The Law Killers by Alexander McGregor Read Free Book Online

into on 3 February.
    Lord Emslie thought there were other ‘more direct’ indications that Mrs McCabe was probably mistaken in her identification of the woman who had called at her home on 18 May. He said she had not known Helen Wilkie that well and her encounters with her must have been infrequent and fleeting. Other evidence suggested Mrs McCabe may not have been all that observant. She had said a photograph she had been shown of a woman friend of the Wilkies, who had stayed at the flat after Mrs Wilkie had disappeared, could have been Mrs Wilkie. Both Mrs Wilkie and the woman in the photo were hairdressers and had blonde tips and streaks in their hair, which they wore in the same style.
    As Lord Emslie coolly dismissed one by one the main planks of the appeal, the parents of the accused man sat with growing anxiety at the rear of the court. Mrs Wilkie, realising that her son’s prospects of freedom were slowly ebbing away, brought out a white handkerchief and pressed it to her face to stem a flow of tears.
    Jimmy Wilkie himself had remained surprisingly composed throughout. Dressed in a black leather jacket and checked shirt, he sat in the dock chatting amiably with his prison-officer escorts while he waited the appearance of the trio of appeal judges who would decide his fate.
    When they finally rejected his plea that he was innocent of the murder of his young wife, he turned to his parents and gently shook his head. Mrs Wilkie broke down, sobbing emotionally. Later, after the two had chatted in an ante-room for ten minutes, they hugged each other in a corridor before he was taken back to prison.
    While he served out his sentence, Wilkie and his family continued to protest his innocence. His parents and legal advisers took the case to Justice, the London-based campaigning group led by broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy which had successfully won the release and pardon of Paddy Meehan in a high-profile appeal hearing. However, after considering the Dundee case, the group decided it lacked strength and turned down the plea for assistance.
    Jimmy Wilkie completed his life sentence. Soon after his eventual release, he died in a road accident.

4
    THE NOT SO ORDINARY JOHN SMITH
    When she first heard it, the sound was almost gentle – a soft sigh that could have been a restless turn in the night or a fleeting gasp for breath. It wasn’t loud but its presence in the still house had been just enough to make the young woman stir in her sleep.
    It was 5 a.m. and as she lay in the darkness the 21-year-old occupant of the upper floor bedroom drifted uncertainly between slumber and wakefulness. The half-heard noise that had roused her seemed to have come from the bedroom of her mother a short distance away, but silence had once more descended. Drowsily, she dismissed what she thought she had heard as her mother’s restlessness or her own dreams. Either way, it was unimportant. As she started to turn on to her side in an attempt to return to sleep, she heard another sound. It was just as soft, but this time it was unmistakable and much closer. Someone was in the room. She knew that beyond doubt. Whoever it was, was breathing quickly, the way they would if they had exerted themselves – or were excited. Then a hand reached out and pulled back the bedclothes.
    What confronted her was no longer any kind of dream but the beginning of the worst nightmare a woman could have. Silhouetted in the gloom of the half light was the figure of a powerful man holding a knife. He stepped forward and when he brought the blade up to point threateningly at her she saw that both his hands were covered in blood.
    Then he lay down on the bed and told her he had just killed her mother and unless she did what he asked, she would be next. There was no reason to disbelieve him. The knife, like his hands, was blood-soaked and his chilling words explained the unusual sound which had come from the next room, which was now completely silent.
    Practically paralysed by