A Wife Worth Dying For

by Wilson Smillie

  The gig was as compere; ten minutes upfront. He’d earned that right over the last years, and the spot was his any time he wanted it. There were six acts tonight, and he’d punctuate a few minutes between each to allow them time to sort their back-line if they had one. After ninety minutes he’d close if they didn’t overrun.

  It was his first gig for six months, what with work and Kelsa’s illness. A step towards reclaiming his future. Half of him wanted the adulation, the other half wanted him to die in front of his mates. These boys and girls he’d grown up with, who’d played with him, fought with him and dragged his bruised arse home for his gran to clean up afterwards. For all that knowledge, all that history, all that background that could never be erased, he hated them.

  For one night only.

  Inwardly bricking himself, outwardly confident, he shrugged on his stagecraft, expecting a thumbs-down after the first punchline. This audience held power of life and death over him. As a stand-up gladiator, his routine was all the armour he had.

  A disembodied voice squeezed through the speakers, announcing the entertainment would begin. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for our own local hero – Leccy Carter!’

  The curtains pulled back and, for a split second, he was naked. He bounded into the centre of the small stage and grabbed the mic from its stand. ‘Boolers of Gorebridge, I salute you.’

  ‘Where you been, Leccy? We thought you were deid and buried.’ A snigger rippled its way through the audience.

  ‘Bad comedians never die,’ he parried, knowing the gig would turn on the riposte. ‘They just pay to heckle.’

  They liked it: he’d bought himself another gag.

  ‘So, you all know I’m a detective in Edinburgh, but I also do a little moonlighting on the side. Cash in hand, no questions asked. Just like you Jimmy Wilson – I mean, who else here does patios at nine o’clock at night, eh? So – a wummin in the New Town asks me to follow her husband. Thinks he’s seeing another woman. I track him to the Caley hotel and watch for an hour, then he goes to the George for another hour, then the Balmoral. Finally, he goes home. I tell her all this, and she asks me, “Is that grounds for divorce?” I told her, “Sure, he was following you.”’

  Things were warming up. He paced back and forward along the stage, dropping into one-liners. ‘You know, a woman will never date a man that lives with his mother, but she’ll always date a man who lives with his wife.’ And then, ‘My wife doesn’t trust me. That’s one thing she has in common with my mistress.’

  He kept the lines going for another few minutes, before getting a signal that the first act was ready. ‘Ladies, it’s been spankin’ for me, and I don’t care how it was for you. So, put your hands together for up-and-coming tribute band, One Distraction!’

  He dashed off stage; one round down. ‘Good effort, Leccy,’ said the old stage manager, who seemed to live in the place.

  But over the next hour, his time on stage shrank. He had a problem with the material and his belief in it. A massive bubble of doubt was growing in his heart, a bubble he couldn’t burst. He couldn’t run through material about wives, sex and adultery as if he was a parrot. The audience knew he’d buried Kelsa only days ago. Besides, his soul wasn’t ready for material like this. He contemplated not showing for the final slot, but that was taboo. The show goes on. Send them home laughing … or crying.

  The curtain rolled back for the final time. ‘Nice one, Leccy,’ someone encouraged him from the darkness. A lone spotlight picked him out, all other lights dimmed, the punters in the room merging into a solid black shape. Only the first row of faces looked up at him. He knew them and named them.

  ‘Billy MacDonald, you bit me on the arm when I was seven.’ Billy smiled, holding a half-empty pint, but he said nothing. He knew what was coming. ‘Jimmy Wilson, you tried to teach me to play football. You always put me in goal, ’cos I was crap in any other position, and you, Andy Stone, I knocked your teeth out at school, remember? We’ve been besties ever since. Slider, you pushed me out of a tree at Harvieston. I broke my arm on the fall, you sick bastard. All of you – you’ve all been there for me. Without your help, I wouldn’t be the prick I am today.

  ‘I want to tell you about the girl that broke my heart. She died ten days ago, six weeks after giving birth to our son. She’d been ill for months, wouldn’t eat, took only enough to sustain the baby. Anorexia said the doctors. She refused all help, would accept no medicines, but was determined to give birth to a healthy boy. Once born, she cuddled him and kissed and cooed at him for a few hours. I took loads of pictures of them both before they fell asleep. But the next day, she just gave in to the illness and let herself drift. I pleaded with her, but once Kelsa made up her mind, there was no going back.’

