Silent Witness (A Dylan Scott Mystery)

by Wells, Shirley

  Over a fifth, they tried to remember what conclusions they’d drawn during the fourth.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Church bells rang out, calling the faithful to worship, and Dylan realised it was a sound he hadn’t heard for years. He stopped for a moment to listen. That was what he told himself anyway. The fact that it allowed him to get his breath back was an added bonus.

  He couldn’t decide if his lungs or his legs were hurting the most. As his entire body was screaming in pain, it was difficult to tell. He walked on, his body drenched in sweat, until he felt able to break into a run again.

  A man who had to be in his seventies ran toward him and didn’t even look breathless. Perhaps he was only in his fifties, and an excess of exercise had greyed his hair and wrinkled his skin. Either way, Dylan was at least ten and probably thirty years younger so he damn well ought to be able to run three miles without a problem.

  Ignoring the way his lungs refused to take in enough air, he kept going, grateful that the last quarter of a mile to his home featured an incline in his favour.

  He walked up his drive, let himself into the house and went straight to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water.

  Bev came through from the sitting-room. “Do I need to call 999?”

  He shook his head. “It was easier this time. Much easier.”

  “Yeah?” A knowing smile curved her lips. “Then you should have recovered by—what?—Wednesday?”

  “Ha, ha.” Deciding it probably would be Wednesday before he felt back to normal, he poured another glass of water and drank it in one.

  The smile left her face and, with a long sigh, she took clothes, all Freya’s, from the dryer.

  “So what do you want to do today?” he asked. “Let’s go out somewhere. All four of us.”

  She shook her head. “Luke’s out at Tom’s this morning and Freya’s a bit fractious.”

  “We can go out later then.”

  “No.”

  “The sun’s doing its best to shine,” Dylan said. “We could have a wander round the park or something. It would do us good to get out of the house and take in some fresh air.”

  She shook her head but didn’t bother to answer.

  “Do you want me to take the kids out later? You can put your feet up?”

  “Stop fussing, Dylan.” She folded Freya’s tiny clothes and put them in a pile on the table. “Whether I go out or stay in, it’s all the same, isn’t it? What does it matter what I do? In or out, I just do my motherly duties. I’m a mother. That’s all I am.”

  Dylan was saved from answering that particular conundrum by the phone. Bev snatched at it and her face broke into a strained smile as she spoke to her best friend. While she chatted to Lucy, he decided to go and shower.

  The mystery of Carly Walsingham’s murder was nothing compared to the mystery that was women. Why they had to speak in riddles, Dylan had no idea. What was all that I’m-a-mother nonsense? He was a father. So what?

  Something was wrong with Bev, had been since Freya was born, but he was damned if he knew what. Nor would he find out so long as she insisted on expecting him to understand the nonsense she came out with. God, it was like living with a walking crossword puzzle.

  Ask a bloke what was wrong, and you’d be told in words of one syllable. Ask a woman and you’d be expected to solve Mensa’s top challenge.

  I’m a mother. That’s all I am. What the hell was that supposed to mean? She was all sorts of things, the same as he was. She was a teacher, a reader, a shopper—she could shop for England.

  By the time he’d showered and dressed, he decided he didn’t feel too bad at all. Perhaps he was getting fitter and his recovery time was improving. Cheered, he went downstairs to the kitchen where Bev was staring gloomily out of the window.

  “That was a short chat.” Usually, she could chat to Lucy for over an hour, regardless of whether they’d seen each other the night before. “Lucy okay?”

  “Lucy’s fine.” The way she spoke let him know that, although Lucy was fine, she most certainly wasn’t.

  “Right. Good.”

  “Of course Lucy’s fine. She has a boyfriend who’s wining and dining her in style this evening. What’s not to be fine about?”

  Four Across. Baffled.

  “But you don’t want wining and dining in style.” Every word he spoke was taking him nearer an explosion. He could see it coming, but there was damn all he could do about it.

  “I don’t? Says who?”

