Only the Dead Can Tell

Book 15: DSI William Lorimer

by Alex Gray

Genres: Police Procedurals

Synopsis

'You think he killed his wife?'
'Don't you?'

When Dorothy Guildford is found stabbed to death in her home, all signs point to her husband, Peter. The forensic psychologist is convinced there's more to the case than meets the eye, but Police Scotland are certain they have their man.

While DC Kirsty Wilson searches for evidence that will put Peter away for good, she is shocked to discover a link with a vast human-trafficking operation that Detective Superintendent William Lorimer has been investigating for months. But before they can interrogate him, Peter is brutally attacked.

With one person dead and another barely hanging on, the clock is ticking for DC Wilson and DSI Lorimer. And the stakes grow higher still when one of their own is kidnapped....

Release date: March 22, 2018

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 400

Sample

Dr Rosie Fergusson gave a tiny gasp as she felt the kick in her womb. Her mouth curved into a smile, glad of the timely reminder of new life, aware of the irony as she bent to examine the body lying on the kitchen floor. Life and death. The smile faded, replaced by a frown as Rosie bent lower to scrutinise the position of the woman’s hands grasping the knife.

At first glance it would appear that the victim had been trying to pull it out of her chest. But what if the fatal wound had been self-inflicted? Rosie had seen cases before where there was a dubiety in the cause of death, sometimes having to argue across a courtroom as the evidence began to tell her a different sort of story from the one that seemed most obvious.

The pathologist narrowed her eyes. There had been another case, early on in her career, one Rosie preferred to forget, but she had to admit her interpretation of the evidence in that case had caused a whole lot of grief for the family of the deceased. They’d been so certain their father had taken his own life and Rosie had wanted to believe that too. But the police investigation had shown a different scenario and a man was still languishing in prison, convicted of murder. Yet he’d been at large for so much longer than he might have been if she’d made the correct judgement.

‘Time of death, doctor?’ A voice behind her made Rosie turn to see DC Kirsty Wilson, her young friend and sometime babysitter for Abby, her four-year-old daughter.

‘You know I can’t give anything but an approximation, Kirsty,’ she said, swivelling on her heels. ‘But I’d say the victim died some time after three o’clock this morning. Rigor is incomplete,’ she added, nodding towards the body on the floor. ‘You say she was found at seven-fifteen, that’s right?’ Rosie glanced towards the scene-of-crime manager who, like the others, was clad in the regulation white forensic suit.

‘Aye, the husband found her lying on the floor here,’ DS Jim Geary replied. ‘Said he came downstairs and heard the radio on. Thought his wife had got up to make breakfast.’ Geary’s eyebrows rose under his forensic hood as though to indicate his scepticism.

‘Strange that she didn’t clear up from the night before, isn’t it?’ Kirsty observed. ‘Even I do the dishes before I make breakfast. And the rest of the kitchen looks spotless.’ She turned to cast a glance over the dark granite worktops and gleaming stainless steel oven and hob.

Geary nodded, eyeing the sink full of dirty dishes and pans, grease congealing in the cold water. ‘Have a look at that, Wilson,’ he said, nodding towards the sink. ‘See if there’s anything worth noting before the SOCOs and DI McCauley get here.’

Kirsty moved towards the kitchen sink, light from a window shining on the utensils. There was a large griddle pan immersed in the water, a single plate leaning against it. Fishing in the water with her gloved hand, Kirsty found a fork and a non-stick spatula under the pan. To one side of the sink lay a black plastic container, its label rolled back. Careful not to disturb the evidence, she lifted it between her finger and thumb.

‘Looks like she cooked a sirloin steak for her supper,’ Kirsty remarked. ‘Just one plate, unless she cleared up after herself and left her husband to do his own dishes. But there’s no sign of a knife,’ she added.

‘Laguiole,’ Rosie told her.

‘What?’ Geary asked.

‘French steak knife. We’ve got a set at home. Look for a flat wooden box somewhere with one missing,’ she added.

‘That’s what . . . ?’

‘I can say with a degree of certainty that the weapon in the victim’s hands is a Laguiole knife, yes,’ Rosie agreed grimly. ‘But whether or not she actually ate that steak needs to wait until we carry out the post-mortem and see her stomach contents.’

