A Wife Worth Dying For

by Wilson Smillie

  From his place of safety next to the sink, he approached them carefully, like they might take legs and escape. With his hands protected by the yellow gloves that didn’t fit, he slowly smoothed out the fabric to assess the knickers accurately. The standard Y shape, but not a thong. Soft but not pure silk, and not the rougher cotton of his own underpants either. Size ten. The label said ‘Bodas, London’.

  He had to check, was aching to know what else these knickers had to reveal.

  His footsteps were heavy on the stairs. He wanted her to know he was coming. She’d be indignant, demanding to know why he was taking this action. Her presence filled this side of the house. He took a deep breath, then entered the bedroom, switching on the big light, half expecting to see her sit up in bed. Her demand for an explanation was ignored. He went straight to the dressing table, next to the window, where her hairbrush, make-up and hairdryer were as she’d left them. He sat on the stool, staring at the man in the mirror.

  Right-hand middle drawer. It slid silently outwards. Inside were her day-to-day knickers, white, pink, lemon, blue and black. Still wearing the yellow gloves, he lifted the pink pair; size ten, from Bodas, London. For almost every other man on the planet, this would be damnable proof. He held them up to his face: a much fainter smell of Obsession.

  London was one of the cities she travelled to, as a management trainer for a corporate agency. He’d watched her arrive home after work with branded shopping bags but never paid much attention to them. She kept the raunchy underwear in another place and there was clear blue water between these and those; no need to self-harm by checking.

  The pink pair went back in the drawer. He picked up her hairbrush and held it up to the light. Tiny filaments danced in the air like prey caught in a spider’s web. He ignored her protestations and walked to the door with her hairbrush in hand, giving her no reason.

  Flicking the light switch off, he pulled the bedroom door closed and exhaled.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, he scrolled through the contacts in his phone, found the number he wanted and tapped on it. While it rang, he eyed the brush, now sealed in a sandwich bag, next to two more containing the Jiffy bag and the knickers. He spoke clearly, outlining what he’d found and what he wanted. The other party consented.

  Five minutes later he was driving towards town in the Smart car, following the usual route that would take him to Fettes Operations Centre.

  31

  Waiting Room

  Rocketman signed him into the Forensic suite.

  ‘I’ll have to tag them as evidence,’ he said. ‘We can’t process them without the bar codes. Alice Deacon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Locus?’

  ‘My home. The hairbrush is for reference.’

  ‘Get some coffee. There’s a coffee machine, a fridge with food, microwave, whatever. It’ll take thirty minutes at least to do the admin.’

  Half an hour, on the dot, and he was back in the office, sitting across from Johnstone.

  ‘We’ll check the Jiffy for fingerprints and DNA, probably get a thousand markers including yours, but we have to do it, just in case. I wouldn’t put any store by the results. The night shift will run tests on the DNA swabs from the knickers and the hair, but even with our state-of-the-art equipment, it’ll take hours. Go home.’

  ‘I’ll stay.’

  ‘Leccy, I know its gruesome, but don’t let him get to you. We’ll catch him. Your hanging around here won’t change that.’

  ‘I’m staying.’

  ‘Fine – you can sleep on the couch in the visitor’s room if you want. My lead tech knows what she’s doing, she’ll tell you as soon as she can. I’ve been here since seven, so I’m going home.’ Rocketman stood up and put on his coat.

  Carter watched him leave and wondered if he was crossing the Rubicon with this. He pushed back on his fears and kept pushing, learning once more that love was a cruel mistress. Could he live with these dark thoughts and not poison himself? How could he separate professional investigation from personal interest without tearing himself apart? If life seemed simple before, it was because he’d accepted the lie.

  Maybe he should hand off this case to someone else.

  In need of a distraction, he found an empty room with a computer. He’d take another look at the analysis of devices surrounding Alice’s movements; maybe that would keep his darker thoughts at bay. It was 9.30 p.m., and a long night lay ahead. If the worst came, the couch in the visitor’s room would serve as his bed of nails.

