Silent Witness (A Dylan Scott Mystery) (23 page)

“But only as friends,” he said. “I don’t want anyone getting any stupid ideas.”

“I’m sure they won’t.”

“Okay.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll be late if I don’t get a move on. Thanks for the coffee, Sue. Be seeing you.”

The wind must have caught the front door when he went out, because it slammed so hard she expected the glass to shatter.

Dylan was tempted to believe that spring had chosen this Sunday morning to arrive in Shepherd’s Bush. It was just possible to feel some warmth from the sun. He guessed it would be a few weeks before the improvement was noticed as far north as Dawson’s Clough. But he was forgetting northern towns, for today at least.

The unexpected sunshine had brought people out to enjoy the common. Dogs pulled owners along, couples kissed, and children pretended they were planes or trains.

He’d had to phone Pikey and cancel yesterday’s planned get-together, but perhaps they could arrange something for next weekend. If the weather stayed like this, they could have a few pints at the local pub and then throw something on the barbecue.

“I hope she’s warm enough,” Bev said, adjusting Freya’s covers.

“Of course she is.” Freya was wrapped in enough clothes to undertake a trek across Antarctica.

“The doctor said she’d benefit from fresh air.”

“We’ll all benefit.”

“Yes. It makes you feel glad to be alive, doesn’t it? So what are you going to do next? Are you driving north tomorrow?”

“That’s up to you.”

His son was “chilling at Tom’s,” his daughter was fit and well and content to be pushed across the common with nothing to do but watch a couple of clouds drift across a blue sky, and his wife was relaxed, or fairly relaxed, and smiling. There was no need for him to be in Shepherd’s Bush tomorrow. If Bev wanted him to stay, though, he would.

“You go,” she said. “We’re fine now. Besides, I have plenty to do.”

“Like what?”

“People to see,” she said. “There are dozens of people I promised to see after Freya was born and they’ll start thinking I’ve turned into a hermit. I have a lot of catching up to do. Besides, I want to show off our daughter.”

Dylan wasn’t sure what had happened, but he was pleased with the end result. As soon as the doctors had managed to reassure Bev that they were keeping Freya in hospital overnight as nothing more than a precaution, she’d calmed down. The near hysterical outpourings of self-blame for Freya’s sudden illness had ceased. Happy that her daughter was well, Bev had undergone a transformation. She was back to her old self.

He’d thought, as had his mother, that Bev was suffering from post-natal depression. She couldn’t have been, though. Or, if she had, it had vanished along with Freya’s temperature.

Freya’s mild chest infection had probably been responsible for her cranky behaviour. Since her two nights in hospital, she’d been angelic. She hadn’t screamed through the night. In fact, she’d slept so long that Bev had panicked and prodded her awake.

Bev, instead of not wanting to move, of being constantly tired and irritable, was full of energy. At seven o’clock this morning, she’d been cleaning out kitchen cupboards. Given that she was usually allergic to rising early, this was little short of a miracle.

“If you’re sure you’ll be okay, I’d better get back to work then,” he said. “I’ll only be a phone call away.” A phone call and the best part of three hundred miles.

“You’d better make your peace with that vet too. What’s his name?”

“Jamie Tinsley. Yes, I had.”

Amid the panic of getting to the hospital on Wednesday, Dylan had forgotten all about the meeting he’d arranged with Tinsley. He hadn’t remembered until Thursday morning and, when he’d phoned to apologise, Tinsley had been less than happy. He’d cut the call short in an icy, abrupt manner.

Dylan wasn’t going to lose sleep over that. With or without Tinsley’s help, he’d solve this mystery.

“I doubt if he has anything of interest to tell me,” he said. “If he had, he’d tell me over the phone. I expect he wants to convince me that Kaminski should rot in jail. That way, he might stand a chance of getting the lovely Sue to himself.”

“Is she lovely?”