Rosie looked back at the body, concentrating on the hands clutched around the heft of the knife. She would examine the wound more thoroughly once the weapon was withdrawn, see what its shape and depth could tell her. But meantime there was something she could offer to the detectives hovering above her.

‘Cadaveric spasm,’ she muttered, her gloved fingers touching the dead woman’s own.

‘What?’ Geary repeated.

‘Her hands have stiffened up considerably,’ Rosie replied to the detective’s question. ‘Could mean one of two things. She may have been trying to stop the penetration of the blade . . . ’ The pathologist tailed off.

‘Or?’ Geary persisted.

‘Or it was suicide,’ Rosie said quietly.

‘Really?’ The detective sergeant’s voice was tinged with disbelief. ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier to take an overdose? Can’t think that a middle-aged woman would thrust a knife into her own heart . . . ’

Rosie swallowed hard, the memory of her mistake coming back with an unwanted force.

‘We’ll know more once we have her in the mortuary,’ she replied stiffly. ‘One thing is quite certain, though. Mrs Guilford was clutching that knife at the moment she died.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ the man moaned, rocking back and forwards on the edge of his chair. ‘I just can’t believe it. Why would she do something like that?’ He looked up at the two officers who stood over him, his eyes flitting from one to the other.

‘When did you last see your wife before she died, Mr Guilford?’ DI Alan McCauley asked.

Peter Guilford shook his head, frown lines appearing between his brows. ‘I . . . I don’t remember,’ he faltered. ‘Some time last night, I think. She was in bed asleep when I turned in. Don’t know what time that was . . . ’ His mouth fell open as he glanced beyond them to the door that separated the lounge from the kitchen area. ‘I didn’t hear her get up . . . Sound sleeper.’ Guilford attempted a shrug but his shoulders did not relax and both officers could see the telltale signs of tension in the man’s body.

‘And before that,’ DI McCauley persisted. ‘When did you last see Dorothy awake?’

Peter Guilford licked his lips nervously before replying. ‘I . . . ’ he stuttered, ‘I think it must have been around teatime. Dorothy, my wife, hasn’t . . . ’ he swallowed before continuing, ‘. . . hadn’t been feeling very well lately.’ He looked up at the two officers in turn. ‘She went to bed straight after I’d finished dinner.’

‘Would you mind telling us what you ate, sir?’

‘What?’ Guilford frowned.

‘It would help us if you could, sir?’ McCauley persisted.

‘A steak and some microwave chips,’ Guilford replied. ‘What’s that got to do with—’

‘You ate alone?’

Guilford nodded. ‘Dorothy said she didn’t want anything.’

‘And did you cook your own dinner?’

The man shook his head, still frantically gnawing at his lip. ‘She always cooked for me,’ he began then sniffed, running a hand across his nose. ‘It’s what she was like . . . good wife . . . ’ He bent forwards, burying his head in his hands.

The two detectives glanced at each other as the man sobbed quietly. Was this all an act? Or was the manifestation of grief a genuine reaction?

‘What did you do for the rest of the evening, sir?’ McCauley asked.

Guilford sat up, pulling his dressing gown sleeve across his eyes before replying. ‘Went down the pub. Quiz night, y’know? Had a few pints with the lads . . . Usual thing,’ he said. ‘Dorothy didn’t like drinking. She . . . she never minded me going out of an evening, though . . . ’

‘And she was in bed when you returned?’

The man nodded, seeming too full of emotion to utter another word.

‘Okay, we’ll leave it there for now, sir, but you need to get yourself dressed, come down to the station with us to make a formal statement.’

Peter Guilford’s mouth fell open in silent protest.

‘A necessary formality, in such circumstances, sir,’ he was told. ‘And if you don’t mind putting your nightclothes into this plastic bag . . . ?’

The expression of fear on the man’s face might have been fleeting but it was something that the officers would remember to log later in the day.

