Does Your Mother Know?

by Maureen Jennings

  “What’s the date of the paper that’s on the easy chair?” Gillies took a look. “Last Wednesday.”

  “That fits. The Gazette only comes out once a week. He always walked into Carloway in the morning to get it.”

  She hesitated, watching me for guidance.

  “Please go on.”

  “That vase shouldn’t be on the table. It was kept in the back cupboard. He never used it.”

  “But he would have needed it if he’d got flowers.” I phrased that as noncommittally as I could. Hey, in spring even the manly Scot might be moved by the rising sap to bring some flowers into the house. On the other hand, if his visitor had picked the flowers, it was a bit cheeky to take them from his own garden. Joan would do that, I was certain of it.

  Lisa shrugged. “I suppose so.” She went over to a glass-fronted cabinet that was adjacent to the door.

  “Nothing has been moved in here that I can see.” She opened the bottom door and peered inside. I could see one or two bottles of liquor. She straightened up. “Sorry again. I’m thick as a plank today. You said ‘anything out of place,’ and I was taking you literally. The bottle of Scotch is in here where it always is, but it’s almost empty. I didn’t really think about it when I poured you some, but now you’ve got me going. It was a full bottle when I was here last. I know because I brought it in for him.”

  “You don’t think he drank it himself?”

  “He wasn’t allowed to any more. He kept it on hand just for visitors. It’s a tradition in these parts that’s as old as the rocks themselves. A wee dram for the road, right Gill?”

  “A dram or two more often than not.”

  They smiled at each other, a smile that, intentionally or not, excluded me.

  I pushed on. “Well, it does appear that Sarah MacDonald visited here on Friday evening. It looks like he served her some single malt. A lot of single malt.”

  “Maybe the other woman tossed back a few,” said Lisa. “That’s possible isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “Very possible.”

  “Do you want me to keep going?”

  “Please.”

  She circled the room, making her mental tally. At the fireplace, she stopped and pointed at a framed photograph on the mantelpiece. Three men standing in front of a fluted organ, all of them in dark suits. There was no mistaking a young, beaming Andy MacAulay — or the family resemblance among the three men.

  “That was Andy being accepted into the church. That’s his dad, Iain, on the right, and Tormod’s on the left.”

  At the other end of the mantelpiece was another photograph: an enlarged snapshot of Her Majesty the Queen, shaking hands with a beaming Tormod.

  “The Queen came to Stornoway last year, and he was presented to her.”

  “He looks happy.”

  “He was. I took the picture, as a matter of fact. I tell you frankly, I didn’t expect to be so impressed, but the Queen is still a pretty woman. Very sweet in fact.”

  We moved on. Lisa was a good witness. I could tell she didn’t embellish anything or make up things to please me.

  “Were any of the curtains drawn when you came in, by the way?”

  She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Yes. The living-room and kitchen curtains were closed. I opened all of them. Like I said, I had to let in some fresh air.”

  “Are you okay to tackle upstairs then?” I asked her.

  “I suppose so.”

  “The sheet is still on the bed,” added Gillies. “It’s bloodstained.”

  “That won’t bother me. I worked for three summers at the local old folks’ home, and believe me, you develop a strong stomach for the sight and smell of bodily substances.”

  “Let’s go then. Same instructions as before.”

  Our little trio made its way upstairs.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Gillies waited at the top of the stairs.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Lisa nodded, and we went into the bedroom.

  In spite of what she’d said previously, she flinched. The coverlet was folded back and the bloodstains were vivid on the sheet. The air was rank.

  “First impressions?” I asked her.

  “I’m sounding like I’m stuck in a groove, but I have to say the same thing. It’s tidy, and Tormod was basically a mucky man. He always dropped his clothes on the floor as he took them off. He said he didn’t see any point to putting them away when he was going to wear them the next day. They’re not there.”

  “He was wearing a white T-shirt and grey jogging pants, with his dressing gown on top,” said Gillies.