  Even as he logged on to the computer, he could hear Kelsa demanding to know why he was digging up what was dead and buried.

  32

  Relationships

  At 7.30 a.m. the next morning, he was still at FOC Fettes. He had to call DCI McKinlay. She’d be in her car, dodging the traffic pouring into the city from the south. Jammed at Cameron Toll, probably.

  Late into the night, he’d necked a few Red Bulls from the vending machine to keep awake, while working the possibilities suggested by the mobile data and avoiding another deep dive into his past. Hours later, the taurine having worn off, he’d rolled himself up in the Crombie and tried to get comfortable on the visitors’ couch. It was harder than it looked. By 6 a.m., every joint felt like it would snap if he moved too quickly.

  After a shower, he’d felt better. Now he picked up his phone and noticed the SMS nano-app with its pulsing dot. He hadn’t heard the ping.

  [2019-01-18:0521] I am not who you believe me to be, Carter. I am a ghost inside your head. I can find you anytime, but for you to find me you must go where you’ve never been. J.

  Carter read and re-read it, then grabbed it. What did J mean by ‘go where you’ve never been’. A minute later he watched it vanish from the screen.

  ‘Where are you?’ DCI McKinlay asked, picking up his call.

  ‘I’m at Fettes,’ he said, still pondering the latest message. J knew when he’d read the text. Somehow, that felt like a small win for Carter.

  ‘A bit early for Dr Flowers.’

  Her comment confirmed that E Division standard operating procedure was alive and kicking. McKinlay had not been told by the brass that Dr Flowers was now a team player. Top jaw forgets bottom jaw and bites off his own head. It wasn’t even twenty-four hours since Flowers had told him McKinlay was briefed. He’d thought his boss’s lack of reaction was because she had retreated into a mild huff. It was now clear she knew nothing about the elevated status of their new colleague. If he body-swerved the shout, he’d be accused of complicity in the darkest of deeds.

  ‘You’ve not been briefed, have you?’

  ‘Briefed about what?’ The noise of car horns tooting could be heard above the awkward silence on the line. ‘I’ve got an incoming call from Chief Super Goodwin, I have to take it.’

  The line broke, and he was free to swim off with the hook stuck in his mouth.

  A woman in a white coat approached him. ‘Sergeant Carter?’

  ‘Yes.’ His pulse leapt a few notches, but not because of her attractiveness.

  ‘I’ve not seen you around here before,’ she said. ‘Not that that means anything, I’m usually chained to a thermal cycler machine and kept in the dark. You got ID?’

  Carter fished for it. She wanted his corporate pass, not his warrant card.

  ‘What does a thermal cycler do?’ he asked, trying to fill an awkward minute.

  ‘It processes PCRs for DNA.’ She studied his pass. ‘You sure that’s you?’

  ‘It’s my name underneath,’ he replied.

  ‘What case number is it?’

  ‘Is everyone in here like this?’ He tried for a smile. ‘Alice Deacon,’ he said.

  ‘I need the case number. Log on over there,’ she pointed to a computer in an empty room. ‘Show me the case number and bar code.’

  He logged on. Minutes later, the case file was up. She used a hand-held scanner and pointed it at the bar code on the screen. When it beeped, she seemed satisfied.

  ‘
OK,’ her shoulders relaxed and she smiled, revealing white, even teeth. ‘Can’t be too careful. A year ago, a journalist blagged his way into Queen Street in Aberdeen and was handed evidence when a colleague assumed his name was the same as a detective from Inverness. She got fired, the journo got arrested, the evidence got published, and the scumbag got off.’

  ‘So, what do you have for me?’ Carter asked with trepidation.

  ‘The Jiffy bag has at least a hundred prints, none show for anyone in our database,’ she read from her notes, avoiding eye contact.

  ‘And the other . . . items?’ he prompted.

  ‘Good quality mitochondrial DNA from the hair on the hairbrush. Female and not on the databases. No fingerprints from the underwear, not good material. The underwear has been washed before, obviously, but not since these cells were deposited. There was trace DNA from one male on the knickers. It needed significant amplification – meaning you hadn’t touched them for a while.’

