The Law Killers by Alexander McGregor Page A

proceeded to find that Mrs Connelly’s sad death had been no accident, the ‘balance of probabilities’ showing that it had resulted from a sustained and violent assault upon her and that she had died around 7.15 p.m. on the evening of Sunday, 12 April.
    It was a verdict which met with the approval of Mrs Connelly’s family, who had believed from the start that the elderly woman who lived quietly in the pleasant suburb had been murdered by a chance intruder or intruders. Their supposition was that she had been assaulted and forced to hand over money and, after her attackers demanded more cash, she was hit again because they suspected she may have had additional funds secreted away.
    Her son Kenneth, who had visited the house that afternoon, told a reporter that after the finding of his mother’s body, it was noted that the curtain on the toilet window had been closed, something Mrs Connelly never did because she was too small to reach. That may have been of considerable significance. The window was located next to the front door and visible to anyone passing. Did her killer or killers close the curtain so they could, undisturbed, remove any traces of blood from their person? Or was it because a mystery visitor, who may have been known to the occupant, had stayed long enough to require the use of the bathroom? The drawing of the curtain might even have been the act of a woman, through modesty or because of natural feminine instincts which demanded neatness, a word that in so many ways could have described much – such as the replacement of the blood-stained purse into the drawer – of what went on at 105 Aberdour Place that April evening.
    It was one more awkward piece to the jigsaw that, even after an extensive murder inquiry, fatal-accident inquiry and the passage of almost quarter of a century, no one is any closer to piecing together.

7
    EIGHTEEN HOURS
    Eighteen hours. Not even a day. In a lifetime, a blink of an eye. A fleeting, forgotten moment in time that blurs with a million other hours … unless you are one of those unaccountably selected by fate that makes it seem like an eternity. Then you may be left with memories so indelible and so painful they accompany you to the grave.
    That was how it was for Charles Smith and his wife Sarah, when a Saturday in May 1971, that started so unexceptionally, turned into a lingering journey through the worst kind of hell. Even when the first fateful component that would change their lives forever entered into the day there was nothing to set it apart.
    Late in the afternoon, while the couple were watching an England-Scotland football match on television, a knock on the door of their tenement flat in Broughty Ferry Road interrupted the couple’s viewing. The visitor was Charles Shepherd, a 24-year-old acquaintance who lived a mile away and who had called to apologise for an earlier argument. Generously, 33-year-old Mr Smith says to forget about the incident and invites him in. Shepherd is pleased at his reception and, as a gesture of goodwill, announces that he has £4 which he will use to buy drink for the trio. As a further token of his appreciation, he takes Sharon, Mrs Smith’s eight-year-old daughter by a previous marriage, and her friend of the same age, to the off-licence with him. They return 15 minutes later, Shepherd having purchased a bottle of wine, a few tins of beer and cigarettes.
    After a few drinks, the mood has mellowed further and the visitor makes another friendly offer. If the young girls would like it, he would be happy to take them for runs round the block on the red and white Lambretta scooter he’d arrived on. The eight-year-olds are thrilled at the prospect and Mr and Mrs Smith willingly yield to their excited pleas for permission to make the trips.
    Shortly afterwards, Shepherd and his young passengers return to the flat. The girls are animated about their experience and immediately request another spin on the magical scooter. They depart