Does Your Mother Know? (18 page)

There was no news in the search for Joan. All the ferry captains had been contacted, but with no result. The description was so general, it wasn’t that helpful. Gill told me that Jock was considering bringing in a tracking dog from Inverness, but he had to wait until they knew for sure if the Royal Prince was coming. If he was, they’d need the dogs for bomb detection.

“A higher priority, I’m sure,” I said. I wasn’t resentful about
that. I understood the decisions that had to be made with limited resources. “Is the lad really coming?”

“It’s a last-minute choice between us and St. Andrews. Because of the girlfriend there’ll be a media frenzy if word gets out, so we’re trying to keep it quiet.” He shrugged. “You met Janice. Doing that successfully is rather like carrying water in a sieve. If he does come here, his intention is to play golf down in Harris — weather permitting — have dinner at Scarista House, then come back to Stornoway and fly to Edinburgh.”

“Why would he come all the way over here?”

Gillies shrugged. “I suppose he thinks it’ll be nice and private. You’d be surprised at how many people still think of the Hebrides as untamed wilderness. And of course, the tourist board plays it up like that.”

I had been one of those people until I came here, so I didn’t pursue the matter.

In turn, I related the afternoon’s birthing crisis. This led into the inevitable inquiry, “Did you ever want to have kids?” Standard answer, “I wasn’t in the right place at the right time.” I might have elaborated if I’d been talking with a woman, but not with a man I’d just met and whom I was finding far too attractive. Maybe it was sympathetic hormones released by Mairi’s pregnancy.

I steered the conversation around to his two daughters. Both of them were going in for law: the older one was already articling, the younger one was in her second year at Edinburgh law school. He said they intended to set up a practice together. I liked the way he talked about them. He seemed proud of them for themselves not just because they reflected well on him. I also liked the way his skin and eyes had a healthy glow to them. I liked the way he smelled of soap. I especially liked the way he didn’t drink too much. And that’s quite a list for a short acquaintance.

And that was that. Ten o’clock and time to return to the hotel. A hug at my door this time, a rather protracted hug. Very nice, but I was too old for the “handshake and bedshake” scenario, and I went into my room alone. Let’s not be stupid here. So all in all, a great evening.

Contrary to the sense of “any minute now,” the infant hadn’t made an appearance by the time Gill had come to pick me up for dinner, but when I returned, the hotel was quiet. I considered going to Mairi’s apartment, but I didn’t want to intrude.

After a bit of restless tossing around, I fell asleep, but just after midnight I was awakened by a soft tapping at the door.

“Chris. It’s me, Lisa.”

I slipped on my robe and opened the door. “It’s late, I know, but I thought you deserved to see her after what happened.” Lisa was standing there with the baby in her arms. She pulled back the blanket so I could see the tiny red squashed face, almost obscured by a pale yellow toque.

“She’s two hours old. Here, do you want to hold her?

I didn’t get a chance to answer and she passed over the bundle, surprisingly light and warm.

“Does she have a name yet?”

“Anna, after our mother.”

“And the birth went well? Mairi is all right?”

“She is fine. Apparently it was a totally normal delivery, but she’s asleep at the moment. I stole the baby to come and show you.”

“She’s very cute. How does Colin feel about his new daughter? He has come back hasn’t he?”

“About an hour ago, when it was all over. Gillian told him it was a girl, and you know what he said, the yobbo?”

“Nothing good, I gather.”

“His words were, ‘
A girl
!
What a piss off
!’”

Little Anna stirred and made soft smacking noises with her puckered mouth. Lisa rocked her. “Uh, uh, she’ll be wanting her momma’s boobie. I’d better get back.”

“Thanks for bringing her.”

Lisa was glowing with auntly pride. She kissed the sleeping baby on the cheek.

“Ye’re going ta break their hearts are ye no, ma wee bonny babe?”

Colin said his sister-in-law had had a hard life, and I gathered
from the intensity of her Miss Havisham remark that the opposite sex was a big factor in her difficulties.

She glanced at me over the top of the baby’s head. “When you hear the expression, ‘the miracle of birth’ you don’t really know what that means until you’ve actually been present at one, do you?”

