Silent Witness (A Dylan Scott Mystery)

by Wells, Shirley

  “Prints on skin,” Dylan said. “They don’t last long, do they?”

  “An hour and a half maximum on living flesh,” Frank said. “Is that right, Lewis?”

  “Yes. A little longer on a corpse. We were lucky with that print. No doubt about it.”

  If Dylan hadn’t been drinking, he would have saved Kaminski’s parents the cost of a hotel room and driven straight back to London. The case was cut and dried. Dylan was wasting everyone’s time.

  “What was Kaminski’s story?” he asked.

  “He claimed he’d been seeing his ex-wife a couple of times a week for months.”

  Which wasn’t what Sue Kaminski believed. According to her, he’d only visited Carly Walsingham a couple of times because he was a good man who liked to help people.

  “Did Walsingham know his wife was seeing her ex-husband?” Dylan asked.

  “There was nothing to know,” Lewis said. “He was aware that Kaminski had phoned his wife a few times, but that was all. Apparently, Kaminski wouldn’t let her go. He couldn’t accept their marriage was over.”

  “How does Walsingham know she wasn’t seeing Kaminski?” Dylan asked. “After all, the spouse is always the last to know about these things.”

  “She wasn’t interested.” Lewis was adamant about that.

  “So why did she phone him? Surely, if he was the one making a nuisance of himself and threatening her, he would have phoned her.”

  “We’ll never know,” Lewis said. “We know from Walsingham that Kaminski used to phone her. He used to follow her too. We can only assume she phoned to try and get through to him, once and for all, that it was over.”

  “Yet Kaminski claims they had sex regularly?”

  “All lies. When asked about the bruise, Kaminski claimed she liked rough sex. Walsingham maintained he had a good sex life with his wife, and that there was nothing rough about it.”

  “Hmm. Did Kaminski admit to being in the bathroom?” Dylan asked.

  “Yes, but he had little choice given that his prints were over everything. He claims that, when he left, she was still enjoying a nice hot soak.”

  “Your house-to-house inquiries,” Frank said. “They didn’t bring up anything else at all?”

  “Nothing.”

  One of the bar staff came to put logs on the fire. Talk turned to the weather, how spring was supposed to have arrived and how the forecasters were predicting gales and heavy rain for the next couple of days. Dylan wasn’t paying attention. He was more interested in the murder of Carly Walsingham.

  Having dealt with the fire and satisfied himself that the logs were sufficient, the young man left them alone.

  “Tell me,” Dylan said, “why would Aleksander Kaminski use a surgical blade to murder someone?”

  Lewis shrugged. “Why not?”

  “If I were a builder,” Dylan said, “I’d use a hammer or a saw—”

  “Or something equally easy to slip in a pocket.” Lewis grinned and Dylan supposed he had a valid point.

  “I know what you mean, Dylan,” Frank said, “and I’d expect a builder to use one of the tools of his trade. Surgical blades, scalpels, small sharp knives—they’re common enough in the building business though.”

  “I suppose so.” Dylan’s mind flitted to something else. “Am I to assume then that Kaminski is a bit dim, a sandwich short of a picnic?”

  Lewis frowned. “Not especially. What makes you ask?”

  “The fact that he had a surgical blade with him hints that the murder was premeditated,” Dylan said. “Given that, you’d think anyone but a moron would wear gloves. Even the least clued-up on forensics know about fingerprints. Perhaps some people don’t know about getting prints from flesh, but everyone knows you can lift them off doors and furniture. If I was murdering someone, I’d either wear gloves or, if that was impossible because I fancied sex with the victim first, I’d wipe the place clean afterwards.”

  Smiling, Lewis shook his head. “Anyone can plan a murder. Carrying it out takes a lot of balls. Hanging around with a corpse and cleaning up the evidence takes even more balls. He will have panicked and got the hell away.”

  Dylan tried to put himself inside the killer’s mind. And failed. If he, Dylan, was planning on murdering a woman, he knew damn well he wouldn’t be able to have sex with her first.

  “A doctor would use a surgical blade,” he said.

  “I used a scalpel at the weekend to trim some wallpaper,” Frank said.

  “And Dr. Walsingham was at the hospital at the time of the murder,” Lewis said.

  “Says who?” Dylan asked.