DC Kirsty Wilson gave a sigh as the last of the scene of crime officers trooped out of the front door. A small breeze rippled across the plastic tape that cordoned off the garden gate but Kirsty reckoned that it would probably be taken down pretty soon. Poor woman had killed herself, wasn’t that what the pathologist had told her? But what if Rosie was wrong? Wasn’t there the possibility that Peter Guilford had committed this act? There were no signs of a break-in, the front and back doors having been locked, according to the weeping husband, something that the officers packing up their van had all but confirmed. There was plenty of trace evidence to process and no definitive answer to the puzzle of the woman’s death could be given until that and a post-mortem was done. She locked the door with gloved hands then placed the keys in a plastic bag before thrusting them into the pocket of her raincoat. She would follow McCauley, Geary and the others in her own little car to Helen Street, where she was based, another day’s work just beginning.

All over the city commuters were struggling through the traffic, nose to tail, the M8 a snake full of moving vehicles. It had been lucky that this call-out was fairly local, a nice house along St Andrew’s Drive. The detective looked up and down the road, noticing the schoolchildren heading towards Craigholme, the private girls’ school nearby. As she drove away, she saw their uniform, kilts instead of skirts, swinging as they walked. For the kids this was just another ordinary Wednesday but for the family of Dorothy Guilford, this would surely be the day that would be burned into their memory for years to come.

Aberdeen. The granite city, home for decades to the oil industry, a place where hard men thrived against North Sea winds and sharp-tongued women. Once it had been part of the fishing trade, the coastal waters teeming with herring, the ‘silver darlings’ of legend. Women had worked these shores, back-breaking toil, fingers raw from gutting and filleting the catches their men had brought in from the swelling seas, danger rife in every sailing. There lingered still a defiant attitude in this northern city, a determination to defeat any odds stacked against it. And yet the decline in the oil trade had meant falling house prices and a lowering of morale as workers left in their thousands.

The city was looking at its best as Lorimer drove along Union Street, early morning sunlight glinting off the grey stones, sky washed clean after the shower that had swept along the coast. Who would guess that these fine buildings were a front for something darker? Like a stage set where the actors were hiding in the wings, he thought. Ready to come out and show what really went on behind this façade of respectability. And he would be there to see it happen, guaranteed a front row seat.

The Major Incident Team from Glasgow had been here for days now, the final tip-off culminating in the raids that were scheduled to take place throughout the city centre. A network of trafficking in human misery had been uncovered, the gangmasters largely identified, the premises where the illegals worked already under surveillance. It was a highly structured operation, the Aberdeen police committing officers to various locations, Lorimer himself taking control of each and every movement.

His driver slowed down and turned along a side street, the vehicle’s tyres juddering over the cobbles. A workman in dark trousers with a hi-visibility jacket strode along, head down, bent under the weight of a backpack, never giving their car a single glance. He might be a genuine workman heading home after a night shift or he could be one of their own; it was impossible to tell and that was all to the good. Their undercover officers had infiltrated this illicit business in several ways, relating snippets of intelligence back to the MIT, culminating in this morning’s business, Operation Fingertip. The name had come from one quick-witted DI back in Glasgow who had thought up the tag. We’ve got a few of them fingered already, she’d explained with a grin and a wiggle of her own painted fingernails. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, right?

Several nail bars in the city had been targeted and the girls who worked there identified, many of them illegal immigrants suspected of having been trafficked. There had been pressure from Immigration to swoop on them all but the MIT’s operation had taken precedence, the need to catch those responsible for trafficking of far greater importance. A few of the girls were regular employees of the salons, mostly teenagers who were doing City and Guilds courses with the hope of furthering their careers in the beauty business. None of them knew that their journeys to and from home had been carefully monitored by police officers, nor that their Eastern European handlers were being watched day and night.

Night-times had been the hardest for the surveillance team, knowing that some of these young women were being used for prostitution and yet until today they had been helpless to do much about it, secrecy being paramount. Most of the men who had frequented the dark alleys and tenement buildings had been identified and now, as the clock ticked towards five-thirty, each and every one would be brought to account.

