A Wife Worth Dying For

by Wilson Smillie

  ‘Sure, ma’am,’ he replied cheerily, glad of something constructive to do.

  ‘Counselling is the latest initiative from Big Boy Towers,’ McKinlay carried on. ‘We’re required to cherish our staff and massage their mental health if they’ve been subjected to trauma at work or home. The Chief Super worries that coppers with deranged minds like yours might batter a deserving bampot into mince just for the sport. He doesn’t like the style of TV news interviews and wants to keep his job.’

  ‘Ma’am?’ queried Carter, trying to keep up.

  ‘Bereavement therapy. At Fettes Operations Centre. She’ll assess your state of mind, probe your inner man and turn your boxers outside in to check for unhealthy stains.’

  McKinlay stood up, extending her hand. ‘I want you back on the job, soon as.’

  4

  Call an Ambulance

  Twenty minutes later, courtesy of the number 8 bus, he was standing in a corridor deep inside Edinburgh Royal Infirmary chatting with two PCs from Dalkeith. Next to them was a private room with an NHS window in its NHS door. Inside the room, a woman lay on a bed with wires and tubes running everywhere, orchestrated by NHS monitors.

  To Carter’s eyes, the woman was younger than Kelsa; perhaps in her twenties. She had blonde hair, her face was puffy with purple bruises and covered in staples. A brace was around her neck, and a traction kit supported her stookie-covered legs.

  ‘She’s serious but stable,’ said PC Dewar, consulting his notes.

  ‘She’s a mess.’ Carter stared through the glass. ‘Scarred for life. If she lives. Where was she found?’

  ‘West Approach Road,’ said Dewar. ‘The slip road at Henderson Terrace, you know, opposite the Athletic Arms pub.’

  ‘The Diggers,’ Carter corrected him. ‘It’s not your part of the world.’ He gazed through the door window again as Dewar carried on with his briefing.

  ‘Ambulance crew said they heard a bang but didn’t see her on the road. They stopped and attended; she was lying on the verge. Both her legs are broken, with damage to her spine, neck, and face, so they brought her here straight away. Saved her life, but she might never smile again.’

  A doctor arrived outside the room with a pair of nurses in tow.

  ‘DS Carter, St Leonard’s,’ he introduced himself.

  ‘Dr Angela Murray, orthopaedic trauma. Lucky it was an ambulance, she’d have been dead otherwise.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s giving thanks for it,’ Carter replied. ‘You handing me the crew for dangerous driving?’

  Dr Murray coughed a sound of disgust and swept a stray hair away from her freckled face. ‘Hardly. She’s got severe injuries caused by the vehicle and other injuries I can’t associate with being hit by a van.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’

  Dr Murray opened the door of the private room. The troops swarmed in, taking up pre-planned positions, checking vitals and adjusting the liquid drips. Dewar motioned for his mate to stand guard outside the room while he stayed within earshot.

  Loosening the brace around the woman’s neck, Dr Murray drew Carter’s attention to the purple-coloured skin beneath. ‘Look at this bruising, it’s too regular to be caused by an impact. That’s the marking of a ligature. Once I saw that I carried out a more thorough examination. There’s dirt under her fingernails and extensive bruising on her arms, also bruising to the upper parts of the inner thighs. The inside of her mouth is cut and bleeding, and she’s lost some teeth, hard to tell—’

  ‘She’s been attacked.’ Carter ran all the way with the doctor’s line of reasoning but braked before the end.

  ‘More than that,’ said Dr Murray. ‘She’s been brutally raped.’

  5

  Approach Road

  ‘Who is she?’ Carter asked.

  ‘I thought you’d know,’ Dr Murray replied.

  ‘I want to interview the crew,’ Carter instructed PC Dewar. ‘At St Leonard’s this afternoon.’

  Was this J’s calling card?

  He caught the number 8 bus going towards town and alighted at Liberton High School a few minutes later. After a five-minute walk to his home in Malbet Crescent, he threw the Crombie on the back seat of the electric Smart car, unplugged it and drove back towards town.

