No Simple Death (2019 Edition)

by Valerie Keogh

  Returning, she picked up her bag and began stuffing the contents back inside. A torn piece of card caught her eye and she picked it up. Quickly, she found its partner and stood for a moment holding the two pieces in her hand. It seemed like aeons ago. Keep it anyway, just in case, the sergeant had said. She had torn it up and almost thrown it away and now here it was when she was desperate. Karma, she wondered with a faltering smile. She looked at it for a moment, remembering his intelligence and his obvious… she searched for a word… decency, she decided.

  Then she remembered abandoning him without explanation. It didn’t seem quite so amusing to her now. He would have been understandably incensed. She felt a twinge of guilt. Would he understand? For some reason beyond her comprehension, she thought he might.

  Again, she faced the depressing truth. She really had no one else to turn to. Oh yes, she had learned her lesson, she was going to change. When life returned to some semblance of order. When she faced the reality of returning to her life before Simon. Simon… had he ever loved her? Had he?

  Her breath caught on a sob and she shook herself. She refused to go there. Shaking her head, she reached into her bag for her mobile, relieved to see it was still charged and grateful to see that, despite the isolation, she had a strong signal. Nervously, she punched in Sergeant West’s number with unsteady fingers, cursing when she misdialled and had to start again. Finally, she heard the ring tone.

  12

  The journey back to Cornwall was quick and uneventful but it was still nearly midnight before Sergeant West turned his car down Hedgesparrow Lane. Nothing much surprised him these days, but the call from Edel certainly had. He had been so stunned to hear her voice asking for help that he had dropped the phone and had to scrabble in the footwell to pick it up, explaining the commotion to her as a difficulty with the signal.

  The conversation had been short. She asked for help, he agreed, and here he was, almost unbelievably, in the wilds of Cornwall again. He had rung Andrews on the way to Dublin airport.

  ‘You’re joking,’ Andrews had said in disbelief. ‘Inspector Duffy will hit the roof.’

  West manoeuvred his car into a parking space and, grabbing his bag, jumped out still explaining, or at least trying to. ‘I’ll give the inspector a ring in the morning, Peter, don’t panic. Meanwhile, have to go. Have a plane to catch.’

  No doubt Andrews would be wondering if he’d lost his marbles and, unfortunately, he’d bear the brunt of Inspector Duffy’s annoyance in the morning. Then West remembered he was going to Cork first thing and smiled. Duffy would be chewing at the bit and the only person he could take it out on would be Sergeant Clarke. Couldn’t happen to a better person.

  Hours later, he stopped at the end of a narrow lane. The headlights of the rental car picked out a building partially submerged in a tangle of overgrown shrubs. It looked to him like a building that had been abandoned a long time ago and for a moment he thought the satnav had led him astray. He checked but it said the same thing, you have reached your destination.

  There was a car parked but it wasn’t the one Edel had been driving, and it looked as abandoned as the house. He peered out, looking for some sign of life but saw none. Finally, in frustration, he opened the glove compartment, searching for the flashlight the car came equipped with. Leaving the engine running, he got out of the car to investigate further but, just as he did, he heard the creak of a door and Edel appeared from the middle of the shrub. She raised her hand and stepped forward into the circle of light thrown by the car’s headlights.

  ‘There’s no electricity, I’m afraid,’ she said by way of greeting, pointing back to the darkness of the cottage where he could now see a faint glimmer of light through the ivy cloaked window.

  In the relatively poor light of the car, West could see she looked more drawn and haggard than the day before. Her clothes, the same ones she was wearing the previous day, were creased and decidedly grubby. Lank, greasy hair was scraped back into a severe ponytail with what looked like a piece of twine. Although she hadn’t struck him as the tearful type, her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, as though she had cried all the saved-up tears of months.

  She stood clasping and unclasping her hands, waiting for him to speak, shivering slightly in the cool night air.

  They stood for a moment longer, each weighing the other up.

  He was surprised he wasn’t angry, after all, this woman had run out on him, made him the butt of jokes at the station. Embarrassed and humiliated him. He reached into the car and turned off the engine. The headlights dimmed and he spoke at last. ‘They’ll go out in a minute; we’d better get inside.’