Lorimer felt the tension in his chest, the familiar adrenalin rush that always came at moments like this. One false move and the entire operation could collapse, leaving officers scrambling to capture whom they could. But it wouldn’t go wrong. Everything had been put into place and all were waiting now for one word from the detective superintendent, who sat silently staring up at the row of windows beneath the dark grey slates.

He saw the man next to him turn his head, a question in his eyes. Lorimer nodded and reached for his radio.

‘Foxtrot One to all units . . . Go!’

The once deserted street was immediately teeming with men in riot gear, booted feet racing up the tenement stairs, the detective superintendent watching them go. He would wait here a little longer, see that every device was in place, then make his way up the three flights of stone steps to the brothel at the top of the building.

Somewhere in these pale forget-me-not-blue skies a drone was hovering, watching and recording all that was happening in the city street. Later, many eyes would inspect its footage but right now he was part of its creation.

The sound of the battering ram reached Lorimer’s ears as he climbed the steps, looking upwards, noticing an officer placed at each landing door, keeping the other residents safe from the disturbance.

A splintering of wood, a crash, then screams . . . his feet hurried up the remaining flights of stairs, grim-faced officers nodding recognition as he passed them by.

The door hung off its hinges as he slipped into the darkened hallway, voices yelling from different areas in the house.

‘What are you doing to me?’ a man’s voice protested as Lorimer walked along the corridor. Two officers had hold of a skinny wretch of a fellow dressed only in trousers and a dirty vest, his arms pulled behind him and fastened with handcuffs.

‘Who’s he?’ The man stopped struggling, jerking his head towards the detective superintendent.

What did he see? A tall man in a raincoat, no helmet, no black clothing but clad in something that even this stranger recognised as authority.

Lorimer’s mouth curled in the semblance of a smile.

‘Let him get a pair of shoes and a jacket,’ he said. ‘It’s cold outside.’

Then, ignoring the man’s open-mouthed gape, he moved into the first room off the hall where a girl sat sobbing on the edge of a bed, a crumpled sheet hardly covering her naked body. Dark hair hung over a pale face and he could see her bare shoulders shaking.

Lorimer bent down beside her till his eyes were level with hers.

‘It’s all right,’ he told her. ‘We’re from Police Scotland. We’re here to take care of you. Keep you safe.’

But the brown eyes that met his were still filled with fear and now the girl’s entire body was trembling with shock.

He made to pull the duvet across her shoulder but the girl gave a yelp of alarm, pulling back as if bracing herself for a blow.

‘Dear God, what have they done to you, lass?’ he murmured as she tried to make herself as small as possible, cowering against the pillow. ‘I’m here to help you,’ he said once more, his voice calm and gentle.

She looked at him again, head tilted to one side as though she were absorbing his words then she shook her head.

‘No En-gleesh,’ she said at last.

Lorimer nodded his understanding. God alone knew what nationality this shivering girl was. He looked around for something to cover her nakedness, saw a dressing gown hung on a hook behind the door and grabbed it.

‘Put this on,’ he told her. ‘You’re safe now, child. Whatever nightmare you’ve had, it’s over.’

The tone of his voice must have reassured her as much as his kindly gesture of turning away for a few seconds to allow her to wrap herself in the gown because when he looked back, she was standing before him, arms hugging her body, resignation etched on her features as if something like this had happened before. Had she been dragged from place to place against her will? Used as no young girl ought to be used? The thoughts were fleeting as he led her out of the room and handed her over to one of the female officers who were now in the flat.

She turned and looked at him for a moment, eyes solemn as though assessing this man who had entered her room and yet failed to touch her like all of the others. Then she put out a hand and he took it, shaking it briefly. As he let it go, he noticed the red nails, perfectly curved and polished to their fingertips. How would her story end? He might never find out but, as she let the officer take her along the corridor, Lorimer wished her a silent good luck.

*

Afterwards, there was the inevitable sensation of anticlimax tinged with relief. In his imagination Lorimer had seen other officers ramming doors, catching hold of screaming, frightened young women, cuffing their captors’ wrists. All over the city the same scenario had been played out. Girls from different ethnic origins were taken, bewildered and scared, to Aberdeen’s Divisional HQ; men were bundled into cars and vans; the dingy apartments where the girls had been kept examined by the forensics team. Already reports were being typed up, the police press officers readying themselves for the first conference where the man from Glasgow would make a statement.

