Silent Witness (A Dylan Scott Mystery)

by Wells, Shirley

  “On the day Carly was taken from me,” Walsingham said on a long, suffering breath, “I was asked to tell the police where I was. Well, I knew where I was, of course. We’d all had a long, gruelling shift at the hospital. But when it came to telling them who I was with, well, I couldn’t. Can you believe that? It was so busy, so chaotic, that I couldn’t have said who was working alongside me and who wasn’t. That’s what happens. People get so wrapped up in dealing with the current emergency that they simply don’t take these things in. That day was exceptional, I know. There had been an accident on the motorway.”

  “So I believe,” Dylan said. “A coach full of children, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Girl Guides and Scouts heading off on a camping holiday. Thankfully there were no serious injuries, but you have to check each one thoroughly. Children get easily frightened in such circumstances so you need to tread carefully too.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “You go from child to child. The nurses go from child to child. You check them over, you fill in paperwork. Everyone else is doing the same, but you’re not aware of them.”

  Walsingham had long slender hands. On the third finger of the left hand was the shining gold wedding band that Carly would have placed there.

  “So,” he said. “Kaminski is still protesting his innocence, is he?”

  Walsingham was nervous. As soon as there was a pause in the conversation, he felt obliged to fill it. Fill it with crap too. He knew damn well that the only reason Dylan was in Dawson’s Clough was because Kaminski was still protesting his innocence.

  “He is, yes. He’s adamant he left your wife at three o’clock. Almost an hour before your neighbour claimed to have seen someone in the back garden.” Dylan hadn’t, as yet, spoken to the neighbour. He couldn’t see much point in doing so, but it was on his list. “He also denies threatening your wife during a phone conversation the previous evening. Or at any time, come to that.”

  “He would, wouldn’t he, but I know what I heard.”

  “His story is that she phoned him to say she was meeting a friend on the Thursday and suggested he call round on the Wednesday instead.”

  Walsingham shrugged and tried to conceal his frustration by taking a slow drink of whisky.

  “Your wife’s friend confirmed that they’d made a spur-of-the-moment arrangement to meet, I gather?” Dylan said.

  “Carly had planned to meet Kirsten, yes.” Walsingham took a breath. He must have reminded himself he was supposed to be Laurence Olivier too. “If Kaminski really is innocent, then no one would be more pleased to see him freed than me. But all I can tell you, Dylan, is what I know. I overheard Carly’s part of a phone call the evening before. She was upset and distressed. She told the caller to stop threatening her.”

  “She didn’t tell you who she was talking to?”

  “No. To be honest, the mention of Kaminski’s name used to drive me crazy. The man simply refused to accept that his marriage was over. He used to call her all the time. It was embarrassing for her, and I found it infuriating. So no, she wouldn’t have told me who was calling. She wouldn’t have wanted to upset me. Besides—” he smiled a sad smile, “—she was a brave little thing. She would have believed she could handle Kaminski.”

  “Who did she say the call was from?”

  “Oh, she gave me some nonsense about it being a salesman. She said he was pushy. Well, they are, aren’t they? They need to make sales to earn a living.”

  Dylan nodded at the truth of that.

  “I didn’t believe her,” Walsingham said. “I even suspected it might have been Kaminski. But I didn’t push it. It sounds silly now, but we were going out for a meal and I didn’t want to spoil the evening.” He put his elbows on the table and made a steeple of his fingers. “Of course, the next day she was gone.”

  “Indeed. So you told the police about the threatening phone call?”

  “Yes. They checked with the phone company and found that the only call Carly made or received that day was from Kaminski.”

  Walsingham looked triumphant as he waited for Dylan to comment. Dylan merely took a swig of beer. He wanted Walsingham to do the talking.

  “You see, Dylan, I really can’t think of anyone else who could have done such a terrible thing. At first, I thought perhaps a burglar but—well, nothing was taken. Nothing had been disturbed.”

  Walsingham was desperate for Dylan’s agreement, but Dylan still didn’t speak.

