Only the Dead Can Tell

by Alex Gray

  ‘Did you kill your wife?’

  The question came like a bullet, making Guilford gasp and sit back suddenly, one hand clutching his chest.

  ‘What . . . ?’ The word was a hoarse whisper, Guilford’s eyes widening in disbelief.

  ‘Did you kill your wife?’ McCauley repeated, making no change to the tone of his own voice.

  ‘No, no, of course not, I . . . I wouldn’t hurt her . . . ask anybody . . . ’

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  ‘No,’ Guilford said again. ‘I did not.’ Then, looking at McCauley’s impassive expression he added quietly, ‘I think I would like to call my lawyer.’

  ‘Guilty as hell,’ McCauley told her as they strode along the corridor. ‘You just need to know what signs to look for.’ He grinned down at Kirsty. ‘Plus what we know from his record, of course.’

  ‘There’ll be forensics . . . ’ she began.

  ‘Course there will,’ McCauley snorted. ‘Wait till you see. My bet is that this’ll be wrapped up before you go home, Wilson. Wee word with his lawyer and he’ll tell us everything. Another bloody domestic.’ McCauley shook his head wearily. ‘Seen it all before.’

  Then glancing down at her, the DI grinned. ‘What d’you think, Wilson?’

  Kirsty kept in step with the man’s stride. ‘Don’t know, sir . . . his body language . . . ’ She hesitated as he came to a halt and regarded her with a gleam in his eyes.

  ‘You saw that too, eh? Well done.’ He gave her a friendly slap on the shoulder. ‘Nice to see an officer that shows promise.’ He winked at her and then nodded towards the muster room a little further along the corridor. ‘Now let’s report back to the rest of the lads and lasses, let them know there won’t be much more to do here.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t confess, though, sir?’

  For a moment Kirsty saw McCauley hesitate and she began to wonder whether the senior detective was as confident of an easy end to this matter as he was making out.

  ‘Well, if Peter Guilford refuses to cooperate then we will be asking the Fiscal to issue a search warrant.’ His smile returned again. ‘There’ll be something in that house that proves he murdered his wife, wait and see.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was hard to be sure, Rosie had told her colleague, John, stripping off the rubber gloves and flinging them into the bin. Post-mortems did not always give the entire answer to questions of how a person might have died. The pathologists were accustomed to dealing with possibilities and not stating that anything was definitive in their profession but this particular case had them baffled.

  Her colleague, who had been taking notes during the PM, had offered little in the way of an opinion, though Rosie had caught a questioning glance in the younger man’s eyes when she had mentioned sucide.

  The stomach contents were still to be analysed but in truth there was very little to see, suggesting that the deceased had not eaten for several hours prior to her death. The senior investigating officer, Alan McCauley, had told Rosie that the husband was in custody, pending further investigation into the woman’s death, something that had made her feel rather queasy. Was it the idea of an innocent man being accused of something he did not do? Or was she simply more fragile these days, the pregnancy giving her so many fluttery sensations and sleepless nights?

  There was no denying the historic injuries, however, and that did chime with what McCauley had revealed about Peter Guilford’s criminal record. The pathologists had recorded several areas of the woman’s body that showed scar tissue and X-rays had proved conclusively that she had suffered broken bones at one time in her life. Rosie had seen it before, the results of a battering at the hands of a vicious partner, a woman’s life snuffed out in a moment of drunken rage. So why should she be so hesitant with this one? Wouldn’t it be easier by far to admit that there were signs of injury having been inflicted in the past? To agree that, yes, it looked like he’d plunged that steak knife into his wife’s heart?

  Yet there was other evidence that told a different story. The woman’s rigid hands clutching that weapon looked to the pathologist as if she had taken the knife and inflicted the fatal wound deliberately. Why was not the question she ought to be asking so much as how it had happened. That was her professional remit. Though the why might be explained if the victim’s GP could enlighten her by supplying details from Dorothy’s medical records. It was worth finding out, when she could spare the time. Things had piled up in the department recently, the shortage of qualified staff making her own schedule busier than she would have liked. A lesser mortal might have been tempted to let the policeman pursue his theory and leave well alone. Yet she was not made like that, her tenacity keeping her from giving up on what she saw as the truth. Still, as Rosie Fergusson turned away from the post-mortem room, she experienced a distinct sense of foreboding that she was not going to agree too readily with Alan McCauley.

