Silent Witness (A Dylan Scott Mystery)

by Wells, Shirley

  “She’s given her lungs a bit of exercise. Hopefully, she’s worn herself out.”

  “Hopefully.” She sighed. “Wouldn’t it be lovely to just sit and relax.”

  “You can. We are.”

  But she wasn’t. Couldn’t. She was on edge, waiting for the first whimper that would escalate into full-scale screaming. She knew she’d be awake most of the night just as she knew she’d feel like death tomorrow.

  She couldn’t sit and pretend that life was great because it wasn’t. Nor could she tell the truth, that she wished to God she’d never had this baby.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dylan had driven less than half a mile when his mother lit a joint.

  “What the—for God’s sake, Mum, you can’t smoke that stuff in my car.”

  She opened the window fully and a sneaky gust of wind almost lifted the car from the road. With her hand shielding her precious tobacco, she closed it to leave just an inch gap.

  “Who’s to know?” she said.

  “Me, that’s who.” A normal mother, one who’d spent the previous night in her son and daughter-in-law’s home, would have been up early cooking breakfast. His mother had overslept and was now smoking marijuana. “Isn’t it a bit early for that?”

  “I always have my first smoke of the day around now.”

  “Tell me, is there ever a time when you’re not stoned?”

  She inhaled. “Good grief, Dylan, if you’re going to fuss all way to Birmingham, it’s going to be a long, tedious journey.”

  Long and tedious wouldn’t even come close to describing it.

  When she’d first suggested coming with him and catching up with her ex-neighbours, the Kaminskis, he’d thought it a good idea. She’d kept in touch with them via Christmas cards and phone calls, which is how his name had cropped up in conversation and prompted the Kaminskis to ask Dylan to investigate their son’s case. She hadn’t actually seen them for years though.

  He wondered what she’d think of them, if she’d see a change.

  On Dylan’s one and only meeting with them, he hadn’t been able to fathom how these quietly spoken people could be friends with his mother. They’d been neighbours, and his mother was always saying that good neighbours were more precious than gold so she would have gone out of her way to be pleasant to them. Even so, it seemed an unlikely friendship.

  “I hope Bev has a good day,” she said.

  So did Dylan. “She’s not right, is she, Mum?”

  “She’s never been right, as you put it.” She chuckled. “If she had been, she wouldn’t have married you.” She patted his arm. “She’ll be fine, love. I expect it’s taking her longer than she thought, than any of us thought, to get used to having a baby around the place again. Luke’s thirteen. It’s been a long time since she had to face all the sleepless nights, the teething and all the rest of it. She’ll be fine.”

  Dylan hoped so, and his mother had a point. A baby involved a major change in lifestyle.

  It was worth it, though. Freya was adorable. During the day at least. In daylight hours, she was quiet, happy and placid. At night, she was the devil incarnate and would kick and yell until everyone was wide awake.

  “She’s a bit Jekyll and Hyde,” he said. “Freya, I mean. Not Bev.” Although thinking about it—

  “She is, which would make you think she’d been born under the sign of Gemini rather than Taurus. But Taurus, let me think. Taureans are easygoing and they love security. Persistent and determined, a bit like you, love. Warm and loving. Reliable.”

  Dylan rolled his eyes at such nonsense. “If only there were more Taureans in the world, eh?”

  “Oh, there’s always a dark side. She’ll be jealous, possessive, resentful and inflexible. Quite a handful, in fact.”

  “You do talk some rubbish, Mum.” But he had to smile.

  “Aleksander Kaminski—hmm, I’m pretty sure he’s Taurus, too.”

  Jealous and possessive? Resentful? Dylan stopped his thoughts short before he ended up as crazy as his mother.

  Traffic was usually at a crawl on Monday mornings but, so far, they were making good progress. He’d pay the Kaminskis a short visit and leave his mother to entertain them while he headed north to Dawson’s Clough. He was impatient to meet Dr. Walsingham’s ex-lover, Sonia Trueman.

