Does Your Mother Know? (6 page)

“What happened to all the trees?” I asked Gillies, anxious to get away from my own thoughts. He seemed to enjoy the role of teacher.

“According to legend, an early Viking raider named Magnus Barelegs burned most of them down, and they wouldn’t grow again no matter what. Some folks claim the fairies who dwell here underground refused to forgive Magnus. A less romantic interpretation is that the wind is salt-laden and the peat soil too acidic.”

“Why was he called ‘barelegs’?” I asked. “Were all the others ‘trouser shanks’?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was vain about his muscular calves and wanted them to be visible.”

“Hence the kilt?”

He just laughed. I had the feeling Gillies was one such possessor of shapely lower legs. He had removed his windbreaker, underneath which he was wearing the official short-sleeved white shirt with shoulder tabs, indicating his rank and number. His forearms could certainly be called muscular. All that knocking around with hockey sticks, I suppose.

Back to the scenery, which was beautiful but nowhere near as wild as I expected. A two-hour-plus drive from the megalopolis of Toronto and you could be having close encounters of the wild kind
with bears, wolves, and moose. Not to sound superior, but this island was cultivated from stem to stern. However, I also sensed that I was looking at essentially the same landscape that had been there for hundreds of years. We drove on in silence for a while, and I continued to take in gulps of that fresh sea-tinted air. A sign in the two languages — English and Gaelic — thanked us for driving carefully through their village and we passed a gas station which seemed anachronistic at the edge of these moors. Gillies made a turn to the left. I remembered the map I had looked at.

“Aren’t the Callanish Stones in this direction?”

He nodded. “They’re further along.”

So Joan was going to the monolith.

We continued on, not talking much except for my occasional exclamations about the cute black-faced sheep. I can’t help it if sheep rarely appear in my life. Finally I settled back in my seat. Time to address the issue.

“I had only the briefest of conversations with Inspector Harris about the accident. Do you have any theories about what happened?”

“The road can be treacherous at night and it was raining heavily on Friday. It would have been easy to lose control of the car, especially for somebody not used to left-hand drive. As Jock told you, the passenger, Mrs. MacDonald, was thrown out and must have died instantly. There was no sign of blood in the car and nothing we could see in the vicinity, so we don’t know if Mrs. Morris was injured or not.”

“When was the accident discovered?”

“Not until six-thirty on Saturday morning. The constable from Barvas was on his way to the station when he saw it.”

“Has the autopsy report come back yet?”

“Not so far.”

“I understand from Harris that it’s unlikely she’s lying under a rock somewhere unconscious. Or that she’s wandered into the sea and drowned.”

He glanced over at me. His voice was kind. “I don’t believe so. We’ve done a thorough search. She’s no in the hospital here.”

“All that’s left then, is hiding out. Either with a concussion and possible injury, being tended to by a kindly but unsuspecting bedand-breakfast landlady, or without — just hiding somewhere.”

“That’s not as likely as you might think. I told you we’re a small island. We sent a constable door-to-door in the nearest villages, and nobody has seen her. There are a few one-family B & Bs round and about, and everybody talks.” He adopted a heavy Scots accent. “‘And hoo are yir guests, Mrs. MacLeod? I just got shut of an Englishman who would hev tried the patience of a saint. But noo, I have a bonnie lass from Germany. And yes, I will take that fillet for our supper, ye know how famished the incomers are for good fresh fish that hasn’t been drinking in pison all its wee life.’ Sorry, I didn’t mean to be frivolous.”

I excused him. “Joan could have got a lift somewhere. She certainly couldn’t fly without ID, but maybe she’s got to one of the ferries. I told Harris she had previously booked a B&B on Skye.”

I was starting to feel as if I were with my old partner, Bill Matteo, chewing over the evidence, throwing out suggestions, worrying at the fabric of the case. It was calming.

“That is not totally impossible, but you may have noticed there aren’t that many cars on the road. If one of the locals gave her a ride, by now we’d have heard of it. We did ring both the ferry captains sailing out of Stornoway and Tarbert, but nobody fitting her description was noticed on any of the ferries leaving the island. It’s still early in the tourist season, so it’s likely she would have been noticed. Besides we’re back to the question of money. I can’t imagine she was carrying enough loose change in her pockets to pay for a ferry ride. These days it costs an arm and a leg.”