By nine o’clock it was all over, interview rooms and cells full of the men taken from these premises, calls from interpreters being swiftly answered. And hundreds of daily commuters now ready to begin their day’s work were blithely unaware that their journey across the Granite City had been preceded by such drama.

‘Why on earth would she do it?’ Rosie muttered to herself. ‘Doesn’t make sense. And yet . . . ’ She pursed her lips in the determined manner to which her husband was accustomed. Sometimes, he had told her gently, she needed to step back from things a little more, consider the options. Well, as a consultant forensic pathologist, Rosie had done that all through her career. Nothing was ever set in stone; there were always statements made that considered likelihoods and possibilities. Only the dead could ever really tell what had happened. But the options here frightened her. They resembled far too closely that other case, the one she thought she’d put behind her a long time ago.

Rosie heaved a sigh. Perhaps the PM would show a little more, or maybe the toxicology results might give an indication of what had been happening prior to death. If there was a large enough amount of drugs in her system then perhaps they could indicate a certain state of mind. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps . . . Rosie frowned, irritated by the word drumming in her brain. She was tired already and there were hours to go till her working day ended.

Baby appeared to have settled down again, his kicking spell over for the moment. Rosie’s hand circled the bulge under her smock, a gentle touch to let her child know she was thinking of him. She was so sure that this was a little boy; the pregnancy had been quite different from her first. And yet she and Solly had chosen not to find out . . . the mystery of birth was something too special for each of them. Besides, Abby had been talking about wanting a wee brother; Chloe, her best friend at nursery, had a baby brother and it seemed logical to Abby that her own sibling should be a little boy. Well, she would have a while yet to wait, Rosie thought, moving the cushion on her chair to make herself a little more comfortable.

Dorothy Guilford . . . She wrote the heading, wondering what words would follow once everything had been examined, tagged and dissected.

‘He’s got previous,’ DI McCauley told the offices standing outside the interview room.

‘Peter Guilford?’ Kirsty Wilson’s eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘But he’s . . . ’

McCauley nodded. ‘I know who he is. Owns Guilford’s, the truck rental outfit. So what? Like I said,’ he repeated, ‘previous. Assault to severe injury. Did a spell inside years back.’ He looked at her sharply. ‘Been clean since then, but . . . ’ He shrugged and made a face. ‘Doesn’t mean to say he’s changed, just been clever enough or fly enough not to get caught beating up a woman.’

‘You think he killed his wife?’

Kirsty saw the DI’s eyebrows lift as he gave her a knowing sort of look. ‘Don’t you?’ McCauley replied. ‘Statistically it’s the partner that does it; you know that and I know that but it’s proving it that makes our job so interesting, eh?’ He grinned.

‘No signs of forced entry,’ Kirsty agreed. ‘What are you going to ask him?’

‘Come in and see,’ McCauley offered, indicating the interview room. ‘Having a woman in there might help him open up a bit more anyway.’

Despite herself, Kirsty gave a shiver of apprehension. Sitting in on an interview was not something she had done very often, and never here in Helen Street with a suspected murderer, though she’d already met some of those in her short career. Maybe DI McCauley was singling her out for special attention, saw some sort of promise in his detective constable?

Yet it was a different thought that made Kirsty feel a little nervous: what if this was a genuinely grieving husband and they were about to accuse him of murder?

Peter Guilford was sitting on his own, the polystyrene cup empty on the table. He looked up at the two figures entering the room, an expression of dismay on his face.

‘Do I have to be here long?’ he asked, shifting uncomfortably in the plastic chair. ‘Only I should be back home. Or at the office to let them know. So much to do . . . ’ He ran his hand across hair that had once been light brown and was now streaked with grey.

‘This shouldn’t take too long, sir,’ McCauley replied with a wintry smile. ‘We simply need to clarify what you told us earlier on, take a written statement from you.’