  “I can’t remember but, trust me, his alibi was watertight.”

  Dylan knew all about watertight alibis. During his time on the force, he’d poked and prodded at them until they leaked like sieves.

  “You’ll see Kaminski for yourself tomorrow.” Lewis’s smile was wry. “I’m surprised he managed to convince his own mother that he’s innocent.”

  Chapter Four

  Dylan was still pondering Lewis Cameron’s words when he joined the queue of visitors at Strangeways. Or, to give the building its correct name, HM Prison Manchester. They could call it what they liked but, to most people, and certainly to the people who saw its tall tower on the skyline every day, it would always be Strangeways.

  Built in the late 1800s, it was an impressive building. A tour, preferably when empty of inmates, would be great. An overnight stay would be bearable. Just. A life sentence behind walls that were rumoured to be sixteen feet thick in places would be one of the worst things imaginable.

  Dylan had arrived early because he knew how long it took to process all visitors, especially first-timers, but he was still surprised by the length of the queue. Eventually, it was his turn to hand over his visiting order and be subjected to a surprisingly thorough search.

  It was the first time Dylan had been inside a prison since his own stint behind bars and the experience sent shudders down his spine. He’d never suffered from claustrophobia, but he was getting close. He’d thought he’d be okay. He wasn’t. His plan had been to drive straight home to London after this visit but, sod it, he’d return to his hotel, treat himself to several stiff drinks and drive home in the morning.

  With the preliminaries over, Dylan soon found himself sitting at a table opposite Aleksander Kaminski. Despite the width of the table, designed to keep prisoner and visitor apart, the man was too close. Dylan needed space.

  He hadn’t known what to expect but Kaminski came as a surprise. He was tall, thin and gaunt, and was wearing jeans a couple of sizes too big and a sweatshirt of indeterminable colour. He had dark hair and his eyes were like chips of ebony. Dylan would bet he was one of those men Bev would class as sexy. Bev liked her men “weathered,” as she put it, with faces that looked “lived in.” “Every woman fancies a bit of rough,” she’d say. Which rather begged a question Dylan didn’t feel like answering.

  It wasn’t Kaminski’s appearance that took him by surprise though, more the expression of boredom he wore. Or perhaps it wasn’t boredom. Perhaps it was despair.

  “How’s life in here?” Dylan asked.

  Kaminski shrugged. “Room service is a bit slack but the rates are reasonable.”

  It wasn’t boredom but Kaminski was showing a distinct lack of interest in Dylan’s presence.

  Dylan decided to get to the point. “Did you murder Carly Walsingham?”

  There wasn’t so much as a flicker. “No.”

  Dylan was finding it difficult to sit still. He wanted to push back his red plastic chair but it was attached to the table. Kaminski, on the other hand, was calm and still. CCTV cameras captured their every gesture. Prison warders watched on. They’d be extremely interested in Dylan because, try as he might, he couldn’t stop putting his hands in his pockets and taking them out again. Despite the search he’d been subjected to, warders must think he was trying to pass drugs to Kaminski.

  “Look, Mr. Scott, I appreciate you coming
to see me but really, there’s no need. I keep trying to tell my mother that we just have to put up with it, but—” He left the sentence unfinished.

  “Mothers aren’t very good at putting up with things.” Dylan leaned back in his seat but still couldn’t settle comfortably. “My mother visited me when I was in prison.” He saw a touch of surprise on Kaminski’s face and ignored it. It amazed Dylan, too. First that he’d ended up behind bars and second that his mother had been allowed to visit. She usually carried enough marijuana to keep every inmate happy for a month. “She liked to tell everyone who’d listen that I was innocent. It didn’t help. In fact, it was downright embarrassing. Once a judge has spoken, there’s little that can be done.”

  Kaminski didn’t comment and Dylan thought again of Lewis Cameron’s words. Lewis was right in that Kaminski would have a hard job convincing his own mother of his innocence. He’d managed that, though.

  Dylan wanted to escape this place, get back to his hotel, enjoy a few drinks and a good night’s sleep before driving away from Lancashire. There was no point getting involved. There was especially no point when the man sitting opposite looked as if he couldn’t care less.

  The cameras watched on and Dylan supposed he should go through the motions.

