Only the Dead Can Tell

by Alex Gray

  ‘Really? Say, that’s cool. Real traditional,’ she added, making the word sound synonymous with old-fashioned to Rosie’s ears.

  ‘How long you expecting to be off?’ Daisy continued.

  Rosie opened her mouth to protest but could think of nothing to say to this forward young woman who had breezed into her office and was already taking control of the interview.

  ‘Long enough to let you have a decent page or two in your CV,’ she said briskly. ‘If you’re selected,’ she added, receiving only another grin from Daisy Abercromby. None of the previous candidates had shown much spark and Rosie had to admit that there was something rather appealing about this fresh-faced young woman who had no qualms about asking personal questions of her own. She’d not be browbeaten by anyone, Rosie decided, suppressing a smile as she lifted the page of questions, wondering if she had already made up her mind.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘It’s just one single spot,’ the woman murmured, gazing into the lens. ‘Need to see what it can tell us, though.’

  She lifted her head from the microscope and began the test that would show exactly whose blood was on the sleeve of this garment, an old worn denim jacket that had seen better days. DI McCauley had insisted on a scrupulous inspection for every one of the husband’s articles of clothing. The technician frowned. Didn’t look as if this had been worn in years, the folds dusty and stiff with age. And yet, there it was, a tiny speck of blood that might signify a great deal to the future of its owner. If it was the dead woman’s blood, then this might just be enough to charge the husband with her murder, though additional forensic work would likely be sought by the defence to see if the stain was too old to be of any value to the case. If it had degraded sufficiently then its DNA might tell them it was not a recent stain.

  The technician sat back and thought for a moment. Why not find that out now? Then, with a smile, she began the analysis that would give a definite answer to this question.

  There was something thrilling about the search and a small satisfaction obtained when the stain did indeed seem to have landed on this garment quite recently. She needed to forward her report to the SIO, wondering, as she did so, what the eventual outcome would be for the man whose jacket she had subjected to such scrutiny.

  DI McCauley grinned as he put down the phone. ‘Gotcha!’ he said softly. ‘Knew there’d be something that proved me right!’ He pushed open the frosted glass door of his office and swaggered out into the room where several faces lifted from their computers. They’d be curious to know what had made their DI appear with a grin on his face and he couldn’t wait to tell them.

  Peter Guilford sat, slack-jawed, as the charge was read against him.

  ‘No,’ he muttered, throat suddenly dry, the word sticking in his mouth. ‘No, that’s all wrong.’ He swallowed, eyes darting from the grinning DI to the other officers whose faces remained totally impassive. ‘You’re wrong,’ he croaked. Then, as the handcuffs were fastened around his wrists, he knew that it was useless to make such comments. This man had decided that he was guilty and Peter Guilford knew that once the police had made their minds up it was practically impossible to wriggle out from their grasp.

  The corridors loomed cold and blue as the uniforms escorted him along, their hands strong but not brutal since there was no resistance. No fight.

  His body felt heavy and useless as they turned into the cell, the click of the handcuffs opening, the shuffle of heavy feet the only sounds as they left him. Then a dull clang as the door shut and the unmistakable ratcheting of a key in the lock.

  *

  Hours had passed, how many he couldn’t be sure. The man slumped onto the narrow plastic-covered bed, head sunk into his hands. It was just a bad dream from which he would waken. Surely this wasn’t real?

  Peter could not stop thinking about the words that resounded in his head, words thudding like nails being hammered into his coffin.

  Charged. Charged with murder.

  This was all wrong. Nothing like this should be happening to him. He breathed out a long sigh, trying to recall the lawyer’s words instead. An appeal for bail was being made but meantime he would be kept here in this cold cell, the bars shutting him off from the rest of the world when all he wanted was to go home. Guilford raised his head for a moment and glanced up at the tiny barred window, remembering. He’d been inside a prison once before and had vowed never to let it happen again.

  Everything had happened so quickly after those long hours of uncertainty. One minute he was in that interview room, expecting his lawyer, Frank Dawson, to utter words that would get him out of this place; the next he was being escorted down that corridor by two uniformed officers who’d ushered him inside this cell. They’d taken his things away, too. His phone, his belt, even his goddamned shoelaces as if they expected him to do something stupid.

