Mortuary Director. Her name is Sara Pengelly.’

  West’s face lit up with pleasure. ‘Sara? Sara Baker? You persuaded that beautiful, gorgeous woman to marry you? I don’t believe it!’

  Pengelly reached out and picked up a photograph frame and turned it around to face West. ‘Just over a year ago. There she is and that’s our boy JJ.’

  West picked up the frame. ‘She’s still stunning and luckily your son took after her and not you! I don’t know how I missed that news.’

  Pengelly frowned. ‘You had all that trouble in Dublin, Mike.’ Seeing West’s face shut-down he grinned quickly. ‘You had enough to contend with without knowing that I married the most beautiful girl in the world!’

  The shadow that flitted across West’s face dispersed and he grinned. ‘Yes, that would have made my situation absolutely unbearable, Joe. Thank you for sparing me.’

  ‘We moved down here round the same time you moved to Foxrock. Suits both of us. Sara is away on a course today. She’ll be sorry to have missed you.’ Pengelly said then opened the folder in front of him and got down to work.

  ‘We have nothing yet, Mike,’ he admitted, closing the folder and tossing it across the desk to him. ‘Forensics has the car. Our murderer is a casual bugger, he tossed the rope he used on the ground as he walked away. Forensics are working on it but I wouldn’t hold out much hope, looked like common-buy-anywhere fishing rope to me.’ He took another slurp of coffee dribbling some down his chin that he wiped off casually with his hand. ‘There’s no money in the wallet but the wallet was there, so I don’t see this as a robbery.’

  ‘No,’ West agreed, knowing a thief would have taken the wallet, not wasted time looking through it. He gave the file a cursory glance before throwing it back on the desk. With a sigh he gave the detective a rundown on his case to date.

  He finished on a sigh and then précised, ‘Our victim Simon Johnson went to a meeting with an unknown and was stabbed to death, the murder weapon casually dropped not far from his body. Cyril Pratt went to a meeting with an unknown and was strangled, the murder weapon casually thrown away nearby.’ West sat back with a groan, it was blindingly obvious, they didn’t need forensics to tell them what was poking them in the face.