  “Tell me about Mrs. Walsingham then,” he said. “You married her when you both lived in Birmingham. Is that right?”

  “You’re wasting your time, mate.”

  “Not at all. Your parents are paying me well so I should give them their money’s worth.”

  Kaminski looked at him for long moments and Dylan thought he could easily be a murderer. He’d bet those dark eyes were no strangers to anger.

  “Okay,” Kaminski said. “Yes, I married Carly when we lived in Birmingham. I thought we’d live happily ever after, but we didn’t. We moved up to Dawson’s Clough, realised I couldn’t have kids, started fighting and got divorced. Then she married her doctor and had the kids she wanted.”

  Kaminski spoke in an offhand way yet he couldn’t quite conceal a depth of feeling that surprised Dylan.

  “She was happy presumably?” Dylan asked.

  “Not really, no. She loved the kids but felt nothing for her husband. He bored her. Just as I knew he would.”

  “Was she easily bored then?”

  Kaminski thought about that and chose his words with care. “No, but she wasn’t the type to be content with a role as a doctor’s wife either. She had her own life and liked to live it to the full.”

  “I see.”

  “She loved the kids, though,” Kaminski added. “Idolised them.”

  “How long had you been having an affair with her?”

  Kaminski smiled at that, a wry painful smile. “It seems like all my life.”

  “That sounds a bit dramatic.” To put it mildly.

  “Our whole relationship was a bit dramatic. Okay, we met at secondary school. I was fourteen, Carly was eleven. We hung out together and started seeing each other seriously when she was sixteen and I was nineteen.”

  “Childhood sweethearts.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet she divorced you,” Dylan said. “Why?”

  “She wanted kids and I couldn’t have them.”

  “Hadn’t she heard of adoption?”

  “She’d heard of it.”

  “But she wanted a child of her own?”

  “Yes, and she refused to go through all the adoption rigmarole and spend years waiting, possibly in vain because age was creeping up on her.”

  “Okay.” Dylan supposed it was feasible. “So you divorced. Carly married her doctor and you married Sue.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  Dylan wondered why he didn’t just leave him to it. If Kaminski wasn’t bothered about any of it, why the hell should anyone else care? If Kaminski was happy to rot behind these sixteen feet thick walls, why not let him?

  “So how did you suddenly end up in her bed again?”

  “After we got divorced, she refused to see me, but she’d phone me all the time to tell me she was dating Neil, marrying Neil, having Neil’s baby. I met Sue and thought we could move on. We couldn’t though. A month or so after I married Sue, Carly suggested we meet up. We went for a coffee, then back to her place.”

  “Wait a minute. You’d been seeing her that long?”

  “Yes.”

  “But Sue said you’d only seen her a couple of times.”

  “Christ, what else was I going to tell her? It was bad enough as it was. They let her visit me when I was in custody and, despite the fact that it had been splashed across the front page of the local rag, she wouldn’t believe I’d seen Carly.” He expelled a long breath. “It was bloody difficult convincing her it was true. I could hardly pile on more grief by telling her I’d been seeing her for years, could I?”

  “She really had no idea? You see another woman for years and Sue doesn’t once ask where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to?”

  “No. I used to visit Carly’s house and that’s it. Her husband assumed she was flicking a duster round or cleaning windows, and my wife thought I was working. My job made it easy. I’d spend two days working on a porch for someone, a day fitting a door for someone else, then a week erecting a conservatory for yet another customer. Sue would have no need to know where I was working. I used to finish work early, go to Carly, and then return to Sue. I was never late home, I never spent the night or a weekend with Carly. There were no meals out or any of the usual romantic crap.”

  If Kaminski was telling the truth, and Dylan had heard so many conflicting stories it was difficult to tell truth from fiction, it was possible that Carly Walsingham was using him. Presumably, she enjoyed her children and life as the doctor’s wife but liked to play games with her old childhood sweetheart. She wouldn’t let him move on. She didn’t want him, but she didn’t want anyone else to have him either. No man would appreciate being used as a plaything.

  Would they dislike it enough to commit murder? They might. Dead women don’t play mind games.

  “How often did you visit her?” Dylan asked.

  “A couple of times a week. Every Monday and Thursday.”

  “I thought she was murdered on a Wednesday.”