  “I offered to take you out last night.”

  “You offered? Well, forgive me if I don’t drop down at your feet in gratitude.”

  Dylan had always believed he had good interviewing techniques. While on the police force, he’d had a great deal of success getting information from suspects, reading between the lines and dragging out the truth. It had to be said, though, that he’d interviewed very few women.

  Luke was of an age when he was becoming all too aware of the differences between boys and girls, and Dylan vowed to impress upon him that the physical differences were as nothing compared to the mental differences. Female minds were a definite no-go area.

  “Lucy’s boyfriend doesn’t offer,” Bev said. “He wants to take Lucy out.”

  “I want to take you out.”

  “You do? And how would I know that? To hear you talk, people would think you were offering to take me out because I’m your personal bloody charity case.”

  “Of course I want to take you out. I can think of nothing better than having some quality time, away from house and kids, with the woman I love.”

  She grabbed Freya’s clothes from the table, turned on her heel and strode from the room. He heard her putting stuff in the airing cupboard. Then all was silent.

  It was a good five minutes before she returned. Her eyes were red and moist, and it looked for all the world as if she’d been crying.

  “Okay,” she said. “Ring your mum and see if she can babysit for the evening. We’ll go out.”

  Still baffled.

  “Right. Where do you fancy going? Do I need to book a table?”

  “Ramone’s.”

  “I’ll book a table then.” He’d book resuscitation for his credit card too.

  ***

  Ramone’s was as busy as ever and Dylan couldn’t understand why the restaurant was so popular. He’d never yet left the place feeling as if he’d had a decent meal because the ridiculously expensive food came in minuscule portions. Sprigs of parsley, or whatever the crap of the day was, were transformed into works of art. The chefs, he was sure, were failed artists.

  When Bev was seated, she looked around with a satisfied smile. “It’s lovely here, isn’t it?”

  “Very nice.” He couldn’t see the appeal and would have been as happy eating fish and chips out of the paper in the park. His credit card would have rejoiced at that too. There was no point disagreeing with her, though.

  While they studied the menu, Dylan ran through the list of instructions he’d been given before leaving home.

  “Don’t talk work,” his mother had whispered. “Or about the house or the children. Discuss something exciting like holidays. Make her laugh.”

  “She’ll want champagne,” Luke had said.

  He’d ordered a bottle of wine but, as to conversation, he was at a loss. He hated making small talk at the best of times and if work, house and family were off topic, he was lost.

  The waiter fussed around Bev and assured them all ingredients were English. And fresh.

  “The fish is responsibly sourced,” he said.

  “That’s good then,” Dylan said. Responsibly sourced fish? What the hell was that about?

  He oohed and aahed over his steamed asparagus but, really, it wouldn’t have kept a sparrow alive. It was pleasant, and no doubt fresh and grown in England, but not worth mentioning.

  “We should do this more often,” Bev said.

  “We should.” If he won the lottery, he’d suggest it mo
re often.

  “Hey, let’s have champagne to celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?” There was already a decent bottle of white wine on the table.

  “Well, Freya, I suppose,” she said. “And we should drink to your mum. She’s been such a help, hasn’t she? We’re lucky to have her.”

  Dylan declined to comment on that, and Bev laughed.

  “You love her really.”

  He did, that was the crazy thing. He simply wished she were more grounded in reality. He wished, too, that she’d been a secretary during the sixties rather than a pot-smoking, peace-loving hippy.

  “At least Freya’s keeping her out of mischief,” he said. “She can’t coo over her granddaughter and book holidays at the same time.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  Bev was right. Vicky Scott could easily nurse a baby and scan brochures for adventure holidays. For all Dylan knew, she was probably telling Freya right now that she wasn’t too young for backpacking through darkest Africa.

  “It was a good holiday, though, wasn’t it?” Bev said. “I know there were a few problems, but we all had a good time in the end.”

  Last year he, Bev and Luke had accompanied his mother to the desert. Few people could boast they’d been camel trekking in the Sahara. Few people would want to.