  ‘Me?’ Carter was confused.

  ‘Another reason for the ID check, Sergeant Carter: you’re a partial match on the database. If you didn’t contaminate them at a crime scene – a disciplinary offence – I assumed they must belong to someone close to you. The package was posted to you at home, says the record. The mtDNA from the brush matches the mtDNA on the knickers. My leap-of-faith conclusion is they’re your wife’s, and you think she’s having an affair.’

  She now looked him straight in the eye, her expression curious and sceptical. ‘We don’t normally do this kind of thing for colleagues and using a live case reference is also a—’

  ‘Disciplinary offence,’ he finished the sentence for her. ‘It’s not what you think,’ he said quickly, spinning himself up to speed, trying to work out what this news meant, and if it confirmed what he’d hoped earlier. ‘My wife is dead.’

  Her expression changed slightly. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’

  ‘For reasons, you will know, I can’t tell you anything about the case, so you’ll just have to trust me. Was there anything else?’

  ‘There’s one other sequence present on the knickers,’ she shrugged her shoulders and put aside her prejudices. ‘A good profile of another man, not on our databases.’

  33

  The Bastard and the Bitch

  Having tossed her grenade into the room, Tech Girl turned on her heel and walked off. Carter stood rooted, contemplating his next move. Bishop shafts Pawn Four. Or chuck himself from the roof of Fettes Operations Centre in utter despair? He’d set out to find the truth, knowing there was a strong possibility the knickers were Kelsa’s. Of course, it should have been obvious all along. It usually happens, doesn’t it? Find happiness, then once you’ve settled in, the rug is pulled from under and you fracture your skull when you hit the floor.

  She’d been seeing someone else.

  Grasping at straws, he realised he’d not asked Tech Girl if Kelsa being pregnant might explain this outcome. Perhaps the male DNA could be from a doctor or obstetrician; either might have come into contact with her knickers during a routine check-up. But that was a fantasy born of utter delusion. A doctor who stuffs knickers in a jiffy bag breaks into your home and deposits them on your kitchen table? ‘Sorry, found these when I was having a clear-out.’

  And yes, a doctor would have penned a note.

  The question drilling into his head was: why now? Knowing he’d never be found out, lover-boy twists the knife in Carter’s wound, just for the sake of it. Cruel, possible, but highly improbable. And the next obvious question: how does J know all this? Answer: it can only be him unless he’s ‘doing it for a friend. ’

  The memories he’d been suppressing burst into his mind like fireworks exploding – of the weekend she’d gone to a party – with her girlfriends – apparently – and didn’t return until Sunday wearing totally different clothes. At the time, she’d refused to discuss it. She took two baths every day and slept in the spare room. Then shagged him every night for nearly three weeks till he screamed for mercy.

  When they did speak, she begged him to leave it be if he loved her. And she knew he did, so he understood why she couldn’t speak about it. But he wasn’t daft. She’d been assaulted, probably sexually, but she didn’t want him tracking down the assailant as a personal mission. It would be too painful to watch.

  What had been his options during that raw soap drama? They were married. For other men, marriage might have meant nothing, but he wasn’t that kind of man. ‘For better, for worse’ implied commitment and he had committed to her without condition. But in the endlessness of time thereafter, they barely spoke a word. She sat on the other sofa in silence, trying to work out – with help from the TV – how she felt about it all. He worked, came home and spent his evenings with the Xbox, or just stared at her. Was it a gamechanger? If so, he had to leave and never return. Simple.

  Kelsa was Kelsa. But he was Leccy.

  Now, in the full-technicolour of the present, he craved a drink. Not to blot things out, but because it elevated his thoughts and rendered his memory of the drama in sharp contrast. Whisky gave licence to his infamous coldness, his legendary absolute focus on the facts of the case. What was the evidence of Kelsa’s infidelity laid bare? A sex-filled pair of knickers, an unknown lover and a buried weekend. He had been a fool to think those missing days had been anything else. Summed up as the bastard and the bitch copulating in a hotel room somewhere far away. He felt slimy.

