Does Your Mother Know?

by Maureen Jennings

  I picked up my briefcase and headed out of the door. I refused to totally waste the afternoon, and I wanted to hear what defined some of my colleagues. And hey, I had a good excuse not to have done the exercise myself.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  At conferences like this, meant for homicide investigators, people tended to hang around with those who did the same kind of work. The two young female front-line officers from Vancouver had glommed onto the Scottish drug-control guys. I had gravitated to an international group of criminal profilers from the States, England, and even Australia. That evening, there were six of us, gathered around a table in the hotel restaurant, exchanging work-related gossip. I loved this scene. Two years ago, I’d passed the big four-O birthday, and although I kept myself in good shape, it was inevitable that I’d attract fewer of the ocular goings-over that guys do no matter how married, liberated, and pro-feminist they think they are. Once in a while, I missed the sexual frisson, fearing I was becoming an invisible “older woman.” Mostly, though, it was a relief. I was with men all the time, and we were all more relaxed if we didn’t have to worry about figuring out the silent language of the sexual dance.

  None of this group at the table had been in the same class that day, so I was spared having to give an explanation of my summons.

  The restaurant was classy and, in a small balcony at one end of the room, a young woman played the harp. Perhaps the subtle angelic insinuation got to the guys, because after dinner they all decided to go off in search of a livelier scene. I begged off and went back to my room early. There was no flashing red light on the phone to indicate a message, but I checked with the front desk anyway. Nothing, Madam. After that I went to bed.

  Fat chance of getting any sleep.

  It was insomnia time, my nervous system flooded with adrenaline. At 1 a.m. I got out of bed, put a pillow next to the wall, and lay down on my back, my hips on the pillow, my legs straight up against the wall. A friend, Jayne, who was a Yoga enthusiast, had shown me this position, and it never failed to calm me down. I started to breathe again and all the tension I’d been holding in my gut began to let go. I stayed in that position for about ten minutes, getting up close and personal with the hotel carpet, which smelled like cleaning fluid. Finally, the pose had done its magic. I got back into bed and switched off the light. The street was surprisingly quiet considering we were in the centre of a large city. Maybe the Scots were better behaved than Canadians at night.

  Was Joan dead? Like probing a sore tooth, I tried to determine my state of mind on that question, but other than some anxiety, I didn’t really feel anything. It had been so long since I’d actually seen her face to face — at least two years — and even before that there were long stretches when I heard nothing from her. But you can’t really ever forget you have a mother, nor can you help but grieve when she dies. Or so I’ve been told.

  The next morning, in spite of the late night, I was awake early. As my flight wasn’t until the afternoon, I did what I’ve always done in times of stress: I plunged into my job. The session I’d signed up for was called “Forensic Psycholinguistics: Using Language Analysis for Identifying and Assessing Offenders.” It was a subject I was particularly interested in, and after a quick breakfast at the lavish buffet where I sampled home-cooked porridge, I went to the classroom. Looking around, I had the feeling I was as hung-over as some of my pals from the night before, but for different reasons.

  The presenter arrived punctually and set up his papers at the podium. He was middle-aged, tall and skinny, and grey-haired. He looked like my idea of an English gentleman: dry as dust in his tweed jacket and plain green tie. He just needed a briar pipe to complete the image.

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Clive Nicholls. Please take your seats as quickly as possible because we have a lot of material to cover this morning.” His accent was crisply British and sounded much more authentic than that of Mrs.Waring.

  A couple of stragglers came into the room and suddenly, Nicholls raised his voice.

  “Move your bloody arses in here.”

  There was a moment of shocked silence, and Nicolls smiled. “I do apologize for those remarks, but I wished to make a point. In moments of stress, people will revert to the language of their childhood, as Eliza Doolittle did when faced with the potential loss of her wager at the horse race.” He smiled again reassuringly. “An American might revert to ‘Move your ass’ or ‘Move your butt’; a Canadian might say ‘Get a move on, eh.’”

  I was getting a bit sick of that joke. Besides, it’s a rural expression rather than an urban one.