“My best friend asked me to be birth coach to my now-god-child. It was one of the best experiences of my life.”

“Was her husband there?”

“He was. While Paula went into the final stages of labour, he and I stood on either side of the hospital bed, calling out, PUSH! PUSH! for all the world as if we were rowing coaches. She said it helped though.”

Lisa laughed. “Well I’ve never done the deed, and even though it was all so bloody marvellous, after watching what my sister went through, I don’t think I will. Being an aunt is good enough for me, thank you very much.”

We both stared down at little Anna, who was getting fitful, waving one of her tiny fists in random movements.

“That’s it. Make your demands known,” said Lisa.

I could see this girl child was going to get quite a feminist education.

“I’ll be away then. See you tomorrow at the funeral.” For a moment she looked sad. “Tormod would have liked to see the baby. He took an interest in Mairi’s pregnancy. Not like her ass-hole husband.”

Lisa took the infant’s hand and waved it at me. “
Feasgar math.
Good night.”

I imitated her as best I could. “Feshga ma.”

“That was very good. We’ll get you speaking the Gaelic in next to no time.”

She left and I walked over to the window.

Lisa had used the expression “the miracle of birth,” and her delight in the baby was apparent. I was overwhelmed by the memory of what we’d all kept euphemistically calling “the incident.”

Little Anna had been so light in my arms because she was a newborn. When I’d picked up Sunny DeLuca, she was also light, but in her case it was because she had been starved. Sondra’s apartment was on the second floor of a dilapidated building near Parliament and Queen streets. We’d got an anonymous call that a baby had been crying non-stop, and the caller, a woman, thought there was nobody with it. Usually, Children’s Aid is called immediately, but this afternoon, there was a heavy snowfall and the worker was stuck on the Don Valley. I went to investigate and was there before anybody else, including the beat constable. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon. I had to bang hard on the door before a young woman finally answered.

“Good afternoon, Sondra here. Sondra with an O.” She was clearly stoned and grinned at me in a befuddled way. I told her why I was there and she looked bewildered. “Sunny crying? She never does that; she’s such a good baby.”

“Can I see her?” She made a grand gesture to usher me in that almost made her lose her balance. I stepped into one room. Even with the windows open, the room stank as if the toilet was blocked and had overflowed. This turned out to be true, but Sondra hadn’t reported it because she was so out of it she hadn’t noticed. Besides, she was hardly home. Her child didn’t have the luxury of getting out, and she was in her crib in the corner of the room. A man, who was the neighbour by the name of Anton Longboat, and who may have been Sunny’s father, was sprawled on the sagging couch watching a tiny television set. He didn’t speak to me at all and hardly seemed to notice I was there. I asked to see the child.

“Be my guest,” said Sondra. “She’s sleeping.” She wasn’t. She was just lying there in her own excrement in the filthy crib. I must have made some exclamation, although I don’t remember doing that, and her enormous dark eyes looked into mine. She was physically alive, but the life of her soul had been extinguished a long time ago and would probably never return. I reached for my cell phone and started to dial 911.

“We’ve got to get this child to the hospital at once.”

Sondra came over to the crib. “Why? She’s fine. She just needs a little tittie, don’t you, Hon?” She tugged at her T-shirt to expose her breast. She was staggering, and as she went to pick up the baby, she almost toppled into the crib on top of her. I grabbed her arm.

“Where are the child’s clothes? She’s going to the hospital.” Sondra scowled at me. “That hurt.” Her T-shirt was still pulled up and her flaccid breast was hanging over her bra. “She’ll be all right,” she said, and made another attempt to pick up the baby. She managed to lift her and the sodden diaper slipped off. The rash covering the thin buttocks was like a burn, raw and oozing. Sunny let out a wail, but she was so weak it was like listening to a kitten mew. “Oh, fuck you then,” said Sondra, and she dropped her roughly back into the crib.

I could feel my own anger hot up my back and I knew I had lost all objectivity. “I’m asking you once more where the baby’s clothes are?”

Sondra suddenly turned nasty. “She doesn’t have any clothes. She doesn’t need any. We don’t get out much.”

“Did you leave her alone for the last two nights?”