  Peter Guilford felt hot tears prickling his eyes and he sniffed them back, cursing himself for such weakness. He’d not give them the satisfaction of seeing him emotional, he told himself, grinding his teeth together. Yet, despite his best intentions, the accused husband felt the moisture trickle down his cheeks as a wave of utter desolation swept over him.

  This was not the way it was supposed to happen . . .

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘He’s been kept inside,’ Dawson told her with a sigh.

  ‘What? But how can they . . . ?’

  ‘There was a spot of Dorothy’s blood on one of his jackets,’ the lawyer explained. ‘Probably something from an old accident . . . ’ He broke off, leaving the silence between them to tell its own tale. Each of them knew well that Dorothy self-harmed but the lawyer suspected that several of the dead woman’s injuries had been inflicted by Peter Guilford, something that Dawson would not easily reveal as he sought to protect his client from prosecution.

  ‘She was a nasty little cow!’ The woman spat out the words, her face a mask of rage.

  ‘Come on, now, Cynthia, bad luck to speak ill of the dead.’ Dawson shook his head, attempting a feeble smile.

  ‘You don’t know what she was like, Frank. A bitter, twisted woman with an overactive imagination,’ she insisted. ‘Peter told me—’

  ‘Hush.’ Dawson laid a finger to his lips. ‘I don’t want to hear this, Cynthia. Anyway,’ he shifted in his seat, gathering up the light raincoat and the tan attaché case, ‘I shouldn’t really be here. Just a favour to Peter.’ Then, standing up and fixing his gaze upon her, the lawyer leaned forward. ‘Don’t even think about trying to contact me. Understand? No telephone trails. No emails. And we won’t meet again like this unless I instigate it.’ His voice was low but there was no mistaking the threat in Dawson’s tone.

  Cynthia Drollinger sat back, her face white and tense as she watched the man turn on his heel and leave the crowded cafeteria. Dawson had insisted on meeting here, a city centre student hang-out, instead of at the office and she suddenly wondered why. He’d come to do her a favour, he’d insisted, pass on the message from Peter, but even as she told herself that Dawson was on their side, the woman asked herself if the lawyer actually believed the words that his client had asked him to relay: Tell her I didn’t kill Dorothy.

  When the telephone rang Shirley made a face. Always a cold call at this time of day, she thought, heaving herself slowly out of the squashy armchair, the battered leather cushions protesting under her weight.

  ‘Hello,’ she began wearily, listening for the background noise of a call centre, the giveaway of so many nuisance calls. But it was the voice of an educated man who asked, ‘Am I speaking to Mrs Finnegan?’

  ‘Ye-es,’ Shirley replied, doubt crowding her thoughts. Who was this? And why had a shiver suddenly run down her spine?

  ‘My name is Frank Dawson, Mrs Finnegan. I’m a solicitor. Sorry to ring you unexpectedly but I’m afraid I have some bad news.’

  Shirley leaned back against the wall, telephone handset still clutched between her fingers. It couldn’t be true. Peter arrested on suspicion of
Dorothy’s murder? The solicitor’s words rang in her ears. Was it true? Or was this some sick bloke calling her up to torment her with the sort of story that her sister had whispered in her ear often enough?

  Peter isn’t good to me, she remembered Dorothy telling her time and time again, the words at odds with the sort of lifestyle they enjoyed in the big house in St Andrew’s Drive. Tales of being held down and beaten were all parts of her sister’s desire for drama, Shirley had told herself over and over. If any of these bruises were ever inflicted by Peter Guilford, why hadn’t her sister reported it to the authorities? She’d never been afraid to stir up trouble in the past, after all.

  Spite, that was what Dorothy had delighted in, sheer spite. Taunting Shirley with these stupid lies, making stuff up the way she always had. Even as a child Dorothy had delighted in playing the martyr, pretending that other kids had picked on her. Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me, little Dorothy had chanted, as if to show how impervious she was to any harsh words her elder sister might utter. And it was always Shirley who had been given into trouble, any tales told readily believed by their parents.

