“You were walking along the cliffs in the middle of the night in the rain?”
She shrugged. “I grew up doing that.”
I didn’t like that answer at all with its myriad implications, but I turned to MacKenzie. “Why didn’t you go and get her car on Saturday?”
He was getting truly exasperated now, but I didn’t care. “Because, Miss Sherlock, my car was dead as a doornail. Shona needed tending to, so that’s what I did. I thought the car would wait. Do you want to get out and have a look to see if I’m telling the truth?”
Joan put her hand on his arm to calm him. “It’s all right, Dunc. She’s just asking.”
Back to her. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but again according to Mrs. MacNeil, Sarah MacDonald was originally Sarah MacAulay, and she was your half-sister?”
She blinked and her hand flew to her bruised jaw. “Yes. She belonged to my stepmother.”
Abruptly, she turned and went to the window. I could see her shoulders were shaking as she struggled for control. MacKenzie followed her and offered the comforting arm again. She availed herself of it while I waited. Finally, I said.
“In what way do you want me to help you?”
He answered for her. “Shona told me about your work. She’s very proud of you, Christine. She says you’ve dealt with cases like this before.” His tone and expression made it clear that he thought the pride was a tribute to Joan’s generosity of heart and not much to do with my ability.
“What specifically are you referring to?” I asked her.
“You told me a few years ago that you’d been on a course with the FBI in the States somewhere. There’s a way to help people get back their memories of what happened when they’ve been traumatized.”
“You mean by the use of hypnosis?”
“Yes, that’s what it was. Please, Chris. I want you to hypnotize me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I was demurring like crazy with facial expressions and gestures – as if to say “I can’t hypnotize… you can’t do… it’s not a magic trick,” etc. – when Duncan interrupted me.
“Och, you’re not giving your mother a chance. She’s desperate here. You could help her if you wanted to.”
I resented his interference.
“I am obviously not making myself clear. Hypnosis is a useful tool, and sometimes buried memories can be retrieved, but more often than not, they are permanently lost. The brain has wiped them out.”
“But that bodyguard of Princess Di’s who was in the crash, he got his memory back didn’t he? He remembered seeing a member of the paparazzi forcing them over.”
“No. As a matter of fact, Trevor Rees-Jones is a good example of what I’m talking about. And he wasn’t her bodyguard, by the way. He was employed by Dodi Fayed. In spite of numerous sessions with a psychiatrist, Rees-Jones remembered getting into the car as they were driving off, but that is all. Nothing else. And that is the most common scenario.” Yes, I know I sounded pompous, but it was the truth. “Besides which, I’m not a psychiatrist. I took one course four years ago. I’ve never practised the technique on anyone since then.”
Joan looked exactly like somebody who’d been turned down for a job she desperately needed. “I have faith in you, Chris. I know how you are. You were always top of the class, but you never believed you were smart. I’m sure it will all come back to you when you start.”
“Faith in me, by either of us, is not the point. I might be utterly brilliant. The new Mesmer, but memory recovery through hypnosis isn’t usually effective when there has been physical trauma.”
I might as well have saved my breath. She had on her stubborn look.
“We can at least give it a try.”
“No harm in that,” said MacKenzie, throwing in his two cents’ worth. I could have throttled him.
Oh God.
“But you’re my... I don’t know how objective I can be.”
Her lips tightened. “For Lord’s sake, Chris, I’m not asking you to give me a gynie exam. I just want you to put me into a trance and help me get my memory back. Besides, there’s lots of times I’ve seen you act pretty detached where I’m concerned.”
That was another minefield I wasn’t about to walk through.
She tried again. “Please Chris. I need to know. I’ve got to clear my name.”
“I see. And you’re thinking that if you do the hypnosis with me, a police officer, you can bring whatever is said into a court of law? Well, I’m telling you right now, anything revealed in a hypnotic trance is not admissible evidence. It won’t do you a damn bit of good if you tell me you weren’t even in the bloody car.”
“I thought you couldn’t help but tell the truth when you were hypnotized.”
“That’s another common myth. People who lie in their daily lives are quite capable of lying even when they are in a trance. Besides which, the unconscious works in the same way dreams do. If you had a dream that you shot Kennedy, you wouldn’t go and confess. Same thing. People say things when they’re under hypnosis that aren’t necessarily true. They’re coming from the fantasy part of the mind.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Chris, but that’s nothing new, is it? And I don’t like the implication that I’m just trying to produce an alibi. That’s not why I want you to do this for me.”
Duncan interjected again. “She wasn’t drunk when she came here and she wasn’t drinking at the hotel. She’s gone straight. But poor Sarah MacDonald was killed and Shona would like for her own conscience’s sake to remember what happened. Wouldn’t you feel the same way?”
I ignored him and focused on Joan. “But what if you discover you
were
the cause of the accident? And you walked away. What are you going to do if that’s the case?”
“I’ll turn myself in.”