  He didn’t have much to tell the Kaminskis, but he’d promised to update them.

  They reached Birmingham a little before ten o’clock and ended up circling a one-way route twice.

  “In three hundred yards, turn left.” His all-singing, ridiculously expensive sat nav was determined to take him round it a third time.

  “You haven’t been able to take a left here since Adam was a lad,” his mother said.

  Dylan didn’t know this area well because he’d been brought up on the other side of the city, and his mother was no help because she didn’t drive. Buses had their own rules and took a completely different route.

  A couple of streets looked vaguely familiar because he’d visited his mother a few times when she’d lived here. If memory served him correctly, he’d got lost then as well.

  “I think you take a left here,” she said. “Yes, you do. There’s Asif’s shop. I must have told you about Asif. A marvellous chap. You only had to mention an item and it would be in stock ready for your next visit.”

  Dylan took a left, carried on to the end of the road and then, on his mother’s instructions, took a right.

  “Here we are.” She looked at the tall houses, most converted to flats, with a wistful expression.

  Dylan wondered if she wished she still lived next door to the Kaminskis. She’d spent six years here, and then moved to a more upmarket place closer to the city centre.

  When Bev threw her wobbly and evicted Dylan from the marital home, his mother had raced to London to be by his side and hadn’t come back to Birmingham. Later, when Dylan was welcomed back home, Vicky Scott had decided she liked being in London, promptly sold her Birmingham flat and was currently renting Dylan’s old home while she looked for something more permanent in London.

  He’d spent his time wishing she’d return to Birmingham. Now, though, he wasn’t so sure. He liked her being there for Bev. While he was working away from home, it was reassuring to know that she was a short bus ride away.

  He hadn’t even switched off the engine before Mrs. Kaminski ran down the path and waited, somewhat impatiently, for his mother to grab her cavernous bag and get out.

  Given the greeting she received, one would think his mother had been exploring foreign countries for the past forty years. She was hugged, held at arms’ length to be inspected, and hugged again before being led into the building.

  Dylan was treated to an effusive greeting, too.

  He gave them a few minutes to catch up with each other. His mother told them how well they were looking, and he couldn’t decide if she was lying or if they’d always looked so haggard. He’d assumed that having a son locked up on a murder charge was responsible for their tired, drawn faces, but maybe they’d always looked this bad.

  It was easy to see the resemblance between Aleksander Kaminski and his father, Frederyk, but Agata looked too tiny, too birdlike, to have given birth to such a boy. Both were in their seventies and both wore worried expressions. Even when enthusing about seeing “our lovely Vicky again,” they looked tense and anxious.

  The flats boasted large rooms and high ceilings, and the four of them sat around a dining table that would easily have seated ten.

  On the sideboard was a framed photo of Aleksander and Carly on their wedding day that Dylan hadn’t seen on his first visit. He hadn’t been inside this room then, though.

  “Ah, happy days,” Agata said, noticing him staring at the photo.

  “Yes.” Everyone looked happy on their wedding day, but this couple would outshine most.

  “They made an attractive couple, Aggie,” Vicky said.

  “Better than—” Agata stopped. “Sue’s a really nice gi
rl. It’s just that we don’t see her much. Carly used to visit us often. Sue never has time.”

  Sue didn’t have time for much at all other than tending Lancashire’s stray cats and dogs. And maybe she thought the flat and its occupants, still exhibiting a gleaming photo of Aleksander and his first wife, didn’t welcome her.

  “It was never Sue’s fault,” Frederyk said. “It was just that Aleksander never seemed happy with her. Not happy like he’d been with Carly.”

  “He was about as happy with Sue as Carly was with Neil,” Agata said.

  “How often did you see Carly after the divorce?” Dylan asked.

  Agata thought for a moment. “Three or four times a year, I suppose. Every time she came home to see her mum and dad. It was good of her to visit us because I’m sure she found it difficult.”

  “And you don’t think she was happy with Doctor—with Neil?”

