by Ken MacLeod
‘Some fine speculation, Hamish, but none of that alters the prima facie basis of the arrest, which is the drone image. And that was no power drill, or any such thing.’
‘That doesn’t explain what the investigation was all about in the first place.’
‘Och, Hamish,’ Macdonald said, ‘if you had done more than “glance” at the preliminary documents, you would know fine well—’
‘Don’t you “och, Hamish” me, Dolina!’ snapped McKinnon.
Macdonald’s face froze. ‘Let’s try and keep this professional.’
‘Indeed,’ said McKinnon. ‘Sorry.’ He cast Hope an embarrassed glance. ‘Stornoway is a small place, Mrs Morrison, and everybody knows everybody else, and as it happens Sergeant Macdonald and I have known each other, off and on, since we were at primary school.’
‘Hence the lapses into talking as if you still were?’ Hope asked, tartly.
The lawyer and the copper looked equally abashed.
‘Let’s take the apologies as mutual and move on,’ said Macdonald. ‘As I was saying, Mr McKinnon, the initial basis for the investigation is given in the preliminary documents.’
‘A moment ago you said you couldn’t tell me that. Now you say it’s in the documents.’
‘I can’t tell you everything,’ said Macdonald, ‘because it might jeopardise another line of inquiry, currently under active and urgent investigation. But it’s also true that there’s enough in the preliminary documents to justify this investigation, and the urgency of today’s search for the Morrison parents.’
McKinnon looked down at his pad and twiddled a theatrical finger on its surface.
‘Sergeant Macdonald, I assure you’ – he glanced at Hope – ‘and you, Mrs Morrison, that I have read every line of these documents, quickly but carefully. What I see here are some social-service background reports, on a quite irrelevant matter of private conscience, which is for the present a live issue only in England and Wales, and some records of phone calls between Mrs Morrison, Mr Morrison, and two people who have separately confessed to terrorism offences under circumstances of severe duress, which you know as well as I do is enough to have them thrown out by magistrates and sheriffs, let alone by the courts. Not even the Met have the brass neck to take such stuff to a magistrate, in most cases.’ He turned to Hope. ‘This is what you meant, was it not, when you said at the moment of arrest that this was all about the fix?’
‘Yes,’ said Hope. ‘The social services and the Health Centre back home have been putting me under a lot of pressure to take the fix, and I came here in the hope of getting away from all that for a bit. Some chance! They’ve obviously decided quite arbitrarily to make an example of me, and that’s why they’ve put this trumped-up nonsense about terrorism to the police. It’s all just a ploy to make me out to be an unfit mother.’
‘As I thought,’ said McKinnon. He held up his pad, between thumb and forefinger. ‘This is pish.’
He let the pad drop, to clatter on the table, and sat back, folding his arms. Hope looked over at him with gratitude and admiration. For the first time she saw the law as Maya had once explained it to her, not as an impersonal and ever more complicated system to crush you, but as a system whose very complexity and impersonality could shield you; and in that moment she saw McKinnon as a knight holding that shield in front of her.
‘You may well think so, Mr McKinnon,’ said Macdonald. ‘But the magistrate in Islington did not, and the sheriff in Stornoway did not, and you will soon find out why. In the meantime, you have no grounds for questioning the prima facie case for arrest in the circumstances of earlier today, regardless of how these circumstances came about.’
McKinnon scowled. ‘This is getting us nowhere. I suggest we wait until you can produce some evidence, rather than holding it over my client as a threat or inducement, and in the meantime that you provide her with some refreshment.’
‘I’m happy to take up that suggestion,’ said Macdonald. She consulted her own pad. ‘Interview adjourned. Expect to resume within two hours.’
‘In the meantime,’ said the lawyer, ‘I wish to talk to my client in private.’
‘Denied,’ said Macdonald. ‘You can’t do that until she’s charged, and we don’t have to charge her for sixty-four days.’ She smiled maliciously. ‘Minus three and a half hours.’