“Tinsley thinks so.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

If Dylan didn’t know better, he’d think Bev was jealous. “She’s okay. All she seems to care about is Kaminski and her stray animals. I don’t know about lovely, but she’s quite a tragic figure.”

“Tragic?”

“Yes. She strikes me as one of those people who’d do anything for anyone. She takes in strays and would go without food herself rather than turn away a hungry dog. Rain or shine, she visits her great-aunt every week and takes treats for the nursing home staff at Christmas and on her great-aunt’s birthday. She’s the good Samaritan and yet life seems to have a habit of kicking her in the teeth. Her first husband was killed in a pileup on the motorway, then her dad died, and I gather they were close, and now her second husband has been locked up for God knows how long.”

They moved off the path to let three youngsters on skateboards speed past them.

Dylan set Freya’s buggy straight again and they carried on walking.

“Some people are like that, aren’t they?” Bev said. “A lot of people glide through life without a problem yet others seem to have to deal with all sorts of horrors.”

Dylan nodded at the truth of that.

“Is this vet a suspect?” Bev asked. “Do you really think he could have killed Carly Walsingham?”

For the first time since Freya was born, Bev was showing an interest in his work. He’d always enjoyed bouncing ideas off her. Her thought processes were totally different to his, probably because she was female, and she occasionally threw out suggestions that wouldn’t have occurred to him.

“No, not really.” There was something about Tinsley that Dylan didn’t like. The geek impression he gave off was at odds with the dozens of emotions that flickered in his eyes every few seconds. He was kind to animals, but didn’t seem to like them much. “He’s an odd bugger, and I bet he is capable of murder, but I don’t think he killed Carly.”

“Why not?”

“Why would he?”

“To get Kaminski out of the way.”

That had been a recurring thought, but it was ridiculous.

“It doesn’t add up, Bev. Assuming Tinsley is capable of murder, which he may or may not be, he would kill the person he wanted out of the way. That’s Kaminski. How could he know Kaminski was seeing Carly? Supposing he did, how could he possibly know that Kaminski would visit Carly that afternoon? Even Kaminski didn’t know until the night before. Assuming, by some miracle, that he did know, how could he possibly guess that Kaminski would take the rap for it?”

“He couldn’t, could he?” she said. “Even if he had, he couldn’t know how long a sentence Kaminski would serve. These days, prisoners get out years early if they behave themselves. Your vet wouldn’t want that, would he? He’d get himself nicely settled with Sue and then have to hand her back to her husband.” She shrugged. “Okay, it looks like Tinsley isn’t your man. Who else have you got?”

“Just my chief suspect, the Invisible Man.” Dylan took off his jacket and draped it over the buggy’s handle. The sun was bringing a lot of warmth now and, with no clouds to watch, Freya had fallen asleep.

Bev nudged his arm. “Let’s get an ice cream.”

It never failed to amaze him how Bev couldn’t walk past an ice-cream seller. A gale could be howling, snow could be falling, yet if an ice-cream seller was desperate enough for trade to be out, he was guaranteed a customer in Bev.

Dylan didn’t want one, couldn’t see the point to ice cream really, but he found himself asking for two when he got to be served.

They carried them to a nearby bench and sat to enjoy the peace and the warm sunshine.

Given an ice cream, Bev turned into a three-year-old. She savoured every mouthful and usually ended up with the stuff plastered across her face.

“It would be awful, wouldn’t it,” she said, “if after all this, Aleksander Kaminski was guilty?”

“It would certainly be a waste of his parents’ money.”

“You don’t think he could be, do you?”

“No. I’m about ninety percent sure in my own mind that he’s innocent.”

“Only ninety?”

“Kaminski’s in that cell because he was having an affair with the victim, his fingerprints were all over the house, the victim’s husband claims his wife was being threatened by Kaminski, and a neighbour saw a man who looked like him leaving the scene.”