  He returned to the computer – he was still logged on. Tech Girl had said lover-boy had not been convicted of any crime in Scotland because his profile wasn’t present on either the Criminal History database or the PFSL DNA database. Carter’s heart pulsed blood through the arteries in his neck so hard it was painful. His night had not been totally wasted. He had some names gleaned from the mobile analysis, and just one of them popped up in the CHS database.

  He retrieved the profile of Jacky Dodds, with previous for sexual harassment of young women. If J was linked to Carter through Kelsa, how did Alice squeeze herself into their picture? Dodds had been involved, somehow. It was the only lead he had. He pressed print, got a picture, form-card and last known address. It was time to vent some good old-fashioned anger on a Dalry scumbag.

  34

  Church Hill

  A tenement flat on Watson Crescent. Easy staggering distance from Dalry Burial Ground. Carter squeezed the Smart car into a resident’s space and settled down to wait. Cars lined the street on both sides. In this part of town, a tenement accommodated eight flats spread over four storeys. On the opposite side of the street similarly-styled flats disappeared in an infinity curve towards Harrison Park, a quarter of a mile away. It was cheap living in the city.

  Within fifteen minutes of parking, Carter had succumbed to sleep.

  A rap on the window startled him: a traffic warden. He flashed his warrant card at her. She paced off, miffed. His watch confirmed it was after ten o’clock; he’d slept for nearly an hour. He might have missed Dodds coming or going but felt better for the snooze. He got out of the car, sucked in some cold air, then wandered around looking for coffee.

  On his way back to the car, having opted for a Red Bull instead, a man passed him on the canal bridge heading south. He was tall and bulky, wearing third-hand clothes, with dishevelled hair and chin stubble that definitely wasn’t designer. His skin was sallow from lack of sunlight, but his nose was prominent. Despite his size, there was a vulnerability about his gait. Eye contact was brief, but Carter was awake enough to realise it might be Dodds. Carter kept on walking downhill towards Fountainbridge. After a minute, he stepped up to the door of a flat, hidden from anyone further up the street. He looked at the print-out he’d brought with him. Dodds had bulked out, but it was definitely him; the skin tone, eyes and nose hadn’t changed.

  Carter started walking back up the slope. He collected his car and minutes later was driving south on Polwarth Crescent. At a mini-roundabout, he turned left onto Granville Terrace, slowing down to pee
r up Merchiston Avenue. No sign. From here it was straight tarmac to Tolcross. He drove half-way along before spinning a U-turn and gunning the Smart car back the way he’d come. He carried straight on over the mini roundabout onto Polwarth Gardens. Dodds was a few hundred metres further on, at the curve of the road. Carter passed him at speed, drove on for another few hundred metres, and then pirouetted the Smart car into a parking space. As Dodds approached him, he got out and blocked his way.

  ‘Jacky, a word, please.’

  ‘Fuck off copper, I’m clean.’ Dodds walked past him.

  ‘Jimmy said I might find you at the drop-in,’ Carter nodded towards Polwarth Parish Church. ‘He volunteered your help.’

  Jacky Dodds looked like he’d been approached by an alien asking for directions.

  ‘Get in,’ Carter held open the passenger’s door.

  Dodds glanced around, then got in. Carter got in the driver’s seat. He started the motor and drove back the way he’d come, heading towards Morningside. ‘Thought you might appreciate the warmth.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Dodds asked, looking like a large scarecrow packed into a small sack.

  ‘You were in the Reverend last Sunday.’ Carter reached into a pocket and took out Alice’s photograph. ‘Did you see her?’

  Dodds glanced at the picture then looked away. ‘Naw.’

  ‘Who was she with?’

  He stayed silent.

  ‘You fit the suit, Jacky. Height, build and power, know what I mean? You’ve been building up to this, maybe you’re working on a reputation so you can move up a grade.’