  Bev was right though. In its own way, it had been okay, and they’d all returned unscathed.

  “It was,” he said. “And Luke’s still dining out on it.”

  Remembering his mother’s instructions, he said, “We should think of going away in the summer. Somewhere less risky than the Sahara. Is there anywhere you fancy?”

  “I’ll have a think about it,” she said. “Perhaps we do need a holiday.”

  She caught the waiter’s attention and ordered a bottle of champagne. Dylan had thought he’d sidestepped that suggestion. Apparently not. The waiter scooted away, only too pleased to oblige.

  Bev was looking more relaxed than she had for weeks though so Dylan knew he shouldn’t complain.

  Responsibly sourced or not, his duck, when it came, was delicious. Bev’s salmon was washed down with plenty of champagne and she was smiling more with each swallow.

  “I’m supposed to be on a diet,” she said, looking wistfully as the dessert menu.

  “I don’t suppose the portions you get here will pile on many calories.”

  “Dylan, shush!”

  She opted for lemon and goat’s curd cheesecake. Dylan decided that, as he was still hungry, he’d have plum and almond tart with clotted cream.

  “So how’s work going?” she asked over coffee.

  “Okay.” He wasn’t supposed to be talking work. “Yes, it’s fine.”

  “Have you almost solved it?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  She was slurring her words slightly, he noticed. Her eyes were brighter than usual too. “But you’re sure Aleksander Kaminski is innocent?”

  “I wouldn’t even go that far,” he said. “I’d like to believe he’s innocent, but I wouldn’t put money on it.”

  “Who’s your chief suspect then?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly her husband.”

  “Ooh.” She giggled, a sign she’d had too much to drink. “How would you kill me if you’d had enough of me?”

  “That’s just it, I wouldn’t. I’d divorce you. It would be a lot less messy. My finances would never recover, but the pay’s not so great in Strangeways.”

  “I’d hit you with your old cricket bat.” She sounded as if she’d given the matter a great deal of thought. “That wouldn’t be too messy, would it? A good thwack on the head with that ought to do the trick.”

  “Maybe. You might just fracture my skull though.”

  “Then I’d hit you again. Harder.”

  “Where is my cricket bat?”

  “I don’t know. In the garage probably, along with all your other junk.” With a satisfied sigh, she reached across the table for his hand. “Actually, I’d probably just divorce you too. I’d make a packet out of you.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it.”

  Dylan was prepared for the bill but, when it came, he still felt the blood drain from his face. That was the thing about Ramone’s. One could mentally calculate the cost of the meal, double the figure for luck and still end up with the shock of a lifetime.

  “Shall I get them to order a taxi?” he asked.

  “No. Not yet. Let’s go for a walk. I like walking at this time of night.”

  Unlike Dawson’s Clough, a town that liked to call its curfew early, Shepherd’s Bush was home to crowds of people dashing to pub, club or restaurant from underground station or bus stop. It was lively and noisy, and Dylan liked it.

  The area wasn’t famous for much. Queen’s Park Rangers played football at the ground on Loftus Road, many of the Monty Python sketches had been filmed there because of the proximity to BBC Television Centre, and an old sitcom, Steptoe and Son, had been set in the fictional 24 Oil Drum Lane, Shepherd’s Bush.

  Bev linked her arm through his and soon proved that she was incapable of walking in a straight line. The fresh air might sober her a little. He hoped so as he didn’t want her throwing up in a taxi.

  “You do still love me, don’t you, Dylan?”

  Oh, God. She’d had more champagne than he’d realised. “Of course I do.”

  “Even though I’m a miserable cow?”

  He smiled at that. “Yes.”

  “Even though I have nothing to talk about except baby sick?”

  “Yup. I used to dream of a miserable cow who talked about nothing but baby sick.”

  “You wouldn’t rather be with Angelina Jolie?”

  “God, no. Far too cheerful.”