Then again, Kaminski didn’t deny being at the property so of course his prints were there. As for those threats, either Kaminski was refusing to admit they’d had a row or Walsingham was lying. The neighbour may or may not have seen the killer leave, she may or may not have seen Kaminski leave…

“I suppose Walsingham is chief suspect,” he said. “Perhaps he wanted his wife out of the picture for good. His mistress, Megan Cole, is another suspect. She probably has the best motive of all. Get rid of the wife and the grieving widower would presumably make her the second Mrs. Walsingham.”

“What a mess.” Bev reached for a baby wipe to clean herself so Dylan wasn’t sure if her comment referred to the demise of Carly Walsingham or her own ice-cream-splattered face. Either way, she was right.

They carried on walking. All around them, people laughed in the unexpected but welcome sunshine. Children raced around on bikes or rollerblades, adults attached to iPhones jogged along the path, pigeons scavenged for crumbs.

“You’ll get there in the end,” Bev said. “You always do.”

Dylan basked in her confidence. He just wished he could share it.

Neil had been dreading this for weeks. Given the choice, he’d let today, Carly’s forty-fifth birthday, pass without comment. His sons, as young as they were, had other ideas so he’d been forced to fall in with their wishes. As such, he would shortly be embarking on a trip to Birmingham. That was, if Harry ever finished his breakfast.

“Are you planning to eat that, Harry?” Neil asked, smiling to take the impatience from his words.

“Yes. I was just saying we should take a present to Gran and Granddad as well.”

“We’ll stop and get something on the way,” Neil promised. “Perhaps some flowers for your grandmother and a bottle of whisky for your grandfather. How does that sound?”

“Cool,” William said. “We can buy Gran’s flowers when we get Mum’s.”

“Yes, but only if you hurry up, Harry. The longer you delay, the less time you’ll have with your grandparents.”

As far as Neil was concerned, five minutes with them would be five minutes too long, but Harry was spurred on enough to gobble down his slice of toast and race upstairs to wash his hands and clean his teeth.

Neil drove them to the florist’s where it took far longer than necessary to choose flowers, a selection of white blooms for Carly and a suitably tasteless psychedelic concoction for her mother.

William and Harry raced along the paths at the cemetery as if they were involved in a game. They were too young to understand the concept of death, or murder, and perhaps that was a good thing. Both boys missed Carly, but Harry was the more tearful of the two. William was more like Neil, more able to accept and move on. Harry needed answers to all his questions. He had to know where his mother was, what she was doing, if she had lots of friends, if she could see him. Endless questions.

Neil squatted down at the graveside to arrange the flowers to the boys’ satisfaction. Both wished her a happy birthday and told her they were being good boys.

Thankfully, to prove there was a god, a couple of fat raindrops landed on them and Neil was able to shoo them back to the car.

They stopped to buy a bottle of malt whisky for Eric Smith. Pearls before swine…

Finally, they were heading for the motorway. The boys had DVDs to watch while Neil concentrated on the traffic and prayed for the day to end. They were no more than ten miles from Dawson’s Clough when the sun burst out from behind a cloud. As they drove south, the sky cleared and the temperature rose.

A couple of hours later, they were in Birmingham. Neil drove along leafy suburbs, then streets lined with rundown shops before reaching the area he wanted. Not wanted, needed. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this. Houses became smaller and scruffier, and gardens became dumps for litter and unwanted furniture.

“We’re nearly there,” William piped up, his DVD forgotten.

“Yes.” Another mile or so of this despairing, rotting landscape and they would reach the Smiths’ house.

Neil often wondered if he would have married Carly if he’d known where she came from. All he’d seen was an exceptionally pretty, extremely bright radiographer who knew how to flirt and who was, he soon found out, great in bed. He’d asked about her past, of course, but she’d been one of those who lived for the moment. It had taken her two minutes to explain how she’d grown up in Birmingham and married her childhood sweetheart.

It wasn’t until their wedding day that he met her parents and he’d been appalled by everything about them, from their cheap clothes and broad accents to their loud, uncouth behaviour. Carly was pregnant when he first visited their home and he could still remember the sense of shock he’d experienced. There were council houses and then there was the Smiths’ home. Slum didn’t even begin to describe it.