  There was a light rain shower as Kirsty ran towards the car park from the sanctuary of the Govan police office, sunshine breaking through the racing clouds. May had been warm and sunny up here in Scotland but it looked as if the prolonged dry spell might be coming to an end now. Flaming June, her mum, Betty, had always sighed whenever the rains began in early summertime. Kirsty opened the car door and waited for the DS to arrive, smiling at the thought of her mother’s voice. Mum and Dad were both enjoying their retirement now, happy that their only child was settled into her career in Police Scotland. Settled, too, with James, though Mum often picked up Kirsty’s left hand and gave her a meaningful look as though to ask when an engagement ring might be forthcoming. She was right about James’s intentions, though, Kirsty knew that. But his finances would not stretch to making a significant purchase like that, let alone a wedding ring, for a good time to come yet, his savings put aside meantime. He was on the hunt for a job now, his years of academia over at last.

  Her mum was always letting her imagination take her forward to the day when she would be weeping tears of joy as Mother of the Bride but Kirsty wasn’t fussed about a big splash. Oddly enough, James had talked about it only recently, how he’d be ‘making an honest woman’ of her, one of these days, hinting that he, too, would like to have a big day to remember. He wanted to compensate, that was all, she told herself wryly; just because she was the one with a salary right now didn’t mean he had to feel he owed her anything.

  The thoughts about weddings vanished as Jim Geary entered the car and pulled on his seat belt.

  ‘Right, Wilson, off we go. Let’s see what’s to be found at the Guilford residence, shall we?’ He turned and grinned at her, rubbing his hands together in a gesture of glee.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, returning his smile, and drove out of the car park, turning towards the leafy avenues beside Bellahouston Park, the short journey that would take them to St Andrew’s Drive. What would they find there? A suicide note, perhaps? Or would there be something more sinister that gave credence to McCauley’s insistence that Peter Guilford was guilty of his wife’s death?

  Across the city the man who had been in Kirsty’s thoughts picked up the day’s mail from the dark shadows of the hallway. The usual flyers, James thought with a grimace; more rubbish for the recycling bin. But these flimsier papers concealed a proper letter, a long white envelope that felt quite thick. He extracted it from the rest and turned it over, his eyebrows rising as he noted the US postmark. For a moment he just gazed at the envelope, wondering what it contained, knowing that one way or another he would have something to tell Kirsty when she came home from work.

  He had to read the letter twice to make sure. But when he did understand its contents, James gave an enormous grin that made his face glow. This might be the beginning of something really great, he thought, heart thumping with excitement. If he were selected from the possible candidates then he could do everything he’d ever wanted . . . He’d tell Kirsty later, but first he had to ring his mum, let her know that he’d been given an amazing chance to join a bank like the Feder
al Reserve Bank of Chicago. The position for an economist, the letter read, is open to candidates with a PhD or Doctorate in macro, micro and/or international economics. He scanned it again. He had the relevant qualifications, including his dissertation that had been already published in The Economist magazine. James Spencer was not given to flights of fancy, his northern upbringing keeping the young man well grounded, but for a few moments he did indulge himself, imagining a big house with kids playing in the garden, Kirsty and he happy together and financially stable, their lives blossoming in a place far away from this tiny flat with its rented furniture.

  ‘You need to be careful,’ the DS told her as they pulled on their gloves. ‘Locard’s principle: every contact . . . ’

  ‘. . . leaves a trace,’ Kirsty finished for him.

  She was rewarded with one of the detective sergeant’s grins and then he turned the key in the lock and they stepped inside the silent house.

  ‘You take the bedroom, Wilson, I’ll look in their study. Bound to find papers there. And we’ll take any computers back with us,’ Geary told her.