  “That’s it then. He hardly ever wore anything else these days. His pyjamas should be under his pillow.” She went over to look and showed us a pair of folded, red striped flannel PJs. “Hold on... where are his books? He liked to read before he went to sleep, and he always had one or two novels on the go.” She jerked open the drawer of the bedside table. “Aha. Here they are.” She took out a couple of paperbacks. “He loved thrillers best. Especially the American ones. I wonder why he put them away? Did you do that, Gill?”

  “I did not.”

  The only book on the table was a large Bible.

  “Was that usually there?” I asked her.

  “It was. He’d have what he called his sweet first, which was one of the novels, then he’d read something from the Bible before he went to sleep.”

  “He was a devout man, I take it?”

  She looked at me with surprise. “Devout? More traditional, really. He grew up when everybody read the Bible daily, and it was a habit.” She sighed. “Getting some people to move with the times on this island is as slow hard as scraping crotal off the rocks.”

  She didn’t explain the simile, but I could guess what it meant.

  “Will you check the wardrobe and the dresser?”

  She opened the big, old-fashioned wardrobe and a waft of camphor floated out. The rack was packed with suits, all of them dark-coloured.

  “He has hardly worn these lately. He stopped going to church months ago, because he didn’t like having to explain how he was to people. He hated being sick and he said their sympathy weakened him.” She closed the wardrobe door. “Nothing amiss in there.” She did a quick check of the dresser with the same result.

  I pointed at the desk underneath the window.

  “Did you ever have occasion to go into his desk?”

  “Once or twice, I suppose, for his glasses, when he didn’t want to get up out of bed. Do you want me to look in there?” She went over to the desk and rolled back the top. “Hmn... nothing... Wait!” She picked up an envelope and peeked inside. “Shit! Cheeky bugger.”

  She held out two Polaroid photographs. They had been taken from the bedroom window, by the looks of it, and the photographer was focussing down into the side garden. The shots were of Lisa kneeling in the flower bed. She was wearing shorts and a skimpy halter top, and the position of the photographer meant he had a good view of her cleavage.

  She peered at the pictures. “That was taken just two weeks ago when I was here last. It was hot that day, which is why I’m in my brevvies.”

  “I take it you didn’t know he was photographing you?”

  “I did not.”

  Her eyes met mine and she shrugged. “Some lads never give it up, do they?”

  But I could see the anger. And the hurt. These photos were intended to be a secret.

  “I suppose there’s no doubt Mr. MacAulay was the person who took the pictures?”

  “Who else would it be? There wasn’t anybody else here that day.”

  Gillies had looked over my shoulder. He made no comment and she tore the photos in two and tossed them in the wastebasket.

  “I don’t suppose Andy will want these, and neither do I.”

  The desk was the kind that had a few cubbyholes at the back, and I saw a familiar British Airways envelope.

  “Those must be airline tickets,” I said, pointing. “Was he planning a trip
?”

  “Not that I know of. He was to move to Stornoway at the end of the month.”

  She looked inside the envelope, and I could see the shock on her face.

  “That’s ridiculous. It’s a ticket to Houston, Texas, a week from now.”

  “May I see?”

  She handed me the ticket. “It’s one-way,” I said. “He doesn’t seem to have planned a return trip.”

  “That’s crazy. He never breathed a word about going to America.”

  “The ticket was issued this past Thursday.”

  “Bugger that.”

  “Does he have family there?”

  “None at all. Believe me, I know all his life history. His ex-wife and daughter live in New Zealand, but there’s nobody in the States.”

  Suddenly she sat down on the wooden chair and put her head in her hands.

  “I don’t understand. We had a lot of plans for when he moved into his apartment. I was going to decorate it for him. Why would-n’t he tell me he was going on a trip? And why doesn’t he have a return ticket?”

  Another betrayal from Mr. MacAulay. Lisa had enjoyed the role of confidant.