  An image came back then, a memory of seeing her younger sister pinching her own wrist to make it bleed then shouting, Daddy! Daddy! Shirley cut me!

  Always the favourite at home and teacher’s pet at school, something that had always rankled since, after all, it was Shirley who was the prettier of the two Pettigrew sisters. And then, after the disgrace that had banished Shirley from their home, for Dorothy to land a husband like Peter Guilford! How had that happened? She’d been nothing but a drab, dowdy wee spinster till Peter had swept her up and taken possession of Dorothy’s life.

  Shirley clenched her teeth as she staggered back to the comfort of the huge armchair. She had to remind herself that Dorothy was dead now, dead and gone for good. Not here to inflict any more harm. She sighed, closing her eyes, memories of the younger woman’s sneer as she’d waved the lawyer’s papers in Shirley’s face. Mine, all mine, the gleeful, gesture had told her. No need for angry words that day. No need for words at all after the funeral, though there were plenty that burned like acid inside Shirley Finnegan’s brain.

  It still stuck in her craw how Dorothy had managed with her usual cunning to hold onto the family home and business, cutting her sister out of the will before their father had died, senile and insensible, Dorothy the good girl who’d stayed with him right to the bitter end. And look what had it got her. A property worth well over a million, even in these days of fiscal uncertainty, then, soon after, a good-looking husband with an easy charm that endeared him to everyone he met. No wonder Guilford Vehicle Hire had become such a household name.

  Well, now she was dead. And her husband in prison. Serves her right, a small voice whispered in Shirley’s ear, a voice uncannily like her own.

  Would the police come and speak to her, like this solicitor had mentioned? They had contacted him to find out her address so perhaps they would send one of those family liaison officers. Shirley struggled to her feet, the extra weight that she carried making her lumber across the worn carpet. If they did, then she had best make herself presentable, ready to put on a show of grief, something that was going to require a great deal of effort.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘Peter Guilford?’

  Rosie nodded. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘I know of him, certainly,’ Lorimer replied, raising the whisky glass to his lips. ‘And not just because of the van hire business.’ He turned to Rosie, giving a nod. ‘Guilford did time for assaulting his first wife. I wasn’t SIO in that case but I remember some of the details.’

  ‘How badly was she injured?’ Rosie asked, shifting a cushion on the wooden seat, the weight of the baby pressing on her bladder, making her feel uncomfortable. It was nice sitting out in the Lorimers’ garden, the late-afternoon sun warm, and the soothing sound of bees foraging in the lavender that edged Maggie’s herbaceous border.

  Funny to be talking about this case, Rosie chided herself, when all she really wanted was to sit back and relax, something that was increasingly difficult in this advanced state of her pregnancy.

  ‘Oh, he’d broken her arm and a couple of ribs. Did some internal damage too, as I recall. Poor woman was in surgery afterwards. It was a pretty straightforward case.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Lorimer’s dark eyebrows lifted a fraction as he regarded Rosie.

  ‘He put up his hands to it, did time and was out in less than two years.’ Why d’you need to know? The unspoken question in these blue eyes that had seen so many bad things in their past.

  Rosie sighed. Dorothy Guilford’s X–rays had shown a once-broken arm and bruising to her spine, historic injuries that would surely be recorded in her medical notes. But if she had been another battered wife, then she had never alerted either friends or family to the situation, let alone the police. The Fiscal had sanctioned that Dorothy Guilford’s medical records be made available to the police as well as to the pathologist and Rosie was interested to see just what they might reveal.

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Must be ten years or more, now. Maggie’s mum was still with us . . . I could look up his file if you wanted.’ He frowned. ‘But surely DI McCauley is keeping you in the loop?’

  Rosie made a face. ‘Alan McCauley and I aren’t exactly singing off the same hymn sheet on this one,’ she told him.

  Lorimer’s puzzled frown faded as Maggie appeared at the back door, a laden tray in her hands.