The interview resumed. Hope felt somewhat the better for having had two cups of tea, a beaker of orange juice and a pizza, especially as the policeman who came to her cell – the Leosach who’d arrested her – had allowed her to order from a takeaway menu, and had smiled understandingly and glanced at her bump when she’d specified anchovies and pineapple. And now there were cups of water on the table. But as she took her seat again, her heart sank at the expressions of Macdonald and McKinnon: the policewoman chipper, the lawyer glum.
‘Mrs Morrison,’ Macdonald said, after getting the formalities out of the way, ‘I would like now to bring to your attention some new developments and productions.’
‘Productions?’
‘Items of evidence,’ McKinnon explained.
‘With regard to productions,’ Macdonald went on. ‘The forensic semantic AI trawl of your home cameras has been completed, and in accordance with privacy legislation only those sections directly relevant to the case or cases have been made available by the AI to the investigation.’ She looked up at Hope, with a thin smile. ‘Just in case you were worried about coppers sniggering over your personal life. Isn’t allowed, doesn’t happen. All right?’
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Hope.
‘Very well. Further sections may be made available on a new search warrant. I have here’ – Macdonald nodded down at her pad – ‘a recording of you moving off camera, verifiably into a cupboard in your home, then coming back into view in a… distracted condition. From the evening of the same day, a conversation with your husband, Mr Hugh Morrison, obliquely but clearly alluding to the presence of an illegal firearm, very probably a pistol, in a box or similar unsecured container in that cupboard. Mr McKinnon here has viewed the recording and can confirm its contents. Do you wish to view the recording yourself?’
‘Not at the moment,’ said Hope.
‘OK. Now, as to new developments. Mrs Morrison, your husband has been formally charged with offences under the Terrorism Act, the Children and Young Persons Protection Acts of both jurisdictions, the Firearms Act and the Firearms (Scotland) Act.’
‘What?’ Hope tried to sound disbelieving and outraged, although she’d expected something like this. ‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘I insist,’ said McKinnon, ‘that my client be told the details of the charges against her husband.’
‘I was coming to that,’ said Macdonald. ‘They are very much relevant to the charges she faces, and others that she may yet face.’ She thumbed her pad and read out:
‘You, Hugh Morrison, of 13 Victoria Road, London, et cetera, are hereby charged with the following offences, to wit, that you did have in your possession at the above premises an illegally held firearm, further that you stored it on said premises in an insecure manner contrary to the provisions of the Firearms Act and of the Children and Young Persons Protection Act, that in violation of the Firearms (Scotland) Act you transported said firearm to Scotland, concealed it likewise illegally and insecurely on the premises of The Old Manse, Uig, Eilean Siar, in further violations of the same Acts as applied to Scotland, et cetera, that you carried it illegally from said premises on this day, and that furthermore on challenge by the constabulary you failed to surrender the weapon as ordered and instead deposited it in a place of concealment and refused to disclose the location of said place of concealment, said place being within the North Atlantic Forward Defence Area, a region covered by the emergency provisions, thus violating such-and-such provisions of the Terrorism Act, as amended et cetera et cetera.’
Macdonald looked up. ‘I’ve paraphrased to skip all the sections and dates referred to, but that’s the substa
nce. Do you wish to read it yourself?’
‘Not at this moment.’
‘Mr McKinnon, have you read the indictment?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it correctly and legally formulated, and have I given your client a correct impression of its substance?’
McKinnon hesitated. ‘On an initial reading, and without prejudice to any objections that might be or might already have been lodged by Mr Morrison’s own solicitor, I would have to agree, yes.’
Hope saw the room begin to fade to monochrome. She felt dizzy and sick. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and held it, then opened her eyes and breathed out and took a sip of water. She tried not to think about what Hugh must be going through. At least nothing had been said about a confession. She was not sure whether or not that was something to be thankful for. It might mean they hadn’t worked him over, or it might mean they were still working him over. Or had just started working him over.