Kirsty saw the relief in the man’s face, though the signs of strain were there: that furrowed brow and the downturned lips. His shoulders were high with tension, too, she noted as she tried hard to remain objective, battling against the natural inclination to empathise with his pain. Her eyes fell on the hands clasped tightly on the table, noting the thick gold linked chain on his wrist and that expensive watch. These hands could have thrust that knife into his wife’s heart, she reminded herself.

She remained silent as McCauley began his questioning.

‘Mr Guilford . . . Peter,’ McCauley began. ‘This is hard for you, I understand, but we need to know a bit more about Dorothy at this stage of our enquiries, okay?’

The haggard-looking man opposite them nodded, licking dry lips nervously.

McCauley rubbed his wrist where he had taken off his own watch earlier and placed it in front of him as if to indicate that time was an issue here. Was this some sort of device he used in questioning a suspect? Kirsty wondered, reminding herself to ask afterwards.

The DI began with the usual preliminary questions, routine stuff that was both necessary and helped to calm down the distraught man.

‘Could you describe for us what your wife’s state of mind was like in recent days?’ McCauley asked at last, his eyes staring intently at the bereaved husband.

The detective inspector’s words appeared to have settled Guilford somewhat, his shoulders easing a little.

Guilford leaned forward as though to share confidences.

‘She was always such a worrier,’ he told them. ‘Worried about her health, that sort of thing. Not that there was any need . . . ’ He tailed off, glancing between the two officers as if to affirm that he had their attention. ‘Dorothy was afraid all the time,’ he added. ‘Ask anyone. They’ll tell you how nervous she was, how she used to imagine things.’

‘Are you trying to tell us that your wife had a mental health problem?’ McCauley asked.

Guilford sat back a little before answering. ‘Don’t know if I’d go as far as calling it that . . . ’ he mused thoughtfully. ‘Let’s just say she was a bit of a hypochondriac.’

‘She attended her local GP?’

‘A lot,’ Guilford confirmed. ‘She was always imagining that the least wee thing was something serious. Terrible bad with her nerves, she was.’ He nodded again and this time Kirsty recognised a certain satisfied look on the man’s face as if he had scored an important point. Did he hope that they would assume from this statement that Dorothy Guilford was of unsound mind and had taken her own life? With a kitchen knife? Kirsty realised, for the first time, despite the pathologist’s claim, how absurd the notion really was.

‘Did Mrs Guilford have any prescribed drugs from her family doctor?’ McCauley went on.

‘Aye, she did,’ Guilford told him, a tone of confidence returning to his voice. ‘Painkillers, sleeping pills, that sort of stuff. I think sometimes the medics gave her what she wanted just to please her.’

McCauley frowned for a moment.

He’s deliberately pausing, Kirsty decided, watching her boss’s face and listening intently as he went on to pose his next question.

‘How had Mrs Guilford’s . . . behaviour . . . been recently?’

Guilford shook his head and gave a sigh. A real sigh or was this a bit of theatre for the police officers’ benefit? Kirsty wondered.

‘Worse than usual,’ he told them. ‘Really nervy and irritable. Said she wasn’t sleeping well at night. That’s how I didn’t worry when she went early to bed, y’see.’

‘Was she a difficult woman to live with, then?’ McCauley asked.

The question surprised Kirsty. Should the DI be asking such a leading question, making the kind of assumptions that might be to the husband’s benefit?

Again, that long sigh and then Guilford slouched back a little in his seat and shrugged silently as though to demonstrate how hard done by he was, having this awkward person for a wife.

A wife who was lying in the mortuary, Kirsty thought to herself. Where was Peter Guilford’s compassion? Was this what McCauley was trying to do? Get onside with the man to figure out his real feelings for Dorothy?

‘How would you describe your relationship with your wife?’ the DI asked, the answer to the previous question still hanging in the air between them.

‘Och, we got along just fine,’ Guilford said at once, sitting up once more. ‘Anybody would tell you that.’ He glanced once more between McCauley and Kirsty. But there was tension back in those shoulders and Guilford had not looked directly at either officer, shooting a glance instead to the doorway.

A sign that he was lying? Maybe, Kirsty decided. And maybe they would be doing that very thing; asking around friends and family to ascertain how Guilford had really treated his wife.

‘So you would. . .