“She was all right. A girl has to have fun sometimes. I can’t stay home all the time.”

“She’s going to the hospital.”

I suppose my contempt was unmistakable. Sondra yelled at me, “No she’s not, she’s mine,” and suddenly, without warning, she flew at me, hands like claws ready to scratch whatever she could reach. I grabbed her by the wrists, but she struggled violently. I tried to get her arm pinned behind her back, but she was fighting too hard. I managed to get my leg behind her knees and she fell to the floor, me on top of her. There were a couple more violent upheavals, then suddenly she lay still. I thought she was playing dead, ready to attack again as soon as I relaxed, it’s a common trick, but as I moved cautiously away I saw that she had stopped breathing.

After that things moved at warp speed. Fortunately, the para-medics had answered my first call promptly and they were at the door even as I realized what had happened. They couldn’t revive her. The boyfriend sat and stared. There had to be an inquiry, of course, by the Special Investigations Unit, and I was temporarily suspended from duty. The inquest revealed a damaged heart from constant intake of alcohol and drugs. Sondra DeLuca could have had a heart attack at any time. However, the boyfriend was aboriginal, Sunny was probably mixed race, and suddenly we were into another ball game entirely. He said I had handled her roughly, thought I might even have hit her. There were no bruises on her body to substantiate this accusation, so it was dismissed. I was completely exonerated of misconduct, but I knew how angry I’d been. How much I had wanted to hurt the self-involved wretch who was Sondra DeLuca. It had nothing to do with race, but there were many people who didn’t believe that. I was literally spat on, yelled at, and generally the target of a corrosive hatred I could do nothing about. Sunny was immediately put into the care of the Children’s Aid, but I had seen the look in her eyes, and I wept for her many times in the solitude of my own room. I had to undergo compulsory sessions with the police shrink, which was probably a good thing, although I doubt I was an easy subject. Not surprisingly, Sondra herself had been the object of terrible neglect and her life had been a miserable one, but I realized I hardly cared, and with that knowledge, I decided to resign.

All my pals tried to talk me out of it, but I’d had it up to the eyeballs with policing. It was Paula who, yet again, came forward as the saviour who in some ways knew me better than I knew myself. She had been with the OPP special services branch for two years, and she loved the work. “You can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, pun intended. You’re a cop. Come and join me. You’ve got the experience and the brains and you don’t have to look at the likes of Sondra with an O ever again.” So I applied, got the job, and had been there exactly one week when Jim suggested this conference.

I didn’t go back to sleep, and daylight came again at four-thirty. At five I got out of bed, took a long shower, then sat at the window again, watching the rest of the world slowly wake up.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

At seven-thirty, I went downstairs to the dining room. A sign on the serving table said “PLEASE HELP YOURSELF. BABY BORN LAST NIGHT.” I was definitely not in the mood for polite conversation with other guests, so I poured some coffee, took a muffin from the basket, and was leaving to go back upstairs when Gill walked in.

“Chris. So glad I caught you.”

His expression was serious, and my stomach did the usual lurch.

“Any news?”

“Not about your mother, I’m afraid, but there’s something I want to show you. I’d like your professional opinion.” He glanced around. “Do you mind if we go to your room?”

“Of course. Grab a coffee and muffin.”

He followed me upstairs while I tried to remember if I’d left any unmentionables strewn around.

Whew. I hadn’t.

The room wasn’t exactly luxuriously furnished and there was only one chair and the bed to sit on. I took the chair.

“So what’s up?”

He had a briefcase with him, and he opened it and took out an envelope and a piece of paper, both of them enclosed in plastic sheets.

“This letter was waiting for me at the station.” The envelope was addressed to him, printed by hand. The letter, also printed, on a single sheet of paper, read as follows:

MESSAGE TO SERGEANT GILLIES: THIS IS A
WARNING. YOU MUST STOP THE WHITE
DOGS. THEY ARE GETTING OUT OF CONTROL
AND WILL CAUSE TROUBLE ON ALL
OF US. THEY INTEND TO ACT WHEN THE
ROYAL PERSONAGE COMES TO LEWIS.
YOU KNOW WHO THEY ARE
. YOU MUST
STOP THEM!