  She turned back to the cottage, leading the way through the foliage-festooned door, holding back a particularly long, barbed bramble that sprang back as she tried to fix it out of the way. West took it from her gingerly, reaching up and looping it over a branch that overhung the door, cursing as the bramble took its revenge.

  Sucking on the bloody scratch at the base of his thumb, he crossed the threshold into the cottage, a look of disgust written clearly across his handsome face. The smell hit him first, damp and something… rodents, maybe? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. The log fire added to the problem, the damp logs giving off more smoke than flame and the small amount of heat intensifying the unpleasant smell. He was determined not to spend more than a minute inside.

  ‘You spent last night here?’ he asked in astonishment. ‘This is a hovel. Why on earth did you leave The Inn to come here?’ He waited for her answer, watching as she moved to sit in the solitary chair and clasped her arms around herself. It seemed to be half in comfort, half to ward off the chill that the smoky fire did little to dispel.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ she said.

  He looked around the room grimly. It wasn’t a place to listen to long stories.

  Edel tilted her head and looked at him. ‘Simon said I was being precious when I condemned it. It is pretty awful, isn’t it?’

  His eyebrows rose at the mention of her husband’s name but he said nothing. He took in the paltry cheap chair, the inadequate fire and sputtering candles. ‘Pretty damn awful,’ he agreed with a slight smile. ‘You’ve a lot to tell me, I think, but I don’t fancy hearing it here.’

  She nodded and waited for him to continue.

  ‘I rang the landlord at The Inn on the way here. He has rooms available and agreed to stay open until we get there. It’s not far really, about four miles. Get your things, you can fill me in when we get there. Okay?’

  She indicated her bags on the floor. ‘I’m ready to go.’ With a grim expression on her face, she pointed to the briefcase lying beside them. ‘I think you’ll need to take that, there are some papers and things…’

  Hearing in her voice more than she knew, he grabbed the briefcase, brought it out to the car and locked it into the boot. Back in the cottage, he checked the fire, guessed it would soon burn itself out, and extinguished the remaining candles as Edel picked up her bags. ‘Let’s go,’ he said gently, and he shut the door of the cottage behind them.

  Concentrating on the twists and turns of the road back to Come-to-Good, he had little time to consider the implications of what she had said. He pulled up in The Inn’s car park and parked in the exact spot he had done before, in what felt like weeks ago but, in fact, was only two nights. He sighed. He had done far too much travelling in too short a space of time and he was bone tired. Almost reluctantly, he stepped out of the car, trying to delay the start of what would, he presumed, be a long and complicated conversation.

  He heard the passenger door open and turned to watch Edel. She too stood wearily, leaning for a moment against the car. Events certainly seem to have cowed her; he felt more sympathy than was healthy in his position. He gave himself a mental kick and opening the boot, ignored the briefcase and took out his overnight bag. With a glance at her, he turned and headed for the door, leaving her to follow in his wake.

  Paul Murphy, the landlord, commonly called Murph
y by all and sundry including his wife, was polishing the last of a pile of glasses. West saw curiosity flicker across his face when he saw them. But he was a good landlord, and West guessed he’d seen his fair share of oddities over the years so rather than ask what they were up to he tilted a pint glass at him in silent invitation.

  He shot him a look of sheer gratitude. ‘A pint of whatever you recommend would go down well,’ he said.

  ‘Good evening, miss,’ Murphy said, pulling the pint. ‘What can I get you? Glass of wine?’

  ‘Perfect.’ Edel smiled slightly and moved over to a seat near the glowing embers of the fire.

  West waited at the bar as Murphy topped off the pint and filled a large wine glass from an open bottle in the fridge. ‘You have the same rooms as you had last time,’ Murphy informed the sergeant, handing him two keys. ‘You’re welcome to stay in the lounge as long as you wish. Throw some more logs on the fire, if you need to. And,’ he added, ‘if you want another drink, help yourself. You can settle up in the morning. There’s nobody else staying tonight, you won’t be disturbed.’ With a final wave, Murphy called a goodnight to Edel and left.