  “She was. She’d phoned me the night before, the Tuesday, and said she’d arranged to meet up with an old friend on Thursday. She suggested I go round the following afternoon instead.”

  “Tell me about that phone call.” Dylan tried to give the air of being calm and relaxed. He was neither. This place was freaking him out.

  “There’s not a lot to tell.” Kaminski’s tone was dry. “She phoned, explained she’d arranged to meet up with her friend Kirsten, and told me to go round the following afternoon instead. We were having a laugh, joking about not being able to wait, and then she dropped her voice and told me she had company. I assumed she meant her husband was home. We finished the call abruptly.”

  “You didn’t threaten her?”

  “No.”

  “Her husband claims you did. He also said she was upset. Agitated. That’s why the police checked the phone records to see who she’d been speaking to.”

  “He’s lying.”

  Was he? Dylan found it impossible to tell. That lie, if it was a lie, had helped put Kaminski in this hell-hole. Yet Kaminski didn’t seem bothered one way or the other.

  “Why would he lie?” Dylan asked.

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Where did you meet up?” Dylan asked. “Was it always at her place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wasn’t that a bit risky? Wouldn’t the neighbours get suspicious if they saw you turning up all the time?”

  “You haven’t seen her house, have you?”

  “No. Why?”

  “There are trees in front of it,” Kaminski said. “Tall, thick evergreens. On the other side of the road, there are more trees. If you stand in Carly’s driveway, you can’t see the houses opposite because of those trees. Alternatively, if you s
tand on the other side of the road, you can’t see Carly’s house.”

  “Yet a neighbour saw you leaving on the afternoon she was murdered. Or saw someone who looked like you.”

  “No. The neighbour saw someone walking down the back garden. I’m talking about the front of the house.”

  “Wait a minute. You used the front door?”

  Another of those grim smiles. “Yes. Like I said, the front is far more private.”

  “You didn’t use the back door?”

  “No.”

  “Then your fingerprints—”

  “Weren’t anywhere near the back door. That’s right. We went over and over that, and the police decided I’d left by the front door, walked along the side of the house and cut across the back garden.”

  For all Dylan knew, Kaminski could have done exactly that. Dylan liked to think he was a good judge of character. He was also a firm believer in gut instinct. With Kaminski, he felt nothing. Kaminski could be innocent. He could just as easily be as guilty as hell.

  “You claim Mrs. Walsingham was in the bath when you left her,” Dylan said.

  “She usually was. It doesn’t do to meet your children or your husband when you smell of another man, does it?”

  He sounded bitter. He’d hated to think of her with her husband.

  “How’s your relationship with your wife?” Dylan asked.

  “Sue? It’s okay.”

  “Only okay?”

  “It’s no better and no worse than most marriages.” Kaminski leaned toward Dylan. “Look, mate, you’re wasting your time. Whoever killed her is long gone. You can’t bring her back.”

  “It’s not a question of bringing her back though, is it?” Dylan said. “The idea is to get your life back?”

  Kaminski didn’t bother to comment. He looked as if escaping these thick walls was of no interest to him whatsoever. Dylan didn’t know whether to admire him or shake him until his teeth rattled.

  “Tell me what you did the day she was murdered,” he said.

  Kaminski sighed, like a man who was tired of telling the same story over and over. “I did a morning’s work. I was putting up a conservatory for a couple in Dawson’s Clough. I finished at lunchtime and drove out to see Carly. I parked in my usual spot on a side street, Hilltop Avenue, and walked the half mile to her house. I stopped at the newsagent’s for a pack of cigarettes but, other than that, I didn’t see anyone to speak to. I got to her house, rang the bell and she let me in. I had a shower—she used to get off on the idea of me showering in his bathroom—and then we went to bed. She had a collection of sex toys and we messed around with those. She liked rough sex. It was always the missionary position with her husband, and that bored her. Anyway, at about three o’clock, it was time for me to leave so I ran her a bath and left her in it. I walked back to my car and drove home. I began preparing dinner and then Sue came home. It was her aunt’s birthday and she was busy telling me about that. She visits her aunt—her great-aunt in a care home—every Wednesday and it was the old dear’s ninetieth birthday that day. Sue was full of that. The next thing I knew, Carly’s face was plastered all over the TV and they said she was dead. Murdered.”