  Was this therapy? It didn’t feel like it, it felt more like he was baring his soul, speaking of things that men dare not talk about. Cutting open his breast and exposing his heart, dripping red raw. He, Leccy Carter, the snotty-nosed bairn who ran around the village with skinned knees and dirty clothes, was capable of high love and was prepared to admit it.

  ‘The woman who died in my arms wasn’t the woman I fell in love with. Two years ago, she was vivacious and beautiful, tall and elegant, with long dark hair and a wicked tease of a smile. She walked on water. I watched men drool when she sailed past them. Honestly, I saw it with my own eyes. The sway of her hips was like a finely tuned Jag purring past. I met her after a gig at the Stand. I was pretty drunk when she came over to me. She’d been in the audience with her girlfriends, and they were quaffing champagne. She came over, said my patter was great. I tried out some new ones on her.

  ‘I wanted her phone number.’ Carter sank to his knees on stage, his voice trembling with emotion. The room was totally silent. A hometown comedian was dying on-stage for their entertainment. It would live long in the village memory. ‘She ripped my shirt open and wrote her number on my chest in big red numbers with her lipstick, then she walked away.’

  Tears flowed as he recounted the moment. This was his confession, his absolution, his blood-letting. He was of their ilk, and if penance were required afterwards, it would be pint-shaped and lager-flavoured, topped off with intravenous shots of Clan Macpherson whisky.

  ‘Next morning, going into the shower, I realised what was on my chest. Her number had smudged. I looked in the mirror and tried to write it on paper but kept getting it wrong. I panicked – was nearly in tears. I might never see her again. I called three different phones, including a bloke who was keen to hook up, but eventually, I got the right number.

  ‘Within a year, we married in Vegas. I’d never been so happy.’ He coughed, wiping his nose with his arm. He’d nearly unloaded it all but wasn’t quite finished.

  ‘Everything was great, until one weekend she went on a night out and didn’t come home for two days. Everything began to change then, and I still don’t know why.’

  Carter sobbed into his knees. Nobody breathed and silence took over. A man at the back started sniggering, quietly. ‘That’s the best one of the evenin’.’ He clapped softly, then harder, encouraging others to take it up. A few turned to see who it was. More joined in, soon the whole room was taking it up, louder and louder as hand met hand, resonating around the venue till it deafened. Whistling started, the floor shook like an earthquake, with shouts like ‘Aw right man’, ‘Leccy yer a star’. The mass of the audience converged on the stage to help him, everyone wanted to be next to him, the whole club proclaiming the crowning of a king of their own making.

  One man skipped the coronation, quietly slipping into the darkness.

  20

  Anger Therapy

  At nine o’clock the next morning, Carter arrived at Fettes somewhat hungover.

  ‘Morning, Mary,’ he said breezily to the keeper of the gates of Hades. ‘Nice day today, isn’t it?’

  Her glower spoke volumes about the state of him.

  In her usual place, Dr Flowers was wearing a grey high-necked woollen dres
s with a black belt around her waist and black heels with thick black tights.

  ‘Good morning, Sergeant Carter,’ she eventually looked up at him. ‘You’re looking tired today. Had a sleepless night?’

  ‘It’s amazing what alcohol can do,’ he replied wearily.

  ‘We need to make progress today. I expect your cooperation.’

  ‘Sense of humour failure?’

  ‘I’ve heard you’re working a case after I explicitly said you were not to return to duties.’

  ‘Take it up with DCI McKinlay,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Really?’ Sarcasm suited her. ‘The Chief Superintendent is right behind this initiative you know, and he’s just looking for reasons to push more old nags out to pasture. Know what I mean, Lachlan? A change of the guard at St Leonard’s would suit him fine and to do that all I need to say is “subject is uncooperative”.’

  ‘I have a question,’ he interjected. Turning the table on her felt good. ‘Do you truly think I’m unfit for duty? Do you think I’d recover quicker staring at the walls of my home for hours or going back to live with my grandparents?’