  His mood was brighter now he had a puzzle to solve. What did J want with him? Who was the mystery woman in the graveyard? How did this woman get on the roadway? Outside, the sun was hoovering up the clouds, painting a bright blue across the sky to tease the natives into leaving shelter.

  After twenty minutes of stop-start city driving, he joined the Approach Road from the west end at Lothian Road. It was a poorly maintained stretch of tarmac, only half a mile long but stubbornly potholed. He slowed down to survey the setting, taking in the daytime scenery of grubby winter verges and the dirty hulk of the Fountain Park entertainment complex on his left. Residential flats crouched gloomily on his right. Up ahead, a bridge loomed. As he came to it, the road split like an eagle’s talon, syphoning most traffic away towards Murrayfield. He kept left and passed underneath the bridge.

  There was nowhere to stop here, no hard shoulder, no pedestrian footpath, only steeply sloping verges covered by wild bushes and hardy trees. The Smart car scooted up the exit ramp and arrowed straight through the crossroads onto Henderson Terrace. He parked in an impossible space next to the Diggers pub, got out, shrugged on the Crombie and walked up the gentle slope of Dundee Street.

  Old Dalry Burial Ground was on his left side, the black iron gate wedged permanently open. He stepped inside for a quick look. Overgrown and semi-derelict, untended bushes grew everywhere and headstones had been knocked over. The grass hadn’t been cut recently. Human detritus scattered around the place. It was a jakey’s paradise that screamed, ‘rape me in here’. Directly across the road from the cemetery gates, furtive steps led up to an iron footbridge obscured by trees.

  He turned around and walked back down the slope to the traffic lights, crossed the road and faced the traffic coming up the West Approach Road. The footbridge was thirty meters away. He stumbled along the verges, ignoring the looks from drivers who considered him not in possession of the full ten quid note. For five minutes, he scoured the windblown verges, discovering nothing of interest. Then he spotted something hanging from the branch of a tree, just out of reach of the footbridge. He snapped it on his phone and called DCI McKinlay.

  ‘Ma’am, get the Crime Scene Examiners down to Dalry Cemetery at the Approach Road. They’ll need a cherry picker.’

  6

  Bondage

  On his return to St Leonard’s, Carter was called into DCI McKinlay’s office.

  ‘Good work with the handbag, Leccy,’ she said. ‘I’ve set up the investigation team with you as SIO, reporting to Nick Mason. I know there’s been friction between you in the past but put it away. He’s a DI now so you’ll need to learn to love his Weegie ways.’

  Carter inwardly groaned at mention of Mason. They’d worked on the McCalman case two years ago, both as sergeants, nearly coming to blows over the reliability of witnesses. ‘Does this mean I’m officially back at work and can ditch the counselling?’

  ‘You need a case to take your mind off your dead wife. The good Dr Flowers has rearranged her schedule. So, after your kissy-kiss chat with Nick, you get your sad arse on her couch. And get a decent coffee on your way, ’cos the free stuff in Fettes is recycled from local sheep farms.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  They walked along a short corridor and McKinlay knocked on a door. DI Mason was sat behind his desk but stood up when she entered. Mason was tall with dark hair combed up and eyes set back in his head, giving him the shady, Jack-the-Lad look that Carter found difficult to trust. The jacket of a grey suit hung over his chair. His white shirt sported a blue tie that suggested loyalty to a particular Glasgow football team. Two women sat on chairs in the room and both stood up to respect DCI McKinlay’s rank.

  ‘Nick,’ said McKinlay to DI Mason, ‘you’ll support Sergeant
Carter in his role as Senior Investigating Officer.’ She’d clearly arranged everything while Carter was travelling back to the station.

  ‘You know DC Ellen Podolski, Leccy. She’s all yours when she’s got time away from Victim Support. DC Charlotte Garcia is a new recruit to our merry little band. She’s on her first ever investigation, so treat her gently, eh? Right, I’ll leave you to get on.’

  As the door closed, Mason sat down and leaned back in his chair with a smug grin on his face. ‘So, Leccy, our paths cross again. What do you know about this woman in hospital, and what do you want from us?’