  “George Bernard Shaw brilliantly devised the first psycholinguist in the character of Henry Higgins. ‘I can place a woman within a mile of the place of her birth,’ he claimed. And we as psycholinguists, by analysing speech patterns, can provide invaluable help to officers in the field when they need to locate the identity of an anonymous caller, for instance, who claims he has placed a bomb in a local filling station, then hangs up. Similarly with victim statements.”

  He glanced around the room. “We’ve all no doubt had the difficult experience of questioning a suspect who will look us in the eye and swear to his innocence in such a convincing manner that we doubt ourselves, even though he may have been caught on videotape and his guilt is incontrovertible. Some of these suspects even pass the so-called lie-detector test. As we know, that is a popular and misleading term for the polygraph, which registers only changes in pulse, skin temperature, and so on.” Another pause. Like every good performer, Professor Nicholls knew the importance of timing. “A sixteen-year-old virgin male will send the stylus off the edge of the paper if asked ‘Have you ever had sex?’ He might answer ‘No’ with absolute honesty, but his embarrassment at the question makes him appear to be lying.”

  There were chuckles among the members of the audience. Most of us had gone through that little demonstration when we were being shown how the polygraph machine worked. Each of us had been wired up, while the others watched the zigzags moving across the paper.

  First we’d been asked basic questions, like name, address, age, and so on. The stylus made normal zigzags on the moving piece of paper. Then the questioner would throw in a question like, “Are you sexually active?” and, without exception, the stylus would do a big jump. Who wants to talk about that in front of your new buddies? For the men, it was, “What if you aren’t getting any?” For the women, “What if you’re getting too much?” Yes, folks, there is still a double standard. Interestingly, another question that evoked a bit of a zig was “Do you believe in God?” Not as much as the sex question I admit, but still, some people were embarrassed to be asked that.

  Nicholls took a sheaf of papers from the podium and started to hand them out.

  “I am going to give you a victim statement. It is a real one from a previously solved case. The woman said she was sexually assaulted under the circumstances she describes. I will read it through, then we will go over the things a linguistic analyst looks for: balance before, during, and after the description of the crime; syntax; prepositions, additions, and omissions. Then I will ask you to decide if you think she was telling the truth or not — and why you think that.”

  We spent the next hour and a half going over the statement. At the end, we were divided fifty-fifty as to whether or not the woman was telling the whole truth. I thought she wasn’t, and was gratified to find out I was right. Hey, I had a very good nose for a lie. Even though by now, my eyeballs felt as if they were resting on my cheekbones, I was totally absorbed.

  After this session, I took off. I turned down a couple of invitations to go exploring but I didn’t go into explanations about where I was going. Too complicated, and to be honest, embarrassing. I wanted to take things a step at a time. We weren’t due to meet again until Monday, and I hoped to be back by then, or at least miss only one session.

  I grabbed a cab to the airport, the cabbie telling me unasked the entire story of his troubled marriage. I half-th
ought he’d follow me on board, as he wasn’t close to being talked out.

  The plane to Stornoway was one of those small-prop kind that you have to walk out to and that tall people can’t stand upright in. I had a single seat by the window, which I was glad about, but I was even happier to be told by the cheery voice of the captain that our flight would be only forty-five minutes. I tried to concentrate on the view, but there was nothing to see but clouds until finally the island came into sight. It was flat and resembled a sawed-off stump of tree.

  We landed with an alarming sheer, but safely.

  Because I had only carry-on luggage, I exited directly into the main lounge of the airport, which was small and brightly modern. It could have been an airport anywhere in the world. A few people were grouped together waiting for the new arrivals. One was a stocky man with a bushy, rust-coloured beard. He was dressed in full regalia: Scots bonnet, glorious tartan kilt, and khaki jacket. When he saw me, he waved and headed towards me. Wrong. He walked straight past me to greet the group of Americans following. I heard him say, “Welcome to Lewis,” and I gathered he was a tour guide.

  As I stood hesitating for a moment, the outside door opened and a man hurried in. He was fortyish, with salt-and-pepper curly hair, wearing a blue windbreaker and black pants. He was also sporting a colourful shiner and a cut lip, which gave him a distinct tough-guy look. He came over to me.

