That One May Smile

by Valerie Keogh

  Damn it, he thought and stepped over the line dividing personal and professional without further thought, knowing as he did he could never go back. ‘I don’t think you murdered Cyril Pratt, Kelly. I don’t think you were involved at all. Over the next few days, I’m sure, forensic evidence will prove it. Until that happens, I have to do my job, or at least,’ he amended, ‘be seen to be doing my job. And that means, unfortunately, investigating our only suspect.’

  ‘Me.’ Kelly said quietly, with drying tears like snail tracks down her cheeks.

  ‘You,’ he agreed, the lift of his lip not quite a smile as he reached out to wipe first one, and then the other tear away with the soft pad of his thumb. He forced down the quick flush of desire the small gesture brought to the surface, and he held it down till it gurgled and, if it didn’t quite die, it lay for the moment unresponsive. One final mental reminder of the consequences of any involvement with Kelly rendered it, not dead, but completely inert. For the moment anyway.

  He sat back and the rest of the flight passed in silence, each of them struggling with their own thoughts. The silence continued as they retrieved West’s car and drove across the city. West, searching for something to say remembered she had told him she was a writer. Children’s books, wasn’t it?

  ‘What age group do you write for?’ he asked now. A question without agenda.

  Kelly looked at him and then smiled briefly. ‘You don’t have to make conversation, Sergeant West. This isn’t a date.’

  He shrugged. ‘I was curious, that’s all. I’ve never met a writer of any sort.’

  Silence continued for several minutes.

  Kelly sighed loudly. ‘Well, since you are so interested, I write for the pre-teen age group. I got into it by accident really, I won a competition. What I really want to do, as I think I already told you, is to write adult fiction.’ She shrugged eloquently, ‘That was why Simon insisted I keep the money from the sale of my house. It’s supposed to enable me to write what I want and not be at the beck and call of my publisher who wants a variation of what I have been writing for years. Their motto is if it sells, don’t change it, just keep churning the same thing out, year after year. They don’t handle adult fiction so are not interested in encouraging me to change.’

  She went silent remembering how positive Simon was, how encouraging. ‘You can do it Kelly!’ he had said so often. So she had started working on an idea she had and it had fallen together so well. In fact she had just finished the novel the week he disappeared. Funny, she had forgotten! That was why they had gone for that expensive meal in Belfast. To celebrate! He had been so proud of her, had toasted her success with champagne.

  ‘Do you think, when this is all over, I’ll be able to remember the good times?’ The question was unexpected and West wasn’t sure how to answer. He decided on the truth as he knew it.

  ‘I had a rough time before I transferred to Foxrock.’ He spoke quietly forcing her to concentrate to hear what he was saying. ‘The details don’t matter; suffice to say it was tough. I still remember the bad times but they have lost their ability to sting,’ he stopped a moment, thinking, and then continued softly, ‘not their ability to disturb me, Kelly, or make me sad, just their ability to sting.’ He gave a grunt, ‘I wanted to kill people who told me that time was a great healer so I won’t tell you that now, but, fact is, they were right, it is. If you can get through the first few days, then the first few weeks, then the months well, then you’ll be ok. And as for the good times, they never fade, Kelly. They will be with you long after the bad times have faded, I promise.’

  Neither said a word as he pulled up outside her house and he switched off the engine. They sat a moment, unmoving. Finally, undoing her seatbelt she turned to him. ‘What now?’ she asked quietly.

  Undoing his belt he opened the car door and got out, waiting as she followed suit before replying. ‘Try and get some sleep.’ He stopped as she gave a tired grunt. ‘Try, at least,’ he continued, ‘We’ll be in touch tomorrow.’ He waited as she found her keys and opened her front door before he added, ‘You need to be here when we call, Kelly.’

  She stood framed in her doorway by the light of the hall. She gave a tired smile. ‘Is this what you call house arrest, Sergeant West?’