  ‘Here we are.’ She beamed. ‘And don’t tell me you aren’t famished, missus!’ she teased Rosie. ‘Long past the throwing up stage, right?’

  ‘Aye, thank goodness,’ Rosie agreed, stretching out to take a couple of her favourite egg and cress sandwiches. ‘I’ll be glad when I can get back to a wee tipple as well.’ She smiled. ‘No worrying about heartburn any more.’

  She looked up as her husband strolled out of the house. Solly glanced her way, a fond expression on his face, then sat on the garden bench by her side.

  ‘Hope you two aren’t talking shop?’ he asked mildly, glancing from Lorimer to his wife, the faint rebuke making Rosie remember that this was meant to be a social occasion. It was the weekend, after all. She put out a hand and felt it being given a reassuring squeeze. He was looking after her, as he always did. Rosie gazed at her husband and smiled. To have found such a man, such enduring love . . . and it had all begun in the unlikeliest of ways.

  She had met Solly during an investigation when Lorimer had been SIO in a case of multiple murders, Solomon Brightman the bearded psychologist brought in to assist as a profiler. Some might have thought them a mismatched couple, the feisty Glasgow girl whose profession made her battle-hardened against any sort of gore, and the gentle Londoner whose face turned pale at the least sight of blood. Perhaps it was because of their very differences that she had found him attractive. Though it had to be said that his dark eyes and twinkling smile could melt the most resistant of hearts. His was not an easy, practiced charm, however. Sometimes Solly would break off speaking halfway through a sentence, his pause indicative of some thought that had taken hold and required internal examination. At first it had been mildly irritating but nowadays Rosie was well used to her husband’s musings. She’d found strength in his gentleness and kind manner, something that less perceptive mortals might take for weakness. It was never a good idea to underestimate the man, she knew; something that criminals had sometimes learned to their dismay.

  He was still regarding her with a knowing look, expecting an answer.

  ‘Well, sort of.’ Rosie shrugged, not wishing to provoke even the faintest rebuke on this sunny afternoon, a Sunday when she had promised to rest and relax with her friends.

  But then Lorimer rose from his seat and beckoned Solly over to the path that meandered around the lawn.

  ‘Time we had a wee chat about things, too,’ he announced with a wry smile. ‘Need to pick your brains abou
t something, Solly.’

  ‘How are you finding His Nibs’ new job?’ Rosie asked her friend as Maggie came and sat beside her.

  ‘Not a lot different, to be honest.’ Maggie made a face. ‘Still works long hours and sometimes away overnight but, hey, it’s nothing new. And to be honest, I’m getting plenty of things done in his absence.’ Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper as she grinned at Rosie.

  ‘Oh, aye, what sort of stuff? Things for school?’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘No.’ She glanced at the two men who were wandering around the garden, chatting.

  Rosie watched the expression on Maggie’s face. It was guarded as though she were half afraid of saying more.

  ‘Come on,’ she coaxed. ‘What are you up to? Sounds mysterious.’

  Maggie sat back and sipped from the long-stemmed wine glass before answering. ‘I don’t want to say too much,’ she began. Then, with a shy grin she added, ‘I’m writing a book.’

  ‘For school? A text book?’

  ‘No, nothing at all to do with school,’ Maggie replied. ‘It’s a children’s book. Something that Abby might want to read one day.’

  ‘Really? Well, goodness me.’ Rosie’s eyebrows rose, showing her surprise. ‘That’s lovely. What’s it about?’

  Maggie paused for a moment and looked into the distance. ‘Hope you don’t mind,’ she said, ‘but I’d rather not say anything about it.’ She made a face and turned back to Rosie. ‘It’s . . . it would be like telling the story out loud and I want it to stay on the page.’ She shook her head and shrugged. ‘That sounded rude, it wasn’t meant to, it’s just . . . it’s like you not wanting to know whether you’re having a wee boy or another girl. It’s hard to explain . . . ’ She gave a chuckle. ‘I’m maybe being daft, but it’s all so special to me . . . I would share it with you but . . . ’ She raised her shoulders again in a gesture of apology. ‘I hope you’ll get to read it some day. In fact, I have an agent looking at it right now.’