Stop. She sighed again, and took a gulp of water, and looked Macdonald straight in the eye.
‘So what all this adds up to,’ she said, ‘is that the police still haven’t found this supposed firearm, and they’re using this absence of evidence as evidence that Hugh has hidden it so cleverly that they can’t find it!’
‘My client has put the matter very well,’ said McKinnon, visibly brightening. ‘I suggest you explain the relevance of these ridiculous charges to her own position.’
‘Indeed,’ said Macdonald. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and fixed Hope with the sort of concerned, helpful gaze that Hope had come to expect from Fiona Donnelly, the health visitor.
‘Look, Hope,’ she said, interlacing her fingers and then spreading her hands, a couplet of gestures she repeated apparently at random as she went on, ‘I’m asking you, with your best interests and the best interests of your wee boy very much in mind, to reconsider your position. You’ve been denying all knowledge of the firearm in your husband’s possession. I’ve just drawn attention to evidence that you were well aware of its presence in your house, and that you failed to urge him to turn it in or to report it yourself, thus making you an accessory to his crime as well as liable to the charges under suspicion of which you’ve been arrested. If you continue to deny the obvious truth, you will be charged. And just to anticipate Mr McKinnon, that charge need not refer to the events of this particular day. It could just as well refer to the even more serious charge arising out of your knowing about the illegal gun in your own house, where a child was present – in breach of both the Firearms Act and the Child Protection Act. These charges would of course be brought by the London Metropolitan Police, quite separately from the similar charges that could be brought against you by us. Do you understand that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now as you know, Hope, even having that charge brought against you, regardless of the outcome of the case, is quite enough for the social services, in this country as well as in England, to apply for a court order to the effect that you are unable to provide a safe environment for your child, and to have the child taken into care. Do you understand that?’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Hope, fighting down dismay with anger. ‘And it’s outrageous. Even if I’m found innocent, I’m still guilty.’
‘I’m afraid that isn’t how it works, Hope. You see, that would be a matter for the family court, and it would be quite free and indeed obliged to take into account all the relevant evidence, including evidence that might not be admissible in a criminal trial, or that might not be enough to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Mr McKinnon will confirm that point of law.’
McKinnon nodded, unhappily. ‘That’s true, yes.’
‘It’s in this context,’ Macdonald went on, ‘that the matter that Mr McKinnon alluded to earlier, the matter of private conscience as he put it, is not as he said irrelevant to the present case but very relevant indeed. Because the developing legal position in England and no doubt very soon in Scotland is that refusal to take pre-natal genetic medication without good cause is tantamount to child neglect, and itself grounds for declaring you an unfit mother.’
‘Oh Jesus,’ said Hope, her head in her hands. ‘I knew this was about the fix.’
‘No, Hope, it isn’t. That’s just part of it, which I’m reminding you of in your own best interests. And it’s only a small part, because now that serious charges have been laid against your husband, you – look up, Hope! Look at me! – you too are open to having serious charges laid against you.’
Hope looked up. Macdonald’s face blurred. The policewoman passed her a tissue. Hope wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘Hope, your husband has been charged with terrorist offences. Because of the detail of these offences, and the specific events of this morning and early afternoon, you could now be charged as an accessory to these same offences. All that I’ve said before about the charges you were arrested on suspicion of applies many times over to the much more serious charge of being an accessory or indeed an accomplice to an act of terrorism. Now, you may think this is trumped up or overblown, but believe you me, Hope, deliberately concealing a firearm in a secret location in an area covered by the emergency provisions, which given its front-line location the Isle of Lewis most definitely is, is beyond any quibble an act of terrorism in its own right, regardless of any further connections or conspiracies that may be alleged or discovered. If you continue to stonewall this investigation, there may be no alternative but to charge you as an accomplice to that terrorist act. And don’t kid yourself for a moment that your guilt or innocence of this charge depends on your husband’s guilt or innocence.’