  “Not really, no.” Agata was knotting a small lace handkerchief. “She enjoyed the lifestyle, and she loved the twins, of course, but I think she sometimes longed to be with people who knew her, knew her from way back, I mean.”

  “And you had no idea she and Aleksander were seeing each other?”

  “None.” Frederyk wasn’t happy about that. He hadn’t wanted them to divorce, but he clearly didn’t approve of their relationship.

  “What about Neil?” Dylan asked. “Was anything ever said that made you think he might be seeing someone else?”

  Agata looked at Frederyk before answering. “No. Nothing.”

  “Was he?” Frederyk asked.

  “He was, yes.”

  “Are you saying he could have wanted Carly dead?”

  “I’m saying nothing, Frederyk. Other than the fact that he was seeing someone else. Oh, and he may not have been at the hospital the day she was killed.”

  “Then why did the police say he was?”

  “They were told he was there.” They believed they had the killer, one Aleksander Kaminski, behind bars, so they wouldn’t have bothered too much with Walsingham’s alibi. “Indeed, he may have been there. It’s just that there’s some doubt.”

  “But he’s a doctor,” Agata said. “He saves lives. He wouldn’t take a life. He wouldn’t rob those poor children of their mother.”

  Frederyk reached for his wife’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Someone did.”

  “Yes, and it wasn’t Alek.” Agata looked imploringly at Dylan. “He wouldn’t have harmed a hair on that girl’s head.”

  Which is exactly what Dylan’s mother would have said if her son had been accused of murdering his wife. She’d be right though. No matter what, there was no way on God’s earth that Dylan could harm his wife, the mother of his children.

  “I need to go,” he said. “If I learn anything interesting, I’ll be in touch.”

  With Agata fussing around him, thanking him for his help, telling him again that Kaminski was innocent, reassuring him that they’d make sure his mother caught the London train, it was another twenty minutes before he reached his car.

  Damn it, he could still smell marijuana.

  He switched on his sat nav and instructed it to take him to Kirsten Madeley’s address.

  He’d phoned her over the weekend and finally persuaded her to talk to him. She wasn’t a fan of Kaminski. Far from it. “For all the hell I care,” she’d said, “Aleksander Kaminski can rot in hell.”

  It seemed to Dylan that Kaminski was doing exactly that. Dylan didn’t need to talk to a member of the Kaminski fan club though. He wanted some insight into the woman who was Carly Walsingham, and her best friend was probably his best bet.

  “Destination in one hundred yards,” his sat nav informed him.

  Much to Dylan’s surprise, there was Kirsten’s house. It was a small drab semi in the middle of fifty identical properties. Most had a small square of lawn at the front. The Madeleys preferred oil-stained concrete and a couple of patio pots in which weeds thrived.

  Dylan crossed the concrete and rang the doorbell.

  A tall, rangy boy, about the same age as Luke, answered the door. He stared at Dylan, a frown tugging at his eyebrows as he waited for him to speak.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Mrs. Madeley.”

  “Mum?” The boy hollered into the house. “There’s some bloke to see you.”

  Without waiting for a response, the teenager walked to the side of his house for his cycle and pedalled off along the road.

  The woman who finally came to the still open door was nothing like the person he’d envisaged as Carly Walsingham’s best friend. Carly had been slim and fashion conscious. This woman was neither.

  She was clad in black jeans that struggled to stretch themselves around treelike thighs, and a pink top that sported at least two stains from something that could have been tea or beer.

  “Mrs. Madeley? Dylan Scott. We spoke on the phone.”

  “You’d better come in. Although as I said, I don’t have anything to tell you. Alek can rot in hell, the bastard.”

  “You’re assuming he’s guilty,” Dylan said as he followed her into the room that overlooked that square of oily concrete.

  The room looked as stained and uncared for as its owner. An overflowing ashtray had been dumped on top of several women’s magazines spread across a square table. A coal-effect electric fire, covered with dust, offered warmth. A sofa in imitation leather had been scuffed and scratched over the years.

  She stood, flabby arms folded beneath huge breasts, and looked at him. “What makes you think he isn’t?”