  She was crying. The choked-off cries of somebody who doesn’t weep easily. Gillies put his hand lightly on her shoulder, fished out a white handkerchief from his pocket, and handed it to her. I moved away a little, waiting for her to regain her control. As I did so, I noticed a framed picture lying face down at the back of the desk. I took it out. It was a black-and-white studio portrait of a younger MacAulay and his family. He was wearing a formal suit, wide tie, and equally broad lapels, and his dark hair was thick, smoothed back from his face. The woman seated beside him, presumably his wife, was unsmiling. A long jawline and thin nose precluded any prettiness, and she hadn’t helped herself by wearing a plain dowdy dress that was more appropriate to a Victorian servant girl. Each of them was holding a child. The boy on his lap was in short pants, wearing a Fair-Isle sweater, the girl, hair in careful ringlets, looked as if she were about to burst into tears. Nobody appeared happy, and the picture, shoved to the back of the desk, was testimony to the rancour of the breakup.

  Lisa had wiped at her face and stuffed the handkerchief in her pocket. She spoke in Gaelic to Gillies, and I gathered she was speaking about the handkerchief. He smiled and nodded at her.

  I showed her the photograph. “When did they get divorced?”

  “Eons ago. More than forty years. She was a MacNeil and, according to my grandmother, the poor woman was considered one of the ugliest girls on the island. Tongues clacked when she got engaged to the handsome Tormod, who was a proper masher by all accounts.” She grimaced. “When Iain appeared just six months after the wedding, the questions were answered. Everybody knew how Margaret had snagged him.”

  “And she’s in New Zealand now?”

  “She is. The divorce was quite a scandal at the time, because nobody whatsoever was divorcing on this island. She emigrated soon after, taking their daughter with her. She left Iain as if he were a piece of furniture she didn’t want. Tormod said he never saw his daughter again after she went to New Zealand. Her mother would-n’t allow it. I’d better remind Andy to notify her. Although I don’t know where the hell she is.” Lisa indicated the little boy in the photograph. “That’s Andy’s father, Iain. He married Mary MacIver from Barra, but she didn’t survive complications from childbirth. She passed away only two days after Andy was born. It was so tragic. I can still remember the funeral up at Back Church. Iain never remarried, and now he’s passed on.” She sniffed. “For what it’s worth, I think not having a mom’s the reason Andy hooked up with Coral-Lyn.” She made a vague gesture with her hands to indicate big breasts. “I shouldn’t gossip though. She’s a good Christian soul. She works hard for the church, so I hear, and the two of them visited Tormod faithfully. Not on the weekend, of course.”

  “Church duties?” I asked disingenuously. I knew what she was getting at, but wanted her to say it.

  “Partly that. More to do with me. Coral-Lyn didn’t like the fact I live here.”

  “Right. As Mr. MacAulay’s companion.”

  “Exactly.” She sighed, and I could see her thinking about the small betrayal of his voyeurism. “Miss Pitchers is what I’d call ‘intense,’” she went on. “Too much for me. Besides, all that Lord’s Day Observance stuff is so yesterday. Who cares about preserving the Sabbath these days when the entire world needs preserving much more? Not working on Sundays isn’t going to do it, believe me.”

  She gulped back a sob, but I knew it wasn’t to do with any religious convictions. For all her “I’m a tough broad” attitude, Lisa was in a state of shock. I put my hand on her shoulder and she touched it briefly with her callused palm.

  “Do you want to see the rest of this floor?”

  “Yes, if you don’t mind.”

  Her bedroom was across the hall, and we went there first. Given Lisa’s rather determinedly teenaged appearance, I expected to see an unholy mess, but it wasn’t that at all. There was a single bed covered with a beautiful plaid blanket, an armchair under the window, a set of bookshelves filled to overflowing, and a small student desk, neatly stacked with papers.

  “Everything’s as I left it.” She stroked the blanket. “That’s Tormod’s work. He made it for me for Christmas.”

  “What are you studying?” I asked as we went out into the hall. “Environmental issues. My specialization is oceanic conservation.”

  “That sounds suitable for a Hebridean girl.”

  She grinned.

  Once again, Gillies was holding a door open for us, and she went into the bathroom while I stood at the threshold.

  “It looks cleaner than usual, that’s all. Maybe he was anticipating me coming in. We’d have big rows all the time about the mess. Me, I like things neat and tidy.”

  We moved back into the hall, and she stopped at the top of the stairs.

  “I’m getting tired of this. Surely you don’t want me to go on? We’ve seen everything.”