  “Hello, are you Miss Morris?”

  “I am. And you must be my welcome welcoming committee.”

  “Sergeant Gordon Gillies. Sorry I’m late.”

  “Traffic?”

  He laughed. “No, we don’t have traffic here. It was a wee demonstration. You’ll see when we go out.”

  “Nasty?”

  “No, nothing like that. They’re very polite. I just had to chat with them for a minute or two.” He reached for my bag, not waiting to see if I was a militant independent. “Here let me carry that. The car’s just outside.”

  He took me by the elbow, an old-fashioned gesture I hadn’t even seen for years let alone experienced. It seemed churlish to jerk my arm away, so I walked awkwardly beside him. Outside the airport, the surrounding area was as quiet and barren as an Arizona desert, with scrubby bushes scattered around the fields, and a sizeable parking lot with a few parked cars, the tiny English kind.

  The demonstration he’d referred to was happening just across from the airport lobby doors. There were probably twenty or so men and women holding placards, all neatly printed with declarative statements: DON’T FLY SUNDAYS. HONOUR THE SABBATH. THE DEVIL AND MAMMON ARE ONE AND THE SAME.

  Even though the group wasn’t shouting at us or yelling obscenities, they had situated themselves on each side of the entrance to the parking lot, so that we had to walk the gauntlet to reach the car. I’d encountered many demonstrations and picket lines when I was on the beat, and believe me, the face of violence is ugly and frightening. This wasn’t like that at all. They really could have been a welcoming committee. All were smiling cheerily, dipping their placards up and down like fans at a hockey game.

  At the closest end of the row stood a young woman dressed in a white blazer and a pink-striped dress. A matching pink-straw hat sat rather too squarely on her straight blond hair. She was so candy-coloured that she made me feel positively dull and mannish. I’d put on my long navy London Fog raincoat for warmth over a brown turtleneck sweater and brown cotton-knit pants. I glanced down, and yes, the woman was wearing white nurse shoes. Her particular placard read: LISTEN TO THE LORD. She stepped into our path, blocking the way, and smiled at me with what I could only call a professional smile. She didn’t mean it.

  “Failte. Welcome. Perhaps we could have a few words with you.” Her accent wasn’t British, but I couldn’t place it.

  “Sorry, Miss Pitchers,” said Gillies. “We don’t have time. The lady has an appointment.”

  The young woman didn’t budge. “She is a visitor here and she needs to be apprised of the situation.”

  “I’ll tell her myself. Now, if you wouldn’t mind... ”

  For a moment, I thought the woman wasn’t going to step aside, but a young man standing next to her stepped closer and touched her arm. He looked anxious. The other demonstrators watched us quietly.

  “We should let them go, Coral-Lyn.”

  The woman hesitated, and her eyes met mine. Hers were blue and, in spite of the intensity of her words and the broad smile, her expression was cold. “Enjoy your stay with us, Madam.” She moved aside, and Gillies led me towards a car at the rear of the lot.

  “Who are they?”

  “Sabbatarians. Members of the Lord’s Day Observance Society. They’re against Sunday flights.”

  “They were very civil about it.”

  “That’s because you’re an incomer. There have been some angry exchanges between their group and those who want to bring Lewis into the twenty-first century. Sunday flights only started up last October. This is a conservative island with a deeply rooted history. Most people want to observe the Sabbath by having no commerce going on at all, but there’s a lot of pressure to accommodate tourists. We need the income they generate. It’s an age-old struggle. Conservation versus innovation.”

  I wondered about his personal convictions, but by then we were at the car. Besides, I was shy about asking him. It might have been a throwback to the demure female role, but I was aware I didn’t want to disturb the rather pleasant feelings I’d had towards him so far.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Given the romantic-sounding name, I had expected Stornoway to be picturesque in an Old English sort of way — but it wasn’t. The houses were in a no-nonsense style with buff-coloured stuccoed facings and no frontage for the pretty gardens the English loved. However, they all looked neat and well-kept; there wasn’t a high-rise in sight, nor anything remotely resembling a seedy area.