  They walked on until Bev spotted a pub that looked “cosy.” It was a bad move, Dylan knew it, but they went inside and Bev ordered a coffee and a brandy. He hadn’t the heart to remind her that she hated brandy.

  At least she didn’t throw up in the taxi on the way home. She did, however, pause for a long time before she’d walk into the house. It was if she expected all sorts of demons to be lurking there.

  The reality was silence. Darkness and silence. Everyone was in bed and, amazingly, everyone was asleep. Even Freya.

  “Do you want a coffee?” Dylan asked in the whisper he used if his daughter was sleeping.

  “Please.”

  Dylan made coffee, and Bev swayed through to the sitting room. He wondered if she’d fall asleep and start snoring in her drunken haze or if she’d burst into tears about the hamster that died when she was seven.

  When he carried their coffees through, she was sitting on the sofa with her shoeless feet resting on the coffee table. She patted the space beside her and, after putting their coffees where she was unlikely to kick them, he sat down.

  “Are you sure you still love me?” she asked.

  “Er, let me think.” He put his arm round her and pulled her close. “Of course I do, idiot.”

  “I love you, too.” And she promptly burst into tears.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Megan Cole couldn’t find bananas in Tesco and it had already taken her a good ten minutes to choose a decent bottle of wine. The store was quiet at this time on a Monday night, which was why she preferred it, but she was beginning to wish she hadn’t bothered.

  She gave up on bananas, put grapes and pears in her trolley, and consulted her list. She needed coffee and that was on the far side of the store. Not wanting to face the morning without her caffeine, she set off, three wheels on her trolley going one way and one hampering progress by refusing to budge.

  She rounded the corner to avoid the pet supplies and collided with another trolley.

  “Sorry—oh, er, Sonia.” Shock rendered her incapable of speech.

  Sonia had put on a little weight since she’d left the hospital. Maybe it was the sign of a contented life. Or perhaps that’s what happened when you stopped working long shifts. She was wea
ring black linen trousers, white shirt and wide red belt. Megan, in jeans and jacket, felt underdressed.

  They struggled to disentangle their trolleys.

  “Long time no see,” Megan said. “How are things?”

  “Hello, Megan.” A cold smile ended a long way short of her eyes. “Things are good, thanks. How are you?”

  “Fine. Overworked and underpaid. The usual.” She hoped her own smile was more successful than Sonia’s.

  An awkward silence descended. Megan would like to talk to Sonia, but Neil, the only subject they had in common, was off-limits.

  “Good to see you. Must dash though.” Sonia finally extricated her trolley and headed for the deli counter.

  Megan continued in her quest for coffee. There were a couple of other things on her list but nothing she couldn’t survive without for a week and she was soon in the queue for the checkout. She was aware, as she put her goods on the conveyor belt, that her hands were shaking. She’d been a wreck ever since her canal-side meeting with Neil on Wednesday night, and seeing Sonia hadn’t helped.

  She still wasn’t sure what had happened down by the canal that evening. She’d fumbled in her pocket for her key as she raced away from Neil, and she’d been in the house with the door locked behind her before he hammered on her door.

  “Megan, what the hell’s got into you?” He’d tried the handle. “Megan, for Christ’s sake, have you gone bloody mad?”

  Crouched in the hallway, in complete darkness, she thought she probably had.

  She’d called in sick on Thursday and Friday and, although she’d gone to work today, she’d more or less managed to avoid Neil. Their paths had only crossed once. She and a nurse had been getting coffee from the machine when Neil strode along the corridor.

  He slowed his pace. “Hello, Megan. Are you feeling better?”

  “Yes. Much better, thanks. Just a stomach bug.”

  “Good.” With a nod to them both, he’d gone on his way.

  As she’d watched him march off, confident and handsome, she’d thought she was probably losing her mind. She couldn’t explain, even to herself, why she’d suddenly been so frightened of him. Yet she’d been terrified. The wind and the deep, dark water had seemed benevolent in comparison to Neil.