  Yep, this was the Nick Mason he’d remembered: arrogant and full of himself. He wondered what Mason had achieved to deserve the accolade of Detective Inspector. He was sure the man would tell him soon enough.

  ‘The victim is in a coma in hospital,’ Carter said. ‘Apart from the injuries inflicted by the ambulance, she’s also been raped. At the moment she’s stable, and the doctor will keep us up to date.’

  ‘So we just hang around and wait for her to live or die, is that it?’ Mason’s Glasgow accent felt like needles stabbing into Carter’s eardrums.

  ‘Nothing for you yet – sir,’ he kept it formal. ‘DC Garcia,’ he turned to the younger, dark-haired woman. ‘Ensure ICRS is up to date with the statements collected by PC Dewar from the hospital staff. The CSEs in Fettes will process the contents of the handbag once they retrieve it from the tree. Assuming it’s hers, we might have some ID soon. Ellen,’ Carter turned to his other colleague, a more familiar face, ‘you might have to visit some rellies, so keep yourself available. I’m off to another appointment.’

  He closed the door on his way out and sighed with relief to be out of Mason’s presence. He needed more time to get used to his new DI’s boisterous approach.

  7

  Inner Workings

  At ten minutes past midday, Carter nursed a treble-shot, full-fat latte in a third-floor office at Fettes that reeked of sacked brass. Fettes Operations Centre had been touted in 2013 as the global headquarters for the all-new Police Scotland. Still, the Big Boys were concerned about favouring east over west, so moved the HQ to Tulliallan Castle, thereby pissing off Edinburgh and Glasgow.

  FOC Fettes was in Stockbridge, north of the New Town, in a lamentably featureless landscape on Comely Bank Road between the Waitrose supermarket and the gothic Fettes College, an institution whose contributions to British culture included the education of Tony Blair and the inspiration for Hogwarts School.

  The office was cold and narrow with rudimentary furniture, the deserted burrow of a senior officer that no one dared occupy, fearing infection, and for that Carter was thankful. Had the place been bright and glowing and busy and gay, he would have screamed. The single impressive feature of the room was a picture window which occupied his attention while he waited for his therapist to start the game. Outside, the sun cowered behind the clouds and God’s power washer was in full flow, sweeping pedestrians off their feet and scouring paint off cars. It seemed winter was a permanent fixture around here, despite the brief respite of earlier, its thick grey atmosphere fitting his mood like a coffin.

  His phone pinged: a text message.

  [2019-01-14:1212] You should know, Carter, I’m going to kill you. You’ll soon know why. She begged me not to do it but she’s not here right now. Are you afraid? You should be. J.

  Before he could react to it, the message disappeared.

  He slid the phone into his pocket and tried to concentrate on the woman sitting in the chair, inwardly confused why J would want to kill him. Separated by a social class or three, the ray of blonde sunshine finished preparing her paperwork and instruments of torture. Her style was sharper than anyone he’d seen on the force, and he guessed she was a consultant from the alternative reality, brought in at high excess to check his tear ducts were working.

  Dr Lisa Flowers, PhD, looked up and changed down into empathy mode.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Sergeant Carter. DCI McKinlay asked me to assess your fitness for duty, given your recent bereavement. Do I have your consent?’

  ‘Will I take my clothes off?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  ‘Lachlan Carter, thirty-three, born in Edinburgh,’ she read from a sheaf of white copy paper. ‘At three, you survived a car accident that killed your parents. No siblings. Raised by grandparents in the mining village of Gorebridge, you joined Police Scotland at twenty-five as a uniformed constable and have spent all your career at St Leonard’s.’

  ‘Key skill, reading,’ replied the subject of interest.

  ‘Promoted to detective at twenty-nine, since when you’ve been involved in four murder cases, the last two as SIO, and in those, you got convictions. It’s an impressive record.’

  ‘You would know, of course.’

  ‘Don’t you think it is?’ Her accent sounded like it came with the education.

  ‘It’s the job.’

  ‘I think it’s your vocation.’

  ‘What’s this got to do with Kelsa?’ Carter snarled suddenly. ‘You’re jumping to conclusions already.’

  ‘Death is something that comes to us all, Sergeant Carter.’