  He returned the smile. ‘House arrest entails having a garda on your doorstep. I don’t think we need go that far.’ He raised his hand in salute, ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’

  Kelly waited until he had reversed and driven away before she closed the door and slid to the floor on the soft carpet of the hallway. Suddenly the long day took its toll. She was too tired to cry or think or, momentarily, to feel. She sat, allowing the numbness to envelop her, enjoying the fleeting absence of pain. With a long sigh she struggled to her feet and climbed the stairs to her room where she took off her shoes and crawled, fully clothed, under the duvet. Still numb, she drifted into a deep sleep where she stayed till the sun shining through the window played on her eyes startling her awake.

  FIFTEEN

  West drove home in silence. It had been a hell of a day. A hell of a week, since he was being honest. He pulled up outside his Greystones house and sat a moment in the car, exhaustion hitting him with a sledge hammer.

  He opened the door and got out, stretching tiredly. The garden gate opened with a squeak, loud in the quiet of the late night and he made a mental note to oil it. When he had a chance. He’d add it to a growing list of things to do. He knew how Kelly felt about her house; he felt the same about this one. He’d been lucky; his parents lived a short walk away and had heard it was going on the market; he’d approached the vendor and made them an offer they, and he, knew they’d be foolish to refuse. Within a short space of time the house was his.

  An old Edwardian red-brick, it needed work but luckily had many of the original features intact. He’d hoped to do a lot of the refurbishment it needed himself but when he had the house two years and still hadn’t had the time he gave up and got the experts in. They’d done a good job and the house was as near perfect as could be.

  He wasn’t sure at the time how he felt about living so near to his parents but it had never been a problem. In fact when he had that trouble last year his mother had been...he smiled slowly, she’d been a mother.

  He opened the door and listened and almost at once he heard the pitter patter that announced Tyler’s every arrival. The little dog looked up at him, big brown eyes asking the usual question. ‘Where have you been?’

  West sat on the sofa and the dog sat beside him and West told him about his day and the dog listened in companionable silence. It was too late to bother about food, West decided, but never too late for a whiskey. Just one, he wasn’t going to work with a hangover twice in one week. Tongues would begin to wag. He could tell them, if they were really concerned that if he hadn’t hit the bottle last year, he never would.

  He sipped the whiskey, savouring the expensive single malt that had been a gift from somebody back when he had been a highly paid solicitor and gifts of expensive malt whiskeys were commonplace. Now as a garda, if someone gave him an expensive bottle of whiskey, he knew it would come with conditions and he’d have to say thanks but no thanks. He knew not all his colleagues thought as he did and were happy to pull a few strings here and there, but he wasn’t going down that road. The thin edge of the wedge and all that.

  His reputation for being as straight as an arrow held to him last year. Helped him get through it a little easier. Not easily, but a little easier.

  What had Kelly asked him? When this was over would she be able to remember the good times?

  He sipped his whiskey. He hadn’t lied to her. It had got easier with time. What he hadn’t told her was how difficult those first few days, weeks and months were. The pain that hit at the most unexpected moments that left you gasping for air; the sympathetic looks from people that too quickly turned to frowns of impatience accompanied with a grunt that said, clearly, get over it; the complete inability to carry on...with
anything.

  He rested his head back against the sofa. Tyler, spotting a moment’s weakness, climbed into his lap and curled up; within minutes he was snoring softly.

  West reached for the whiskey bottle and poured another. To hell with it. If he was going to start thinking about Glasnevin, he needed another.

  He’d spent a year in Garda Headquarters before begging for a transfer. He didn’t leave his lucrative career as a solicitor to sit in an office formulating strategies for a fraction of the money. That wasn’t why he joined up. He wanted to be on the streets, investigating, solving crimes, putting the bad-guys away.

  His insistent requests for transfer to an active assignment paid off eventually and he was offered the choice of two posts; the one in Foxrock or one, further from home, in the north city suburb of Glasnevin. He’d decided on Glasnevin, an area he didn’t know very well, hoping for more diversity of crime than in upmarket Foxrock and he supposed, looking back, he just wanted a complete change.