We came around a bend in the road and I saw a small herd of sheep with their lambs trotting across the moor parallel to the road. Two black-and-white border collies, tongues hanging out, heads held low in the typical border-collie fashion, were crisscrossing back and forth, keeping the flock moving. A tall man in a floppy tweed hat, matching jacket, and corduroy breeches was walking behind the dogs. He had a shepherd’s crook in his hand. I thought I had gone through a time warp.

Suddenly one of the more adventurous or foolish members of the herd broke away and headed across the road, directly in front of the car. It was presumably intent on suicide or believed the grass was greener on the other side. Gillies jammed on the brakes and we skidded to a stop a few feet short of the sheep, which halted in the middle of the road, chewing its cud and regarding us impassively. Immediately, one of the dogs ran over. The sheep, or ram rather, turned, and the dog halted and went into a crouch. Dog and ram stared at each other, and the ram lowered its head and pawed the ground. The collie curled back his lip and showed a glistening set of teeth. The ram was unfazed and pawed again. First warning over, the dog, with one quick rush, jumped at the ram’s head, giving it a smart nip on the nose. Then while he still had the advantage of surprise, he ran around and nipped the recalcitrant one in the rear. The ram conceded defeat, baaed loudly, and scampered off to join the rest of the herd, who were grazing indifferently at the side of the road, watched over by the second collie.

The shepherd whistled a signal, and while the dogs circled and got the sheep on the move, the man approached the car and bent into the window.

“
Feashgar mhah,
Gill.”

“Good afternoon yourself. Close call that.”

“Stupid creature. It’s no the first time. He’ll get himself killed one of these days.”

The man was crouching down so he could see me better. I glimpsed blue eyes, a strong nose in a weather-tanned face.

“Good dog you’ve got there,” I said.

Politely, Gillies indicated me. “Duncan, this is Miss Christine Morris. She’s from Canada.”

“Is she?” He jerked himself away from the window. “I’d better get a move on.” And he strode off whistling to the dogs, who wheeled the sheep away from the road and across the moor.

Gillies put the car in gear and started off again.

“What’s he got against Canada?” I asked.

“How do you mean?”

“He acted like you hit him with a shinty stick when you said where I was from.”

“He did, didn’t he? Don’t take it personally, he must have been in a hurry.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s a local, an old-time crofter, grows some crops, raises a few sheep. Mostly gets himself a tidy living running his dogs for the tourists. In the high season, he’ll do as many as three demonstrations a day.”

“Border collies are supposed to be the most intelligent of the breeds.”

“I suppose they are if you consider living only to work as a sign of intelligence, which is debatable... as we’ve said.”

“Do you have a dog yourself?”

“No. I’d love one, but I’m at work all day and there’s nobody else who could take care of him.”

There it was, the last bit of information in his dossier.

Not that, given the circumstances, anything could come of it, but I was just the tiniest bit wistful. Paula accused me of being too independent and said I scared off prospective suitors. She was probably right, and it had been almost five years since my last lover had departed with hurt feelings, on his side more than mine, I have to admit. Secretly I found take-charge men attractive, as long as they weren’t arrogant or patronizing. I think the sergeant’s behaviour at the airport had got to me.

There was a beeping from the vicinity of Gillies’s back pocket, and he fished out a cell phone and put it to his ear.

“Sergeant Gillies here.”

I couldn’t hear anything of the other side of the conversation, but he frowned and made a couple of hmm, hmm noises. I caught the involuntary glance over at me.

“Right. I’ll go there at once.” He disconnected.

“News?” I asked.

“Aye. We’ve had a call-in about a man over on the west shore. A local. His body was discovered in his house this morning. Cause of death at the moment is not known, but he’s been dead for a couple
of days it seems... ” He paused, and I could see he was trying to find the right words, words that wouldn’t be too alarming. “According to the report I just received, neighbours told the constable that they saw a hired car leaving the premises late Friday night.”