  ‘Tell me about living with your grandparents.’

  He knew what she was doing but was too tired to put up a fight. ‘What is there to say? They brought me up.’

  ‘What about your mother’s parents? In North Berwick. Do you ever see them?’

  ‘I’ve only met them once when I was fifteen, and only my grandmother. I looked up the name. Telephone directories still existed then. Only five McKenzies in the town. When I arrived at the house, I recognised her as soon as I saw her, but she didn’t invite me in—’

  ‘Why do you think she behaved that way?’ Flowers was motoring now, scribbling away on her pad as each answer was given.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he shrugged. ‘My real grandparents care about me. I don’t waste effort on people who don’t.’

  ‘Why did you join the police?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The change of context allowed him latitude. ‘It seemed exciting, chasing bad guys. More exciting than drafting engineering drawings for the mines.’

  Dr Flowers leaned forward on her desk and scribbled much more. Minutes passed as if he wasn’t there. She consulted some notes from open books beside her, then scribbled yet more into her pad, then read more notes, flicking over pages.

  ‘Why don’t you use an iPad or a laptop?’ he said finally, feeling ignored and realising how lonely it was. She maintained her silence, letting his loneliness grow, eventually giving him the attention he craved.

  ‘It helps me concentrate. Typing is distracting during sessions.’

  ‘You’re not very good at interviewing either,’ said Carter, understanding he had as much right to control the discussion as she had. ‘So, what’s next, Lisa? Do you know where you’re going with all this? Because it seems to me, you’re playing at it.’

  ‘Being superficial, you mean? Like you. You’re hiding behind yourself. People you love abandon you, so you’re not going to invest time in them, and you won’t invest time in yourself either. You’re behaving like a machine. A cyborg that switches on then off when you’re done. That’s why you’re such a good detective. You wipe all emotions away until only the intellectual puzzle is left.’

  ‘So what? That’s the job description.’

  His phone pinged: an incoming text message, but not of the regular type.

  [2019-01-16:0930] Lipstick in the Dome was it? You were her plaything Carter. Remember the Sick Kids. You don’t know what I’m talking about do you? You will find out very soon. J

  Something snapped inside him when he read the message. Rage forced him out of his chair. This time it tumbled over, and he turned and kicked at it hard. It bounced along the floor to the opposite side of the room. He made straight for her desk, a rumble of thunder clouds clear and visible on his face.

  ‘You have no idea what it’s like to deal with what I see every day,’ he raised his voice. ‘Look at this.’ He pushed his phone across the desk. ‘Give me your professional opinion on this, doctor.’

  She sat forward, read the text, but said nothing.

  ‘Write the words down, Petal. It’s actual evidence.’

  She scribbled the message on the pad, then looked up. ‘Why don’t you just grab the screen?’

  He felt his face redden; he hadn’t thought to do that with the other messages? He snapped it on his phone.

  ‘This is what I’m investigating,’ he explained. ‘The raping bastard must’ve been there last night, in the audience. My wife is dead, and my child has been taken away from me. And today, you want to know how I feel about growing up without parents?’ He leaned over the desktop and swept all her things off it. Her pen shot across the room like a bullet, bouncing off the picture window. The writing pad crumbled into a heap on the carpeted floor. The books she’d consulted during their session bounced on their spines and settled into the carpet like shot pheasant.

  Dr Flowers just sat there, unsure whether or not to call the cops.

  ‘You just don’t understand,’ he shouted at her this time, in case she couldn’t hear him from all of four feet away. ‘He knows Kelsa’s dead. He wants to own me. He’s said he’s going to kill me. I don’t know why, and I don’t know when.’

  ‘What do you expect me to say?’ She defended her approach resolutely. ‘This is your working life. My working life is to help you achieve mindfulness and balance and come to terms with what’s happened to you.’

  ‘You’re so just like him, doctor.’ Carter wanted her to get angry. ‘You’re a licenced manipulator, a fixer, mediator and negotiator. You’re the judge, the jury, the executioner and the fucking undertaker. You push pigeons into holes according to the rules of your high-minded psycho-babble profession. And you’re wasting the time of this fucking useless copper who’d better get out there and start doing his job.’