  How many hours was he there before it happened? One or two at the most. The call had come through just as he arrived, early as usual, and there was nobody available to take it apart from him. A report of a disturbance. The desk sergeant had given him the address, told him how to get there and he had gone. On his own, simple as that. Wasn’t that always the way things happened.

  And he couldn’t find the house. He drove around for thirty minutes, got completely lost and had to ask for directions back to the station arriving back just as the day shift were arriving. He introduced himself and met Brendan Keogh, the man who was assigned to be his partner. He told him of his predicament and the guy had laughed.

  ‘Don’t worry about it!’ he said, ‘We get so many of that type of call. Usually turn out to be nothing. We’ll have a word with the desk sergeant, see if they rang again.’

  They checked and no further calls had come through. Keogh wanted to forget about it but West insisted they go, just to check it out. Keogh had laughed again and called him an eager beaver, but had agreed to go.

  West had driven and Keogh had sat in the passenger seat regaling him with tales of the happenings in Glasnevin all of which were amusing and, although Keogh had obviously told them several times before, he laughed heartily at each one. That’s how West remembered him, laughing his head off at his own stories.

  They had arrived at the address. It wasn’t far from the station; he would have been there in five minutes if he hadn’t got lost. He parked the car at the kerb and Keogh got out and stood looking around. It was quiet.

  West unbuckled his seat belt to follow.

  ‘I wouldn’t bother getting out, mate,’ Keogh had shouted through the door. ‘I’ll just give the door a knock and see if they know anything about the call, ok?’

  Just then West’s mobile rang and he nodded at Keogh and answered. Some query about some paperwork at headquarters, he remembered. West finished the call and was just about to get out of the car when the front door of the house opened.

  He’d looked toward the door in time to see a middle-aged man wielding a shotgun. There wasn’t time to move; no time to shout a warning. The man fired and Brendan Keogh fell on the doorstep, blood quickly pooling around his body.

  The man, spotting West in the car, raised the gun and aimed and then instead of firing he reversed the rifle, wedged it under his chin and fired, blowing his head to smithereens.

  West sat stunned for what seemed like hours but was probably only seconds then quickly ran to where Keogh’s body lay. He turned him over carefully and then saw the damage, a point blank rifle shot makes a large hole; he didn’t have to feel for a pulse to know he was dead. He’d never had a chance.

  The other man had fallen backward into the house. West checked, but he too was dead.

  The shots had brought neighbours out and there were screams of horror. One woman came rushing up to West. ‘Can I help?’ she asked simply, her eyes wide with shock.

  ‘Do you know this man?’ West asked, indicating the body in the hall.

  The woman nodded. ‘I live next door,’ she said pointing, ‘Our houses share walls, you know, and I could hear him earlier. He was screaming his head off, screaming at his wife and kids. I rang the gardai then but nobody came.’

  ‘We are the gardai,’ West replied, indicating the fallen Keogh.

  ‘Pity you didn’t get here sooner, then,’ she said sadly.

  ‘You mentioned a wife and children,’ West asked trying to stay focused, feeling shock seeping in and paralysing.

  ‘Yea, they should be here.’ Her face took on a look of horror. ‘You don’t think he hurt them do you. God no!’

  West shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I need you to go back home and ring the gardai and ambulance. Tell them an officer has been hit. Tell them his name, Brendan Keogh. Have you got that?’He gave her Brendan’s name rather than his own. The local gardai would know the name and respond quickly.

  The woman nodded. ‘Brendan Keogh,’ she repeated before running off, shouting at people to get out of the way.

  West stood, swaying a little and looked around. There appeared to be a million faces looking back at him, all reflecting the look of shock he knew they saw on his. He pointed at one man, older than the rest, and called him over.

  ‘I’m Sergeant West,’ he said. ‘My partner’s been shot. I need someone to stay here and stop anyone else going into the house, can you do that for me while I go and see where the wife and kids are?’