  The stairs up to the first floor wound in a gentle curve, reminding Kirsty of the scenes from American movies she’d watched as a child when the heroine would glide down, wearing some diaphanous creation. Bit of a change from her size six sensible shoes, she grimaced as she clumped up each stair, glancing at the passageway above. It was a huge house, she realised, once she had reached the first floor landing and saw yet another flight of stairs stretching upwards. They’d be ages here unless a suicide note or something that might incriminate the husband was found.

  A quick recce along the passage gave Kirsty access to what must have been the couple’s own bedroom, the drawn curtains still barring any daylight, giving her the initial impression that everything seemed to be shrouded in pale muted tones of cream or beige. She moved towards the window to draw aside the heavy silk curtains, hearing them swish as she tugged a cord to reveal a large airy space looking out over lawns and flowerbeds so immaculate that it seemed as if an army of gardeners tended them. Someone wanted things to look good from the outside. Lots of money here, she told herself. But she had found out a long time ago that no amount of money brought real and lasting happiness to a person’s life, and certainly not in this home. The desolate thought cast a gloom over Kirsty’s mind as she walked slowly around the unmade bed, its covers thrown to one side as the man must have leapt out of bed. Leapt? Why had she assumed that? He might have sat up slowly, rubbing sleep from his eyes then stood up to face what he thought would be a normal day.

  She was making up a story, Kirsty realised, and that was bad. Never think yourself into a theory; always let the evidence tell the tale. Now who had told her that? Lorimer, she grinned, had to be him. Maybe she would catch a glimpse of him back in Govan, though their paths rarely crossed these days now that Kirsty was back in CID and Lorimer was heading up the Major Incident Team whose officers were quartered upstairs from her own domain.

  Her gloved hands searched underneath the bedding, below the deep mattress of the king-sized bed, as Kirsty made a few observations. This great monster of a bed would have allowed the woman to slip away quietly in the night without disturbing her husband and that was what it looked like. Her side of the bed was neatly smoothed down, as if she had drawn one hand over the duvet before leaving the room.

  The bedside cabinet was an ornate piece of white-painted furniture with spindly legs and two tiny drawers, more for show than practicality, a single candlestick lamp on its bare surface. No book, no clock, and certainly no note propped up to explain this final goodbye. The first of the little drawers held an assortment of pills, all of them with the chemist’s label attached. Prescription drugs, Kirsty noticed. Loads of them. They would be matched with the contents of the woman’s stomach later on, she guessed, slipping them into a plastic bag and sealing it. And this was just what Peter Guilford had told them. So far, so truthful. But McCauley needed to find something that might tell them if Guilford’s words were simply hiding the real facts and it was her task to seek that out. The lower drawer was full of bits and pieces, more like the sort of junk that everyone kept: a half open packet of paper tissues, an old address book (she took that out and laid it on the carpet), a pair of glasses in a leather case, then a pack of old airmail letters bound in a single elastic band. That was interesting, she thought. Why keep these things unless they were of some sort of sentimental value? She picked up the bundle and frowned at the date. Wasn’t that postmark one that was only used by the military? She pulled out a plastic production bag and placed the letters inside. They would keep till she had time to go through them properly, though goodness knows what they contained. Far too old, surely, to be anything to do with a suicide, if that really was what had happened here. Folk emailed nowadays, letters almost a thing of the past.

  Kirsty swept her glance over the rest of the big room; there was a dressing table and two sets of matching chests of drawers in the same fancy white. Her taste or his? Surely it was a woman’s style, Kirsty told herself. James would have laughed at any suggestion of buying stuff like this. But had the couple bought it? It was old-fashioned enough to have been inherited, perhaps, and now that she had dropped to her hands and knees beside the dressing table, Kirsty saw telltale scuff marks on the bowed legs where a vacuum cleaner may have bumped them over the years.