‘What?’ Hope cried. McKinnon jolted upright in his seat.
‘Yes,’ Macdonald went on, with a smug glance at the lawyer, ‘the charge against you depends on your having good reason to believe that such an act was committed, and the evidence you have been confronted with is in and of itself good and indeed compelling reason, in the eyes of the law, for you to believe that. Regardless of whether that evidence leads to a conviction, you would still be deemed knowingly complicit in the alleged act.’
Hope glared at Macdonald and turned to McKinnon. ‘Is that so?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said McKinnon. ‘I’m afraid it is. Lots of precedents over recent years, in Scotland and in England.’
‘But that’s just another…’ Hope’s mouth was dry. She took a swallow of water. ‘Another case of being guilty even if you’re innocent.’
‘Be that as it may,’ said Macdonald, ‘the fact remains that it’s the law, and under the law, if you’re found guilty on this charge you could be put away for life, and if you’re innocent you could still lose all access to your child. And, Hope, I hate to bring this up, but that applies also to the child you’re expecting.’
Hope sagged forward in the chair. ‘No!’
‘Yes,’ said Macdonald, ‘I’m sorry, but that’s the case. Another point I’m reluctant to bring up, but which I’m obliged to in your own interests, is that once you’ve been charged with or even suspected of terrorism, you become liable to enhanced interrogation to uncover any further possible lines of inquiry. Oh, Hope, don’t look away, don’t hide from the truth! Save yourself, for heaven’s sake! You have no idea what else your husband could be charged with – treason, even.’
‘Treason?’ Hope had thought she was now beyond surprise, but no.
‘He booked a flight to Prague last week, and spoke of emigrating to Russia, all quite legal of course, but in conjunction with concealing a weapon in an area within the North Atlantic Defence—’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ Hope jumped up. The chair clattered behind her. ‘You’d charge a man with treason for leaving a bloody air pistol where the fucking Russian Army might find it?’
‘Yes,’ said Macdonald, pushing her chair and herself backward. ‘We would. And if you don’t sit down and stop waving your arms around, I’ll see to it that you’re charged with assaulti
ng a police officer.’
Hope retrieved her chair and sat down. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t threatening you. I was just – overcome with astonishment.’
‘Och, that’s quite understandable,’ said Macdonald. She pulled herself and the seat forward to the table, propped her elbows, and looked Hope in the eye. ‘Now – what was that about an air pistol?’
‘Oh, fuck,’ said Hope.
‘You don’t need to say anything,’ McKinnon said.
‘Indeed you don’t,’ said Macdonald, cheerfully. ‘If you don’t mind being charged forthwith, as follows…’ She looked down at her pad. ‘You, Hope Morrison, are hereby—’
‘Stop!’ Hope cried. ‘Stop! I’ll tell you everything.’
For a frantic moment, she thought Macdonald would go on reading the charge. Then the policewoman looked up.
‘Everything?’
‘Yes,’ said Hope. ‘Everything.’
* * *
When she’d finished, half an hour later, the policewoman and the lawyer sat back in their chairs and triangulated her with looks of deep bewilderment.
McKinnon spoke first.
‘Mrs Morrison,’ he said, ‘do I take you to be giving me a testimony to deliver to my colleague defending your husband, in support of him urging your husband to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity?’
Hope felt as if she was looking up from the bottom of a pit of despair and betrayal, and not sure whether she was seeing a rope to get out or a spade to dig herself in deeper.
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said. ‘Do what you like. I’ve told you the truth.’
‘This interview is terminated,’ said Macdonald. She stood up. ‘Hope, I must ask you to return to the cell.’
Hope had been in the cell for half an hour when the door banged open. Dolina Macdonald stood there.
‘Come with me to the front desk, please.’
As she emerged into the reception area, Hope saw Nigel Morrison sitting on a chair at the back, his face grim. He gave her the barest flicker of a smile before she was taken to the desk. Hamish McKinnon stood beside her as her possessions were returned.