  The man nodded curtly, said nothing but took a handkerchief from his pocket and draped it over Brendan Keogh’s open eyes.

  The tears that sprang to West’s eyes were sharp and sudden. He blinked them away. He had to find the wife and children. ‘Damn,’ he muttered as he stepped over the body of the man in the hall, he hadn’t thought to ask her how many children there were.

  The hall led directly to the kitchen. A quick look showed him it was empty. The back door was locked, the key on the inside. Retracing his steps he tried the first door, it was empty. So was an under-stairs toilet.

  He had to climb over the dead body to gain access to the stairway carefully avoiding stepping into the brain tissue that was spattered around the area. He took the stairs two at a time, stopping at the top and listening. He heard nothing. ‘Hello!’ he called. ‘Is there anyone here? My name is Mike West, I’m a Garda Siochana.’

  He opened the first door, an empty bathroom. Slowly he opened the first bedroom door and then the second. Nothing. Perhaps they had gone out, he hoped, his hand reaching for the last doorknob. He stood there a moment, hearing the distant sound of sirens, knowing help was on its way, wondering if he should wait until it arrived. He wondered even as his hand grasped the doorknob and turned it. He was still wondering when he pushed the door open. Then it was too late. He should have waited, he thought, when he saw the carnage within. He hadn’t used a shotgun here, he realised quickly, he’d used a knife.

  Frozen in the doorway West looked around. Four bodies, he could make out, although there was so much blood...so much blood. He felt his vision going, a blackness creeping in around the edges. Four bodies...he had slit the mother’s throat, it gaped like a wide toothless smile...the children...the three children...so very small, so very, very small.

  The blackness crept in and claimed him and he folded like a concertina just as he heard a yell from below announcing the arrival of gardai and ambulance crew.

  When he woke he was in a private room in a local hospital, a drip in his arm, a monitor beep beeping behind him. He felt a fraud, he hadn’t been hurt, he hadn’t been shot. He hadn’t even been shot at. He was ok, he told the doctor who came to see him, told him he was ok over and over again. He wasn’t aware of the tears that spilled from his eyes until he noticed the drops peppering the blue hospital gown he wore. When he saw the drops he couldn’t understand where they were coming from, pointed them out to the doctor who said nothing, just told him to sit tight.

  It wasn’t until his mother came in an hour
later and said in distress, ‘Oh Michael, don’t cry!’ that he realised he had been crying the whole time, his tears soaking the gown so that they had to change it. His mother sat with him, holding his hands, telling him it would be ok, that he would be ok.

  He didn’t believe her; he didn’t think he would ever be ok again.

  The inquest into the deaths exonerated him completely. The coroner told the court the wife and children had been dead several hours and had, more than likely, been killed while they slept. Had West arrived earlier, he may have prevented the death of Brendan Keogh but only at the cost of his own, the inquest decided.

  West was free to carry on as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t seen two men die in front of his eyes, one of who was laughing and joking moments before. As if he hadn’t seen those tiny, bloody bodies.

  He received counselling from the department psychologist and advice from friends and colleagues. From his mother he got unconditional love and support and it was that that got him through. That and time.

  He still woke up in a sweat sometimes and saw the rifle pointing at him. Sometimes, walking down the street or standing in a crowded place, he heard a laugh and thought of Brendan Keogh. Sometimes when he saw a small child he thought of those small, bloody bodies and wondered if they had known what was happening to them. But sometimes now he didn’t think about it at all.

  He had returned to Glasnevin two weeks after the event, he had stood in the car-park and knew he could never work there again. He had gone home, rang up and requested an immediate transfer. It was granted within hours and the next day he started in Foxrock.

  Before he reported for duty he bought a satellite navigation system; he was never going to get lost again.

  And it was working out alright for him in Foxrock, he thought. Of course, if he had taken the position there in the first place...well, how many times could he play the ‘what if’ game.