  “So what have you learned?” Walsingham asked. “Anything interesting? Anything that might help?”

  “Not really. It’s odd, though, don’t you think?”

  “What’s odd?”

  “All of it.” Dylan took another swallow of beer. He was enjoying Walsingham’s discomfort. “If your wife was being threatened by Kaminski, I can’t understand why she’d let him into the house and—”

  “She was kind. She would have tried to be nice to him, to try and make him understand that he couldn’t keep bothering her.”

  “—why she’d let him in the house and then have sex with him,” Dylan finished. “There’s no doubt that they had intercourse and there was nothing to suggest it was nonconsensual.” He put up a hand to fend off Walsingham’s interruption. “There was a bruise, I know, but Kaminski claims she enjoyed rough sex.”

  “That’s an out-and-out lie.” Walsingham laughed at the notion, a strangled sound. “My wife’s sexual appetite was perfectly normal, I assure you.”

  “With you, maybe.” Dylan felt like a cat batting a mouse around a room before going in for the kill. “But perhaps she had different preferences with her ex-husband. After all, she’d known him intimately for many years. She had intercourse with him when she was a teenager, and, as we know, youngsters like to experiment. It’s the only way to learn what they like and dislike, isn’t it?”

  “Okay, so maybe as a teenager, she did like other things. The Carly I married, the Carly who was murdered, didn’t experiment.”

  “She had a selection of sex toys, I understand.”

  Again that scoffing laugh. “Name me a woman who doesn’t. They’re just a joke. Silly presents given to her on her hen night.”

  “Yes. It’s odd that Kaminski knew about them though, don’t you think? I find it amazing that he can describe them in great detail. If, as you believe, she was trying to get him out of her life once and for all, showing him dildos and handcuffs was a very strange way to go about it.”

  Walsingham emptied his glass and Dylan stood up. “Let me get this round.”

  He strode off to the bar before Walsingham could claim he needed to keep another appointment. The club was still busy and he had to wait a couple of minutes to be served. At least twenty people were clustered round the pool table in the smaller side room. Two teenagers had cues in their hands. Four young girls wearing six inches of clothing between them drank something blue from bottles and wobbled on nail-like heels.

  With the drinks paid for, a pint for himself and a double whisky for Walsingham, Dylan returned to their table.

  “Thanks, Dylan. That’s kind of you.” Walsingham took a sip of whisky. “I’ll have to be off in a minute though. I think I told you I had something on?”

  “Yes. And I appreciate you taking time out to see me.”

  “I just wish I could help.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Dylan leaned back in his chair, ankle resting on his knee, as relaxed as someone having a quick chat with his best friend. “Tell me something, Neil. Who were you having an affair with when your wife was killed? Was it Sonia or Megan? I’m getting confused.”

  Walsingham’s eyes were like chips of polished steel.

  “I wasn’t having an affair with anyone,” he said. “I had, I admit, been involved with Sonia Trueman. A silly mistake that I regretted immediately. When you work together, when you see life and death on a daily basis, relationships are formed. Dangerous relationships. I broke things off between us.”

  “A wise move,” Dylan sai
d. “I get the impression Sonia’s husband isn’t a man to upset.”

  “Him.” Walsingham pulled a face. “He’s all brawn and no brain.”

  “Did you ever have dealings with him? Did he make threats or—?”

  Walsingham snorted. “Of course not. I can say with some relief that we don’t mix in the same circles. I’ve never even spoken to him.”

  “I see.” It seemed that Walsingham didn’t see Trueman as a possible suspect for his wife’s murder. “So if you weren’t having an affair, who told me—? Ah, yes, it was Megan. She said you’d known for some time that your wife was being unfaithful with Aleksander Kaminski.”

  Anger flashed across Walsingham’s face but was gone in an instant. Blink and you’d have missed it. A smile, one that looked as if its forming had caused actual physical pain, replaced it.

