The Law Killers Read Online Free PDF Page A

and Helen made no secret of her unhappiness. But they remained together, though no one was certain whether that had more to do with impending parenthood or an underlying passion that bound them however much they might clash over other matters.
    On 3 February 1974, Jimmy Wilkie had another occasion to wear his wedding day suit and blue tie, this time for the christening of their months-old son – a day which saw the consumption of much alcohol by some of those who attended the celebration in a small hotel near the family home at Hill Street in Dundee, a narrow thoroughfare of tall tenements on the slopes of the Law.
    Although the day had started well, with Helen in a buoyant mood, it led, almost inevitably, to yet more friction between the couple. That evening, after dropping their newly baptised son off at Longforgan to be looked after by Jimmy’s mother, the couple went out for the evening, going first of all to the Golden Fry restaurant in Dundee city centre. They never got as far as eating. An argument broke out over Helen’s demands for more drink on top of the not insignificant amount she had already consumed. She stormed out of the Union Street bistro, somehow finishing with a bloody nose, apparently after stumbling on the stairs leading up to the street.
    Two days later Helen Wilkie, the 19-year-old mother and reluctant bride, was reported to the police as a missing person.
    The call was made by her father, James Maxwell, a prominent businessman in the city who had links with leading local Dundee councillors. He said he and his wife, also Helen, had not seen their daughter since the evening of the christening. They only became aware she was missing at midnight that day when Jimmy’s mother had phoned from her home in Longforgan to enquire if Helen was there. The Maxwells learned that their daughter and her husband had had yet another public row, in a restaurant, and that she had seemingly walked out, never to be seen again.
    Police treated the disappearance as a routine missing-person case and began their inquiry by gathering statements. In his interview, Jimmy Wilkie told how he and his wife had fallen out in the Golden Fry after a dispute about her wanting more liquor when he felt too much had already been taken at the christening. Describing the earlier festivities at the reception in the hotel, he said, ‘I was the only sober one there and got the job of driving everyone home.’ He described how his wife had attempted to walk out on him from the restaurant but had tripped on the stairs, falling forward with her nose starting to bleed. ‘Helen had blood all over her clothes,’ he explained, adding that they had then returned home where she changed into a wine-coloured dress. Later they went to another restaurant for a meal, then drove into town in the hope that Jimmy might see his sister. When this was unsuccessful, they headed in the direction of Longforgan to collect their newly baptised son, but on the way another argument developed over Helen’s continuing demands for yet more alcohol.
    In Perth Road, Jimmy said, he stopped to visit public toilets at the top of Riverside Drive. When he returned to the car, Helen had gone.
    ‘I waited ten minutes then checked the ladies’ toilets and she wasn’t there,’ he told the detective sergeant handling the missing-person inquiry. ‘I doubled back into town, suspecting she had jumped on a bus. I didn’t go to anyone’s house and didn’t find her. I went to the house in Hill Street, then back into town. Then I went back to Longforgan and asked my mother if she was there. I haven’t seen her since.’
    The day after the baffling disappearance of his wife, life apparently continued much as normal for Jimmy Wilkie. In the morning he dropped his son off at his in-laws, then went to work. That evening he returned to have tea with the Maxwells and discuss his wife’s possible whereabouts but there had been no fresh developments. And that was how it remained as