  West took their drinks over and sat in the seat opposite her. Outside, he could hear the wind picking up. It was going to be another stormy night; he hoped it would be clear by the morning. He threw another couple of logs on the fire, took a long drink of his beer and sat back with a sigh.

  He watched Edel for a moment as she hugged her glass of wine. ‘Well?’ he asked, too tired to provide foreplay for what was bound to be a long story.

  ‘Where do I start?’ she asked, her voice suddenly thick with tears.

  He started to say ‘the beginning’ but, hesitated and surprised himself by asking instead, ‘Why did you run away yesterday?’

  She looked at him, a pleading light in her eyes. ‘It wasn’t planned, believe me. I really did go up to my room just for a minute but when I got there Simon was there. I was so stunned. He was alive, you have no idea…’

  A log spat suddenly, startling them both. West reached forward and poked it further into the fire where it rewarded him with a wave of flame. Resting the poker against the fireplace, he sat back with his beer.

  Edel swallowed a large mouthful of wine and continued. ‘I told him you were here, you know, but he became very anxious, told me we couldn’t trust anyone, not even the gardaí.’ She took another sip of her wine and drew a long shaky breath. ‘He said he would explain when we got to that terrible cottage.’ She shivered at the memory. ‘As soon as we arrived, he told me he had to go. I couldn’t believe it. He said he had an important meeting, that he’d explain when he got back.’ She gulped noisily, took a mouthful of wine, sniffed and continued. ‘I sat and waited. Then it got dark and cold and he didn’t come. I had to sleep in that awful place and when I woke, he still hadn’t come back. I waited and waited.’

  West watched as her lower lip trembled. Tears, women’s inevitable weapon. He was strangely disappointed and waited for them to come. But as he did, he saw her sniff, chew on that quivering lip and lift her chin.

  ‘It was the most awful day, so terrible that after a while it began to feel unreal, a page from a book I had read, a scene from a movie.’ She put her glass down and looked across the low table at him. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I discovered, at the last minute, that Simon had taken my car because his had broken down, so I was stuck there. And I really couldn’t bring myself to spend another night at that place. When I found your card… well, I…’ Her voice faded from a mixture of embarrassment and guilt.

  He sat a moment, a frown between his eyes, trying to digest what he had heard. She wasn’t confessing or admitting guilt or complicity. ‘Let me get this clear,’ he said. ‘Are you telling me that you hadn’t seen your husband since he was supposed to have vanished three months ago? That you hadn’t, in fact, planned the meeting here?’

  ‘No, of course I hadn’t. You think I’d have chosen to go to that awful place?’

  ‘You didn’t know that Simon Johnson was really a man called Cyril Pratt?’

  Edel lifted her glass and drained it. ‘Can I have another, please?’

  He hissed in annoyance, but went behind the bar and removed the white wine bottle from the fridge. Returning, he filled her glass, left the bottle within reach and sat back expectantly.

  ‘The first time I heard that name was here,’ she said quietly. ‘I told you about that, didn’t I?’ She looked to him for confirmation and continued when he nodded. ‘I had never heard it before, I swear. Then, when I was hanging around that awful cottage, waiting for Simon to return, I decided to do a little sleuthing of my own and went through his stuff. I found credit card and store card statements for Simon. He owes about fifty thousand euro.’ She stopped talking for a long minute and stared into the fire.

  ‘I was shocked and upset that he hadn’t told me,’ she said. ‘Horrified he had run away for that reason, so sad that he hadn’t felt able to tell me. I wondered what kind of woman I was that her own husband couldn’t trust her to help, and felt so sorry that he’d had to go through all that on his own, that he’d had to live in that terrible place all these months. Oh, yes,’ she said bitterly when he sat forward to interrupt, ‘he has been there all this time.’ She had another drink of her wine, slowly this time, as if to delay the next disclosure till the alcohol numbed the telling.