  “He claims he’s innocent. His parents say he is.”

  She rolled her eyes. “There’s a bloke hangs around McDonald’s who swears he’s Jesus, but that doesn’t mean he is, does it?”

  “No.”

  She sat down and reached for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Shove those out the way.” She nodded at a pile of clothes on the chair opposite.

  The clothes, mainly jeans, were possibly waiting to be ironed. They’d reek of smoke before she got round to it. He found space for them on a sideboard covered in various knick-knacks and sat down.

  “What can you tell me about Carly’s relationship with Aleksander?” he asked.

  “I can tell you she could have done a lot better for herself.” Her cigarette lit, she inhaled deeply. “He was obsessed with her, even when we were at school.”

  “You were at school with Carly?”

  “Yeah. We only lived eight houses from each other in those days. We met on the first day at secondary school and we were mates all through. I was bridesmaid at her wedding.”

  “When she married Aleksander?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You presumably kept in touch after she moved to Dawson’s Clough because you’d planned to meet up, hadn’t you?”

  “Yeah. We didn’t see much of each other, but we spoke on the phone most weeks. Sometimes we’d go six months or a year between get-togethers. We usually met up when she came down here to see her mum and dad.” She wagged her cigarette at him. “They won’t speak to you, you know.”

  The Kaminskis had already told him that. Carly’s parents were too upset, they said. Distraught even. Dylan wasn’t going to bother them unless he absolutely had to.

  “When was the last time you saw Carly?” he asked.

  “February last year,” Kirsten said. “She came to her mum and dad’s for the weekend, and we went round the pubs and to a couple of clubs. It was like old times. We had a good laugh. Her kids stayed up in Lancashire with their dad, so she was free to go out and get legless.”

  “Neil didn’t visit Birmingham with her?”

  If Dylan struggled to see Carly in this environment, he certainly couldn’t picture her husband here.

  “No. I only ever met him once.”

  “Oh?”

  “He was too much of a snob for my liking. Thought he was a cut above everyone else.”

  “Carly was happy with him though, wasn’t she?”

&nbs
p; “She was happy with the money he gave her. And she was happy with her kids.” Kirsten stubbed out her cigarette. “She’d have been as happy with anyone though.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Like I said, she was eleven when I first met her and, even then, she was obsessed with kids. You know how most kids want a puppy or a kitten? Carly wanted a baby of her own. Anyway, as soon as they found out Alek couldn’t have kids, that was that. She didn’t care about anything but having one of her own. If she couldn’t have them with Alek, she’d have them with someone else. I tell you, anyone would have done. She didn’t care who it was.”

  Kirsten lit another cigarette.

  “She never loved the snobby doctor,” she said. “It was only ever Alek.”

  Interesting.

  “Didn’t she consider adopting a child?”

  “Nope. She had to go through the whole childbirth thing. She said she didn’t want someone else’s.” She blew a cloud of smoke into Dylan’s face.

  “But if you say she loved Alek—”

  “She did, but it didn’t matter. She had to have kids of her own. Said she couldn’t feel like a complete woman without them. I’ll tell you something else, too. Now, I couldn’t swear to this, but I think she was seeing someone else before she was killed.”

  “Oh?” he asked. Kirsten might not have wanted to talk to him but, now she’d started, she was keen to gossip. “What makes you say that?”

  “She phoned me the day before—the day before that bastard killed her. She wanted to see me the next day, but I still had my job then and couldn’t get the time off work. I managed to do a swap for the Thursday, though, and I phoned her back to see if that was any good to her. She was laughing and messing around, said she was busy on Thursdays and couldn’t miss her afternoon fix. She didn’t tell me, but something in the way she spoke made me think she was seeing someone, a man.”

  “And you’ve no idea who that might have been?”

  “No. I would have asked her when we met up on the Thursday but, of course—” She left the sentence unfinished.

  They never had met up on that Thursday. A person or persons unknown had seen to that.

  “Could she have been seeing Alek, do you think?” Dylan asked.