  “I remember saying something of the sort to her. Kaminski had been bothering Carly, you see, and we’d had a silly row. I’d offered to talk to him, but Carly would have none of it. Believe me, if I’d had a couple of words with him, he would have thought twice about making a nuisance of himself. Anyway, we had a row and I said some stupid things. I even accused her of enjoying his attention.”

  “I see.”

  “So, needing someone to talk to, I ended up at Megan’s. I was still angry with Carly. My head was a mess and I almost believed I was right, that Carly was seeing Kaminski. That’s why I said those crazy things to Megan. God, I knew Carly wasn’t having anything to do with him. The idea was ludicrous.”

  “Right.”

  “Megan was someone to talk to, that’s all. She works at the hospital. She understands. And after Carly—” He shrugged. “A man needs someone to talk to after a tragedy like that.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “Is that why you were involved with Sonia Trueman? For someone to talk to, I mean.”

  “Sonia.” Walsingham rolled his eyes. “The way she carried on, you’d have thought we were Romeo and Juliet. It was a silly, senseless fling, that’s all. It meant nothing. Well, not to me. And if I’d had any idea she was reading things into it, I would have put her straight a lot sooner. The last thing, the very last thing, I wanted was to upset her, to give her the wrong impression.”

  He emptied his glass in one long swallow and rose to his impressive height. “Well, if there’s nothing else you need to know, Dylan, I’ll be off.”

  “There is one thing.”

  “Oh? And what’s that?”

  Dylan stood up too. Walsingham was a couple of inches taller.

  “I’d very much like to know who killed your wife. Was it you?”

  Every expression flitted across Walsingham’s face. Dylan saw anger, shock and frustration. Anger was uppermost.

  “Me? You think I could kill my own wife? You think I could murder the mother of my two sons?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first.”

  Walsingham surprised Dylan by sitting down again. Dylan sat next to him. Waiting.

  For a moment, he thought the doctor was about to confess all.

  “It’s funny,” Walsingham said, “but when the police came that day—the day I found Carly—I knew immediately that they had me down as chief suspect. Afterwards, I spoke to one of the detectives. He said a spouse is always looked at very closely. Something to do with the number of murderers who are close to their victims.”

  Dylan nodded at the truth of that.

  “I couldn’t believe it,” Walsingham said. “I mean, not me. I save people’s lives. All sorts are brought into the hospital, you know. We get drunks, wife-beaters, drug addicts, thieves. I expect we even get killers. They all have one thing in common and that is receiving the best medical attention we can provide. I took an oath, Dylan. I couldn’t kill anyone. I just couldn’t do it. And I certainly couldn’t kill my sons’ mother.”

  Dylan almost believed him. Almost.

  Walsingham rose to his feet again. “And now, I really must go. Goodnight, Dylan.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Dylan quickly finished his drink and left the club. He was in time to see Walsingham jump in a cab parked on the nearby rank and be driven off to who knew where.

  Dylan could jump in another and say “Follow that taxi” but there was little point. Walsingham would be on to that one.

  One thing was certain, he wasn’t going to be fooled by someone claiming that they’d taken the Hippocratic Oath and, therefore, couldn’t harm anyone or anything. Harold Shipman had taken that same oath before hanging himself in a police cell after being found guilty of murdering over two hundred of his patients.

  Dylan would head back to his hotel and stare at his computer screen until it put him to sleep. Within about ten minutes, he’d guess.

  As he walked, he called home. Bev answered within three rings.

  “Hi,” he said. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine. Yes, it’s okay.” She sounded tired, as if she didn’t care about anything. “Your mum’s been here all day, so that was good.”

  “Yeah? So what have you been up to?”

  “Not a lot. I went and sat in the garden for a bit. I thought I’d read, but I couldn’t find anything I fancied. And I didn’t want to listen to anything.”

  Bev was a bookaholic. He’d bought her a Kindle over a year ago and he dreaded to think how many ebooks she had on that. Plus the fact, whenever they went into town, she couldn’t resist browsing in bookshops. No sooner had a cover caught her eye than she’d read the blurb on the back and taken it to the till. He’d bet any money on there being over a hundred unread books at the house in one format or another.