  The surface of the dressing table was almost bare apart from a hairbrush and comb and a large bottle of eau de cologne still in its wrapper. A gift for someone? Or had she never opened one of her own? Kirsty hesitated for a moment then pulled out her phone and took a quick photo. There were no male toiletries on the other side of the dressing table, just a small white vase. She picked it up carefully in her gloved fingers and turned it over, noting the Royal Denmark crest, then placed it back. The contents on this side were of little interest; packets of tights in one drawer, cosmetics in another, all neatly zipped into bags, some for lipsticks, others for eye shadows, still others for nail polish. So well ordered, Kirsty mused; in fact, everything was scrupulously neat and tidy. That was something she could say about the woman’s personality now, at any rate, she thought, rising to her feet and proceeding to rake in each and every drawer in the two chests.

  Nothing to show how or why she had died, Kirsty sighed a few minutes later, but she had begun to have an inkling about Dorothy herself from the dead woman’s predilection for sensible white underwear with not a trace of lace or a thong in sight. Even her nightwear had been old-fashioned, more suitable for a hospital stay than a boudoir, not at all what she imagined a person of forty-eight to have worn. Her own mum favoured pretty matching nightdresses and negligées and she was way older than that. Aye, Kirsty told herself, Dorothy Guilford had been a strange one, right enough. The clothes hanging in the wardrobe were all hers, suggesting to Kirsty that Peter Guilford had his own dressing room elsewhere and that this was principally Dorothy’s room. All of the clothes were dark shades, camel or drab green. Kirsty frowned. Not one of the clothes showed familiar High Street labels. Were they expensive stuff, then? She’d have to check but her first impression was that these garments spoke of quality. However, they were all pretty much out of date, nothing looked as though it had been purchased recently, even the rows of low-heeled leather shoes were well worn. Had she been stuck in a fashion rut? Or were these things a sign that she had not been allowed to spend any money on herself in recent times? Kirsty could see that this was a place that smelt of money but none of it had been lavished on the dead woman’s clothes, a fact that she stored away to be taken out and examined later on. Peter Guilford had been wearing that thick gold chain and a good watch, she remembered. He wasn’t slow to spend cash on himself, was he?

  Kirsty stood up and gazed around her. There was something odd about this room, she felt. As though it was already empty, the woman long gone. A couple of flower prints on the walls but no framed photos. Perhaps the downstairs lounge would throw up more clues as to the charac
ters of the Guilfords. She was curious to see if the DS had made any progress.

  That room was in some ways a mirror image of the huge bedroom, its French windows looking out at the gardens. Kirsty tried the lock but it was shut fast, no sign of a key. Looking around the room, she gave a shudder. Bland? No, bleak, she decided, noting the out-of-date beige sofas, the fawn and brown carpet, the magnolia painted wallpaper. She could see a few old-fashioned picture frames containing images of flowers, and a rather nice dark still life that made her stop and stare a little longer. But there was one framed photograph on a small side table next to one of the armchairs and she picked it up, eyebrows raised for a moment.

  The man in the picture was handsome, right enough. Peter Guilford had certainly scrubbed up well for someone to take a photo on his wedding day. And Dorothy was gazing up at him, a posy of flowers clutched in both hands. No long white dress, Kirsty noticed, but a pale pink coat that hid her figure and a satin Alice band across her wispy hair. The newly married woman’s expression was unmistakable, she thought. Adoration. Only word for it. Would she look at James in such a way if and when they were to be wed? Kirsty gave a little smile. Though she loved her boyfriend dearly, she doubted whether such an expression of worship would cross her face, no matter how radiant she might appear. This husband and wife seemed to have been happy once upon a time, at any rate.

  Putting the photo down, Kirsty began to walk around the room, her eyes intent on finding a note. But there was nothing. If Dorothy Guilford had decided to take her own life then it didn’t look as if she was leaving a goodbye letter explaining why. Geary was still in the couple’s study, quietly working through piles of papers, so Kirsty retraced her steps upstairs. Perhaps she would have left a note in the husband’s dressing room.

  It was much smaller than the master bedroom, with a single bed flanked by two side cabinets. One of them showed ring marks where glasses or mugs had been laid down. She picked up an empty crystal glass and sniffed. Whisky. So, this was where Peter Guilford took his ease, she thought. Was McCauley correct? Had the husband killed her in a moment of drunken madness?