  ‘Really?’ Her reply was too textbook for him. ‘Do you practice lines in the mirror?’

  Lisa Flowers sat back in her chair and regarded him carefully for a moment. ‘It affects each person differently.’ She leaned forward again, re-engaging. ‘How did she die?’

  Carter sipped from his latte, simmering. He made eye contact, keeping it for a decent few seconds to clarify that he didn’t see the point in this line of chat. But McKinlay had insisted; otherwise, he’d have given the experience a body-swerve. Therapy was for sick people. ‘In hospital,’ he answered. ‘Giving birth to our baby, Nathaniel.’

  ‘That’s tragic,’ Dr Flowers replied sympathetically. ‘Death in childbirth is uncommon these days. Did she have underlying health issues?’

  ‘Anorexia nervosa complicated by depression. By the end, she was just skin and bone.’

  ‘When was she diagnosed?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Carter, not really wanting to explore it. ‘I’m a policeman, not a doctor. She went into hospital in October last year.’

  ‘Was she forced to eat in the hospital? For the health of the baby?’ Flowers persisted.

  ‘I wasn’t there every day.’ Carter could feel his voice rising as he recounted those difficult times. ‘Maybe I should have been there more often, but sometimes I just couldn’t do it. She wanted to die, but I don’t know why.’

  ‘How do you feel now she’s gone?’

  ‘Relieved. Guilty, because it must’ve been me that drove her to be like that.’

  Dr Flowers made some notes on her pad. ‘Are you able to come here every day and talk about it?’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘Can I call you Lachlan?’

  ‘Can I call you Petal?’

  ‘Doctor Flowers, please,’ she admonished him with a long stare. ‘Nine o’clock every day, until I feel you’re ready for work.’

  ‘The boss wants me back soon-ish.’ Better not tell her he had a job on.

  ‘Until I say so, you’re off duty.’

  ‘Can we do more hours every day? There’s not much private life for me to go home to.’

  ‘Tomorrow. Sergeant Carter.’

  Carter turned his head and gazed through the window. The Holy power-washer continued to clean up the city and, he wondered whether he’d still have a job by the time this nonsense stopped.

  8

  Flying Lesson

  Back at St Leonard’s a few hours later, Sergeant Tam Watson called Carter to say the ambulance crew were in reception.

  ‘Did they bring the wagon?’ Carter asked. Sergeant Watson confirmed they did.

  ‘I’ll be right down.’ He rounded up DC Podolski and DC Garcia. DI Mason said he’d give it a miss.

  The crew waited in the station’s rear yard;
a younger man and an older woman dressed in green overalls. His badge said Dorman, hers said McMahon. Carter introduced himself.

  ‘You said you didn’t see the woman on the road?’ Carter recalled, assuming one of the pair would do the talking. ‘How did you know you’d hit her?’

  ‘There was a bang, and the wagon swerved to the left, but it came out of nowhere,’ Dorman said. ‘I stopped. She was lying on the verge seriously injured, so we strapped her up for a run to the Royal.’

  ‘Any cars in front of you as you were driving along the Approach Road?’

  ‘Aye, quite busy at night.’

  ‘What time?

  ‘We recorded the hit at ten minutes after midnight, told control we were heading for A & E.’

  ‘None of the cars stopped to let a woman out on the verge?’

  ‘No, we would have seen that.’

  ‘And behind you?’ DC Garcia chimed in.

  ‘We were blocking the exit ramp to Dundee Street. Once drivers saw what was going on, they all reversed back onto the Murrayfield spur.’

  ‘You didn’t call the police for help?’ asked Carter.

  ‘Too busy,’ Dorman replied. ‘By the time they arrived, she might have been dead.’

  ‘Number plates of the cars behind you?’

  ‘Seriously?’ said Dorman, shaking his head. ‘We had other things to do.’

  Carter walked to the ambulance’s front, a specially built snub-nose Mercedes kitted out in white paint with green-and-yellow reflective panels on the sides. Its blues-and-twos were above the driver’s cab, but only its regular hazard lights were flashing now.

  ‘Right side?’ he asked.