  Bev was the woman who sat in bed late at night, complaining that she had to be up early, and finished a book. So long as it featured a hero and heroine who were going to fall in love and live happily ever after, she didn’t care.

  “Oh, well,” he said, feeling at a loss, “it’s sometimes good to just sit and do nothing.”

  “Yeah. How about you? How are you getting on?”

  He told her about his security firm find and about his meeting with Neil Walsingham. He couldn’t claim to be getting on well, but at least he’d been doing something.

  “How are Luke and Freya?”

  “Luke’s fine,” she said. “Freya’s Freya.”

  “Is she asleep?”

  “Yes, for all of five minutes. Perhaps she’s trying to beat her own record.”

  He smiled, but he knew it wasn’t funny. Bev was struggling.

  “Why don’t you get an early night?” he suggested.

  “Because I have a hundred and one things to do. The house is a tip, I have enough washing to set up my own laundry business—”

  “But nothing that can’t wait.”

  “I suppose. Yes, I might. Or I might see if there’s anything on TV. I don’t know, I can’t be bothered to do a lot.”

  “Then do nothing. Sit and gaze at your navel. Or pour yourself a glass of wine and have a long hot bath.”

  “I might. What are you doing now?”

  “I’m going back to the hotel to sit and stare at CCTV pictures for an hour or so.”

  When he ended the call, he thought of phoning his mother to find out her opinion of Bev. After all, she’d spent most of the day with her. He couldn’t face it though. Why do today what he could put off till next week?

  It was almost dark when he reached the hotel. He was putting his card in the door’s lock when his phone rang. The display showed a local number, one he didn’t recognise.

  “Hello?”

  “I know who killed Mrs. Walsingham.” The voice was muffled, distorted.

  “Who is this?”

  “Neil Walsingham. He killed his wife. He should be locked up.”

  “Who is this?”

  The connection was cut. The line was dead.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Dylan shut down his computer. He’d wasted most of the morning staring at cars travelling along Darwen Road and had reached the stage
when a bunch of strippers on an open-top bus wouldn’t have registered.

  He’d spotted Neil Walsingham’s car, though, so that had been cause for a minor celebration. Not that Walsingham driving through Dawson’s Clough a week before his wife was murdered proved anything.

  He grabbed his jacket, wallet and car keys, and left the hotel.

  Forecasters had threatened Lancashire with more gale-force winds and heavy rain but, so far, it was dry if a little breezy. He drove into the town centre, parked and walked through the pedestrianised shopping centre.

  Last night’s mysterious call had come from a local number, but Dylan’s attempts to reach it had rung out unanswered. It was early this morning that he’d finally got a response.

  “Er, yeah?”

  “Who is that?” Dylan had asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The number I’ve reached, where is it? Who are you?”

  “Well, it’s a phone box, isn’t it?”

  “Where?”

  “In Clough centre. Outside Smith’s.”

  “Right. Okay, thanks for your help.”

  There it was. A few yards from WH Smith’s was a public phone box.

  Dylan stepped inside, lifted the receiver and tapped in his own number for confirmation that his anonymous caller has used this particular phone. They had.

  As he headed back to his car, he tried to come up with answers to a dozen questions. First, was the caller male or female. The voice had been too muffled to even guess at the gender. Also, why would someone use a town centre phone box to call him? Why, if that person believed Neil Walsingham should be behind bars, didn’t they give him a clue? Could they know Walsingham was responsible for his wife’s murder or were they just guessing?

  He had no answers and it was time he headed to the fun factory that was Strangeways. As the route took him half a mile from the Pennine View Rescue Centre, he decided he might as well pay Sue Kaminski a visit.

  Her car, a battered, rusty Fiat, was the only vehicle in sight. Thankfully, there were no huge Rottweilers guarding the gate. None that Dylan could see at least.

  He was about to risk opening that gate when Sue came out of the front door and spotted him.