  ‘When I found the briefcase,’ she began hesitantly, ‘I knew it would tell me something more. It did.’ She gave a short, sad laugh. ‘But not what I expected.’ Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the photo she had taken from the briefcase. ‘I’ve looked at this several times while I was waiting for you; examining it in anger, in frustration, in deep, stomach-churning sorrow.’ She straightened it out, smoothing the creases, almost caressing the family group it portrayed before handing it over.

  He took it and gave the family portrait a brief look, too weary to assume surprise.

  She drew a sharp breath. ‘You knew?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, putting the photo down on the table between them. ‘When you gave me the name yesterday, I had my office run it and they got back to me with the information. That was,’ he added pointedly, ‘the call I was taking while you were sneaking out the door.’ He hesitated a moment, wondering how much to tell her. ‘Cyril Pratt used yet another alias to trick Simon Johnson… the real Simon Johnson… into renting him his Cork apartment. He then set about using his name and identity for his own ends. He sublet the apartment and pocketed the two grand a month.’

  Edel had drained her glass and sat back, both arms wrapped around herself.

  ‘Perhaps we should stop there?’ he suggested, but she shook her head emphatically.

  ‘Please, I need to know,’ she said in a whisper, ‘please.’ She reached for the bottle and filled her glass again.

  He shrugged and went on. ‘According to our records, Cyril Pratt has been in prison a number of times, mostly for petty crime and extortion, nothing in the last few years. His current marriage is his third. His wife says he works away for long periods.’

  He watched her face tighten at the mention of Cyril Pratt’s wife and, ignoring the sympathy that was natural to him, he said roughly, ‘The night he supposedly vanished we think he went home to her. According to her, he stayed there a few days around that time and she hasn’t seen him since. She has, however, had the odd phone call from him and regular money by post. She said that was the way things always were when he was away.’

  ‘So, Simon, or Cyril as I suppose I should call him, is hiding from this man Simon Johnson?’

  He looked at her intently. ‘Simon Johnson is dead, Edel.’

  She sat forward suddenly, putting the wine glass down, wine slopping over the rim, eyes wide. ‘Dead,’ she cried. West watched as the truth, slowed by the wine she had taken, eventually dawned. ‘The dead man? Oh my God, he was Simon Johnson?’

  He watched her expression change, realisation hitting her hard, her body curling in
on itself as it weathered the blows. ‘So… did my hus… did Cyril Pratt kill him?’

  The fire suddenly sparked loudly again, making both jump and drawing a gasp from Edel. He took the poker and moved the embers around in the fireplace, getting soot on his hands in the process. There was something infinitely soothing about poking a fire, he always lit one in his own place when he could. He sat back on his heels for a moment, relaxing a little in the resurgent flames, allowing his weariness off the tight leash he’d kept it on, for what seemed like hours, and closed his eyes for a nanosecond.

  He could feel her eyes on him and turned to say simply, ‘I like fires,’ before getting up and sitting back into the chair with a sigh. ‘We don’t know who killed Simon Johnson yet,’ he said. ‘At the moment, Pratt is just wanted for questioning.’ He rubbed his hand over his face wearily. ‘He doesn’t have any history of violence but there is the matter of where he got the money to buy your house; he didn’t get it from Simon Johnson.’ He yawned suddenly, quickly covering his mouth with one hand while he waved the other in apology. ‘That’s all I can tell you at the moment, Edel. All we know, to be honest.’

  He rested his head on the wing of the chair, his eyes drifting shut again. The hiss and crackle of the fire was a pleasant lullaby, he could have fallen asleep right there but, then he heard her loud sigh.

  ‘Yesterday, when I saw him again,’ she said, ‘when I saw him smile at me, I thought everything was going to be all right. I couldn’t have been more wrong, could I?’

  ‘That one may smile,’ he murmured sleepily, lifting his head and opening his eyes to look at her.

  ‘And smile, and be a villain?’ Edel finished the quotation, causing him to raise an appreciative eyebrow. ‘I know my Shakespeare. Better, obviously, than I knew the man I married.’ She grimaced. ‘Perhaps I should be relieved that he is, in fact, not my husband. I take it,’ she added, ‘he will be charged with bigamy, too? It is still a crime, isn’t it?’