All credit to Carly, he supposed. Somehow, she’d managed to drag herself out of this mire.

“Here we are, boys.”

Suppressing a shudder, Neil glanced at the grimy windows of the house. God knows what diseases lay in wait behind those walls. The white PVC front door was new and, surprisingly, someone had spent an hour or so tidying the small patch of garden at the front.

That new front door opened and Laura Smith, who was at least sixty pounds overweight, did a fast waddle up the path. Her arms were wide as she waited. Harry and William obliged by racing into those arms and covering her face with kisses.

If Neil lived for another century, he would never understand how the boys could love this woman so much. When Carly had been alive, they’d probably visited this house three times a year and they hadn’t seen Laura once since the funeral. Yet they adored her.

She had her good points, Neil couldn’t deny that. She’d pushed her daughter to make something of her life. “Qualifications are what you need, Carly. Qualifications. You can do anything then.”

If only she didn’t live in a slum.

Still holding her grandsons’ hands, she reached up and dropped a wet kiss on Neil’s cheek. “How’s my lovely boy, eh?”

Neil resisted the urge to reach for his handkerchief and rub dry the place her lips had touched. “I’m doing okay, thank you, Laura. How are you?”

“Oh, you know. Good days and bad days. Today—” She glanced down at the boys and gave a wan smile. “These two young scamps will make today better.”

As always, she had presents for them. Cheap toys that, if they didn’t maim the boys first, would fall to pieces before the day was over.

Neil had hoped that Eric was out, but no such luck. His father-in-law’s great bulk was wedged in his usual dirty armchair surrounded by well-read newspapers and an overflowing ashtray. The TV was off for once but the remote control sat on his lap poised for action.

“Well, Neil.” He didn’t get out of his chair. “Long time no see.”

“Yes.” It would have been much longer if Neil had had his way. “How are you, Eric?”

“Can’t complain. No point, is there? I keep taking the tablets, but they don’t do no good. They can’t find out what’s wrong with me.”

Neil’s diagnosis was a chronic case of laziness. Eric had hurt his back, or so he claimed, over twenty years ago and he hadn’t done a day’s work since. He preferred to claim benefits. Let those people daft enough to work pay to keep him, that was his motto. Eric could afford to drink and smoke, to subscribe to Sky Sports channels and bet on the horses. He lacked for nothing.

Laura worked at a couple of local pubs, both as cleaner and occasional barmaid.

“I come bearing gifts,” Neil said, seeing Eric spot the whisky. “I hope it’s to your taste.”

Highland Park whisky would be to anyone’s taste, and far superior to the cheap blended stuff Eric served up.

“Thank you. Very kind.”

Damn it, there was no way Neil would have asked Carly to marry him if he’d known that she came from this hellhole. By the time he found out, it had been too late. It would always irk him to know that these people’s genes had been passed on to his sons.

The living room was awash with photos of Carly from the age of two onwards. It was like a bloody shrine. Neil would have been more impressed if someone had bothered to flick a duster over them now and again.

Eric ran a finger over the bottle’s label. “I wish I could afford to drink stuff like this. You’re a lucky bugger, Neil.”

Neil was tempted to tell him that, if he got off his fat arse and did a day’s work, he’d be able to afford lots of life’s luxuries. Instead, he muttered something like, “It’s good stuff,” and left Eric alone.

He joined Laura and the boys in the kitchen. He could tolerate Laura.

She’d been seventeen when Carly was born and Neil didn’t suppose she’d changed much over the years. She was vastly overweight, yes, but her complexion would be envied by women twenty years younger. It certainly didn’t hint at the life she’d had with Eric. He drank and gambled, and she worked. It was the way it had always been. It had been Laura who’d earned the money to put decent clothes on Carly’s back.

She was showing the boys how to make cookies, and the messier the process became, the more they enjoyed themselves.