“A car that fits the description of the one my mother was driving, I presume?”

“Yes. A red Vauxhall.”

Before he could continue, he had to squeeze over to the left, just avoiding a head-on collision with a truck coming towards us. As the vehicle whipped past, I saw three black-and-white border collies, swaying like surfers, standing in the open back.

Gillies said something in Gaelic that didn’t need translation and I waited for a moment for my adrenaline rush to subside.

“So we are to assume Joan was visiting a man, now dead, just before she was involved in a car accident and a fatality.”

“Apparently so.”

Oh great!

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I should go and check out what’s happened. Do you feel all right about coming along?” Gillies asked me.

“Of course.”

We were now driving by a cluster of small houses, most of them grey or dun-coloured, the colour of the moor. Here and there were what I assumed were the peat stacks, looking like large plops of dinosaur dung. A woman was pushing a stroller along the side of the road and waved to us as we passed. Gillies waved back.

“The constable from the village is at the house. He knew about the MacDonald accident, which is why he called in to headquarters when the neighbours spoke to him. The dead man’s name is Tormod MacAulay. I’ve met him a few times myself. An older bloke. Good chap. I’d heard he was in poor health.”

“Good,” I said, knowing he’d understand what I meant.

“I’ll still make a stop at the accident site. It’s on the way.”

The terrain was changing again, and rock-strewn low hills rose up to the left. The road snaked. On the right, fields, more rock than grass, swept down to the sea, which had turned slate grey. The sun had vanished and rain was spattering the windshield.

Gillies turned a bend, then slowed and pulled off the road onto the shoulder.

“There’s the spot.”

He pointed across from us, but I could see no signs of what had happened. A guardrail that followed the crest of the road was intact. Gillies reached into the back seat for his wind-breaker and we both got out and crossed to the other side. The wind was blustery and I clutched the collar of my raincoat, bowing my head against the chill of the rain. I fancied the rock spirits were trying to drive me away like nesting birds dive-bombing approaching predators. There was a narrow verge at the edge of the road, and one step beyond that the hill fell off into a steep incline. Grey lichen-encrusted rocks broke through the ground, as sharp and vicious as the snouts of sharks. A small car crashing onto those rocks would have been shredded. The sea was about a quarter of a mile away and, in direct line from the site, was an inlet, the waves foaming white at the feet of the cliffs. It seemed too far away for anyone to have accidentally just fallen into it, but I did wonder if Joan — or rather, Joan’s body — was drifting somewhere in that frigid water. I glanced around. Shards of glass were scattered among the rocks, but other than that there was little indication there had been an accident. The few low-growing bushes were sculpted by the constant winds into frozen motion. It was hard to tell if they had been flattened or not.

“Seen enough?”

The tip of Gillies’s nose had turned red, and he had his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

“Yes, thanks. Let’s get back into the car.”

Once in, he turned on the heater.

“You can see how sharp a curve that is. She mustn’t have been able to control the turn.”

“I suppose there’s no doubt about which direction she was coming from?”

“None. The angle of the car was conclusive. She was coming from the south.”

He pulled back onto the road. I checked my watch, a deeply ingrained habit from being in the front line when it might be essential to pinpoint the time of an incident. Less than six minutes later,
we were passing habitation again. Five minutes more and we turned right onto a narrow, unpaved road.

“The house is just along here,” said Gillies. “Mr. and Mrs. MacLean live on that side.” He waved acknowledgement to some invisible people. The front lace curtain twitched, but I didn’t see them.

One hundred metres and the road dipped suddenly, then swerved sharply left, ending at a fence and wooden farm gate, which was open. The house stood alone in a rough, grassy field. A long, rutted driveway ran down to the front door, then made a loop in front. In the island formed by the loop was a flower garden, the pinks and yellows of the flowers a splash of colour in the sombre landscape. Directly in front of the house were two vehicles: a burgundy mini and behind it a marked white-and-blue police car.

“We might as well park here and walk down,” said Gillies. “The ambulance hasn’t arrived yet.”