  He picked up the books and the writing pad and placed them back where they belonged. He found the spent rage of his anger cosying up to the spent bullet of her pen and laid both neatly on her pad. He collected his chair from the corner it cowered in, turned it upright, then marched towards the office door.

  ‘Tomorrow, at nine,’ she said as if all her therapy sessions ended this way.

  He left the door open so she could watch him walk away.

  21

  Victim Support

  Back at St Leonard’s, he walked up two flights of stairs and negotiated the narrow corridor to find Victim Support at the far end. A team exclusively made up of women, there was no chatter from the other departments about a lack of gender equality here. The room was quiet and empty except for Ellen Podolski.

  ‘Leccy,’ Ellen stood up from her desk and hugged him like the mother-of-three teens she was. ‘This is the first chance we’ve had to talk freely. I’m so sorry for you. Kelsa was such a beacon of a girl, we’re all poorer without her. I’ve wanted to ask you, how are you coping with the baby?’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, perhaps too jovially. ‘Raising kids? It’s a doddle.’

  ‘Oh, aye? Wish I’d had more.’ She threw him a quizzical look.

  ‘What did Alice’s parents tell you about her?’ he changed the subject.

  ‘Don’t change the subject, I’m not daft. You’ll need help. I’ll come round, help you bathing him and make you a decent meal. Who looks after him while you’re at work?’

  ‘The in-laws. Judith supervises, but she’s got staff doing the dirty work.’

  ‘You’re using formula at night, of course. Feeding him every two hours, you won’t get much sleep?’

  ‘I’m coping, Ellen, really,’ he smiled at her to reassure her everything was alright. ‘What did Alice’s parents say?’

  ‘Mum and Dad are now at her bedside. They weren’t aware of her ordeal until we told them. She’s an independent girl, and the boyfriend confirmed that too.’

  ‘Where was Boyfriend when this happened?’ Carter asked. ‘How long have they been together?’


  ‘Name of Hamish Kier. He was at home watching football with some mates. His alibi checks out.’

  ‘Any of his other mates have a forename or surname beginning with “J”?’

  Helen checked her notes. ‘No. Apart from the “J” in Alice’s calendar, have you found any other references?’

  Something important tugged at Leccy’s subconscious, in response to her question, but it kept out of reach. He let it go.

  ‘Not unless we believe everyone with a name starting with “J” are suspects. Did you get some background on her?’

  Ellen nodded. ‘An only child, she went to St George’s and was the wild teenager. Had a revolving door of boyfriends and fell pregnant at twenty. Mum convinced her to terminate, but afterwards, Alice distanced herself from them. She had multiple jobs in the city, but she’d started seeing her parents again in the last years. Still, they didn’t delve into her private life in case they got cut off.’

  ‘Are you tracking down her girlfriends?’

  ‘You’re the one with all the constables,’ Ellen said. ‘Do you know what “Victim Support” means?’

  ‘Rocketman thinks he might have done this before,’ Carter said. ‘Her blood showed evidence of Scoop. Does that ring any bells with you? Other cases?’

  ‘Not immediately, but I know people at Leith and Livingston. I’ll ask around.’ She glanced up at him. ‘I can come and cook you a good meal every other day if you want?’

  ‘Ellen, I’m not helpless, and you’ve got Marcus and those three boys to look after.’

  Ellen smiled. ‘There’s a couple of lassies in here who’d throw themselves at you to help, in fact, Joanna—’

  ‘Stop. I’ll see you at our team meeting later.’

  Carter walked away. While Ellen’s concern was a comfort, the conversation was turning a bit too raw for him. She’d known him since he was a rookie detective and could tell when he was bullshitting, but if he broke down in tears in public, he’d be carrion for someone like J. The gents’ toilet in the corridor was empty. He chose a stall and locked the door, collapsing onto the seat for a moment’s peace and quiet. Last night’s lager therapy had helped, but he wasn’t fixed yet. What got to him was how emotional he’d become, for a man who’d never been emotional before. Kelsa had set out to change that. She’d showed him what love could be, and he’d dived into the deep end.