When the cookies went in the oven, the boys raced into the garden to explore the wilderness. God knows what they’d find among the tall docks and thistles.

“So how are you really doing, Neil? Are you coping?”

“What else can we do, Laura? As much as we hate it, life has to go on, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose it does. It’s a bloody horrible life though.”

“Yes.”

“Has that private investigator spoken to you?” she asked.

“He has, yes.”

“Eric won’t speak to him. He said we shouldn’t.”

“It’s up to you, of course.”

Her fat arms wobbled as she nodded. “I gather he’s going to try and get Alek off the hook?”

“He seems to think he could be innocent, yes.”

“He can’t be, though. Can he?”

He saw the light of hope in her eyes. She’d liked Kaminski and, although she’d turned against him now, nothing would make her happier than hearing he was innocent of her daughter’s murder.

“Of course he’s not. How can he be? The judge and jury heard everything. Everything. God, I heard him threatening her, and a neighbour saw him leaving the house. For him to protest his innocence is just laughable.”

He always lost patience with his in-laws. It wasn’t only the mess they lived in, it was the way they were incapable of using the few brain cells they’d been born with. They couldn’t think for themselves, it took far more effort than they were willing to expend. Eric and Laura both read the tabloids from cover to cover and believed every sensational word printed, but couldn’t or wouldn’t make up their own minds about anything.

Thankfully, Harry and William raced back inside to check on their cookies, and the murder of their mother wasn’t considered a suitable topic of conversation.

Lunch was soon ready and Neil sat down to a colourful mess of sandwiches, crisps, jelly, ice-cream and an iced sponge cake to celebrate Carly’s birthday. He was starving, but he only ate a sliced ham sandwich and a small piece of cake for the sake of politeness. No one noticed. The boys wolfed down the sugar-laden concoctions with glee, and Eric and Laura ate sandwich after sandwich before moving on to the cake. It was like feeding time at the zoo.

When the table was bare, Eric lit a cigarette and the boys returned to the garden. Neil wished he could join them.

“Carly would have loved this, wouldn’t she?” Laura said. “She loved birthdays and parties.”

“Yes.” Neil nodded and smiled, as was expected.

“I’ll tell you summat,” Eric said. “If that bastard Kaminski ever gets out of jail, he’ll wish he bloody hadn’t.”

“Too right he will,” Laura chipped in. “I saw his mother a couple of weeks back. Do you know what? She only tried to speak to me. I soon showed her what I thought of her. If she was on fire, I wouldn’t bloody piss on her.”

Eric cackled with laughter.

Neil could stand no more. “It’s time we were off. It’s a long drive and I don’t want the boys to be late home. Thank you for lunch and for everything. It’s been lovely. We must see each other more often.”

“We must,” Laura said eagerly. “Me and Eric could get the train up. Stay with you for a few days.”

“That would be great.” He hoped his horror didn’t show. “We’ll fix something up. As soon as I can get some free days, we’ll arrange something.”

“Before you race off, I’ve got something for you. Can’t have you being the only one not to have a present to open, can we?” Laura waddled off and returned clutching a parcel wrapped in pink paper. “Here.”

“Thank you.”

Guessing what was inside, he pulled off the paper. He was right. Carly, at least he assumed it was Carly, looked back at him from a cheap plastic frame.

“Thank you,” he said again. “I’ll treasure it.”

“That was her on her first birthday.” Laura spoke with pride. “I hunted through the box of snaps and as soon as I saw it, I knew you’d like it. There’s a bloke on the market who enlarges them. You take him a photo and, a couple of days later, you collect something like this. It’s good, isn’t it?”

“It’s excellent. Very clever. Thank you, both.”

Twenty minutes later, he was driving off and welcoming the relief as the tension gradually ebbed away.

The boys sat in the back, laughing and giggling. From the passenger seat, Carly’s face stared up at him. He turned the frame over, putting her facedown, and headed for the motorway.