  “No, that’s terrific. I appreciate your help.”

  She didn’t say anything until we were downstairs, then, rather oddly, she addressed Gillies. “What’s this all about Gill? Do you suspect a burglar or something?”

  He passed it deftly on to me. “Miss Morris just wanted to satisfy herself that there was nothing untoward about Tormod’s death.”

  That angered Lisa, who was already at the edge of frayed nerves. She rounded on me. “What the hell does that mean, untoward? Do you think somebody offed him?”

  “I really don’t know, Lisa. I told you, it’s my job, and given the possible involvement of my own mother, I wanted to make sure Tormod died from natural causes.”

  “And are you sure?”

  I stared at her for a moment.

  “I wish I could say I was.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Lisa had left to go to the village store for some groceries. I thought she might be reluctant to stay in the house, but she said she had a lot of studying to do and this was her home as much as anywhere else. Before she went, she stripped the bed and put the sheets and coverlet into the washing machine. There was nothing I could do about that. This was not an official crime scene.

  Gillies and I sat a bit longer in the kitchen drinking more fortified tea and talked over all possibilities. The most likely scenario was that MacAulay, against character, had tidied up his house because he was expecting visitors. All that told me was that the visitors were important — even important enough to possibly pick some mums, although I was still betting on Joan for that. The outof-place cups, the newspaper, and the vase didn’t say much. People moved things from one place to another without it meaning a damn thing. The hiding of the novels in his bedroom could also indicate a desire to impress. He was a Bible-reading man. Of course, that also suggested he was expecting his visitor to view the bedroom, and here the memory of the condoms in Joan’s suitcase hung in the air. We didn’t address it.

  Sever
al things niggled like a badly cut jigsaw puzzle. First, there were the whisky glasses. Unless they swigged from the bottle, the (at least) two women had downed several drinks, but the glasses were in the cupboard. Did Tormod’s fit of tidiness extend to washing glasses after his visitors left? Second niggle: If he had gone up to bed as Dr. MacBeth insisted he had, why didn’t he undress? Third big niggle: As I’d tried to say to the doctor, there was the side from which he’d hemorrhaged.

  But if none of these niggles were the innocent variables of real life, what were they? And back we were again. But the picture slipped away like Jell-O on a spoon as soon as I tried to bite into it.

  I hadn’t mentioned to Gillies my interest in my sperm donor, but I was rapidly developing one possible story. This was a conservative religious community. Joan was only eighteen when I was born, and although from the beginning she called herself Mrs. Morris, I’d be very surprised if she’d had benefit of clergy. There was a good possibility that she got herself knocked up and fled to Canada. Was this a happy coupling or not? There was no way to know at the moment. She’d told me she wanted to lay some ghosts to rest. I just hoped she didn’t create one.

  Gillies pushed back his chair and began to gather the tea cups.

  “Come on, let’s get you to the hotel. I suggest you try to have a rest while I go to the station and see if there’s any news. How about if I come over about eight and take you to dinner? There’s a good wee restaurant near the hotel that specializes in Scotland’s national dish.”

  “My God, not the famous haggis? I don’t know if I’m up to eating sheep’s intestines.”

  “That used to be Scotland’s national dish. Now we’re talking fresh-caught salmon with delicate herb seasoning and buttered potatoes. Tourist traps.”

  “Now you’re talking. I’ll just use the bathroom before we go... all that tea.”

  While he went to the sink, I trotted upstairs. I did have to use the facilities, but I was really interested in checking the bathroom. Before I washed my hands, I scrutinized the sink. Both it and the toilet bowl were scrupulously clean. If MacAulay had bled in the bathroom, there was no sign of it. There was a medicine cabinet, but there was nothing in it except a flattened tube of shaving cream, toothpaste, and a toothbrush. No floss. There was a full bottle of prescription sleeping pills and the usual pharmaceutical paraphernalia you’d expect with a man in such ill health. Just as I was about the switch off the light, I saw a wicker laundry hamper tucked in beside the toilet. I looked inside. There was the usual pile of used T-shirts and underwear, but on top of the heap was a tea towel that had been saturated in blood.