  “Stornoway has been a working harbour for decades,” said Gillies. “Less so nowadays, more’s the pity. Thank god for the tourists who want to come and cluck sympathetically at all the hardship people endured. It always looks prettier from a distance.”

  “Was it? Hard I mean?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t soul-destroying work like the British working classes had to endure. The Hebrideans fished and worked their crofts, which can be hard physically but is healthy. And people helped each other. There’s a stereotype of the Hebrideans as a bunch of religious old-fashioned bigots, but they’re not. Conservative? Yes, for the most part. Most of them can trace their ancestors to the beginning of civilization as it is known on the islands. That makes you want to preserve your own traditions.” He grinned. “Mind you, they can get very stubborn and argumentative about what those traditions are, which is why we have such a splintered church. But you’ll be hard put to find a more welcoming people. So, to go back to your question, yes, life was hard and made worse by the absentee landlords, who sucked the crofters’ sweat, like fat leeches.”

  I didn’t correct him, point out that leeches sucked blood. There was an edge to his voice that suggested this was a sensitive issue.

  “Were the landlords English?”

  “Most of them, but there were some unscrupulous clan chiefs who were just as greedy. Power corrupts. These days the only people who can really afford to own vast tracts of land to play in are rock stars. The good thing is they tend not to be as stuck in the old traditions, because most of them have come from the lower classes themselves. Besides, a lot of the crofters are joining together and buying the land that their families have worked for generations. Community ownership is thriving.” He smiled over at me. “Perhaps there is justice in the world after all.”

  We turned down another street and I saw an unobtrusive sign that read simply, POLICE, hanging outside a plain brick building, with no fuss or grandeur to it. Certainly no controversial and peculiar sculptures graced the outside entrance the way they did at the main police headquarters in Toronto. Police woman with trowel; a child pulling some kind of monolith on
a cart. What did that mean? Nobody knew any more, and we ignored the strangeness of these sculptures until some puzzled tourist inquired. “They’re symbols, huh?”

  The street was devoid of cars and there were few pedestrians. All the stores were closed. It was Sunday observance indeed. We parked in one of the reserved places in the side parking lot, and Gillies directed me through a door and down a narrow hallway. The glassed-in front lobby was manned by a young uniformed officer, who waved a greeting.

  Inspector Harris’s office was at the end of the hall and the door was closed. Gillies knocked and received an immediate, “Yes?” barked out in an irritated tone of voice.

  He opened the door.

  “Miss Morris is here, sir.”

  “Who?”

  “Miss Morris. It’s her mother who... ”

  He was interrupted by the unseen man.

  “Och, ay. Bring her in.”

  Gillies ushered me into the office. It was a small room dominated by a desk, which was lined up across the end by the window. The inspector was in the chair behind the desk, which meant his back was to the window and his face in shadow. He was holding a telephone receiver to his ear, his hand covering the mouthpiece. He was obviously in mid-call.

  “I’ll call you back,” he said into the phone and hung up. He heaved himself to his feet and reached across the desk.

  “Miss Morris, I’m Jock Harris.”

  We shook hands briefly. He wasn’t a bone crusher, which was a relief, but he seemed uncomfortable, as if men and women shaking hands was new to him. He was younger than I had expected, with reddish hair, cropped close to his head, Scottish style. His face was puffy around the eyes and he seemed fatigued.

  “Please have a seat. Would you like a cup of tea, or coffee? I warn you, it’s from a machine.”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine.”

  I took the chair, and Gillies leaned against the wall behind me. “We haven’t had any more news,” said Harris. “I’ve got one of the constables going house to house in the area of the accident, but we’ve had no joy so far.” He rubbed his hand over his face, wearily. “We’re a bit short of men at the moment. A couple of days ago we were told one of the Royals wants to come over and play a few rounds of golf in the fresh air of Lewis. Nothing official you understand, but it’s a security nightmare for us. Rumour has it he’s bringing a companion, a lass, and if that gets out, we’ll have every media shark in the world on our doorstep.” He paused. “Was your mother pro-royal or anti?”