“You could be charged with vehicular homicide. You could go to jail.”
“And not pass GO. Christine and I used to play Monopoly by the hour,” she explained to Duncan. “She’d always put up such a fuss about going to jail. I think that’s why she became a police-woman. Remember that, Pet?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to reply. The endearment that had, once upon a time, melted my heart, felt like a drop of acid. And she knew perfectly well how much Paula’s dad being a police officer had influenced me. Realizing she wasn’t getting a response, Joan returned to the issue.
“Let’s put it this way. I have to go to the police sooner or later, but I’m going to be in a better position if I know what happened myself. Doesn’t that make sense?”
“There’s more than just the car crash. You and Mrs. MacDonald were identified as leaving the house of Tormod MacAulay that night. He’s a relative, I understand. I presume you know he died?”
She averted her eyes quickly. “Yes, Duncan’s daughter rang here.”
“You did go there, didn’t you? Was he still alive when you left?”
Duncan exploded at me. “She just said she doesn’t remember anything. And how do you know she was there?”
“There are witnesses.”
“Why are you hounding her like this?”
“Because if I’m going to help her, I need to pin down some of the facts.”
Yes, my voice was raised too, and he had to force himself into some kind of control, spluttering indignantly.
It took a few moments for us all to calm down. Joan was looking so vulnerable I felt like a shit and toned down my voice.
“Let’s backtrack a little. You said you can recall getting into the car with Sarah MacDonald. Do you remember where you were heading and why?”
She jumped away from that question like a spooked cat, but she nodded her head. “I do recall that we were on our way to visit Mr. MacAulay. Sarah was a real-estate agent. She had some business with him.”
“Did she know you were her half-sister, by the way? She would have been pretty young when you disappeared, but I can only assume you sought her out to have some kind of reunion.”
Joan was looking more and more like a cornered rabbit. “Christine, please! I know you’re upset about all this, and I will tell you the whole story, I promise, but I can’t do it now.”
“Your mother’s had a very bad time. You need to go easy on her,” this was from Duncan, of course, who was building up a head of steam again.
“Okay. You, Joan, want me to help you find out the truth concerning that car accident, and I think one piece of truth deserves another. I was in MacAulay’s house after his body was found, and something didn’t sit right with me.”
I could see the sudden flush of colour in her face but she didn’t speak, didn’t have a chance. MacKenzie leaped in.
“Lisa told me about you making her go through the house like it was a murder scene. Bloody irresponsible, I call it. Tormod was a very sick man. He wasn’t expected to live out the summer. All these insinuations are malicious, if you ask me.”
“First off, I wasn’t making any insinuations. Second, I didn’t make your daughter do anything. I asked her to help me, and she agreed to do so.”
“Help you with what? Who are you making out to be a criminal?”
Before I had a chance to shout back at him, which I was on the verge of doing, Joan got off the couch and went over to him. She bent close and began to speak in Gaelic.
“It’s rude to speak in a foreign language when there’s somebody in the room who doesn’t understand you.” I knew I was getting loud again.
She hesitated, then nodded. “I apologize. I was only asking him to calm down. You’ve had a shock, and we’re all suffering from frayed nerves.”
She sat down and took MacKenzie by the hand, holding on tightly the way women do when they expect to receive bad news and are bracing themselves.
“You’ve got something on your mind, Chris. And we can’t go any further until we clear the air.”
“All right. This is what I’m thinking. I saw that photograph of you with Tormod and his children. You were about twelve or thirteen—”
“Thirteen.”
“Okay. He was quite a lady’s man, as I understand it. In other words, a sleazeball. I’m thinking that he sexually interfered with you and that you came back here to confront him.” She stared at me in horror. I ploughed on. “Perhaps things got out of hand, I don’t know. You would be furious with the man and rightfully so. Sexual molestation causes dreadful psychic wounds.”
Duncan gaped at me. “It sounds as if you think your own mother
murdered
Tormod MacAulay.”
Put like that it sounded ridiculous, but I was already so far out on a limb I couldn’t come back.
“All I’m doing is trying to get to some truth for once in my life.”
“But
murder
! You are out of your mind, woman. He’s been properly buried, and there’s no police investigation called for.”
Again Joan laid a restraining hand on his arm. “Chris is a police officer, don’t forget. She’s trained to be suspicious of everything.”
“Well this takes the cake. Her own mother!”
I was tempted to yell out at him that the majority of murderers have relatives, mothers, fathers, a spouse, and quite often children. Having a blood relative doesn’t mean you never commit a crime.
I addressed Joan. “To put it bluntly, did Tormod MacAulay molest you when you were a child?”
She actually smiled briefly. “No, he didn’t. Never. Not once. I swear that’s the truth.”
“So you didn’t come back here to confront him?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Why then, after all these years? What are these bloody demons you’re hell bent on exorcising?”
“I... I had several reasons for returning.”
I caught the quick squeeze she gave to MacKenzie’s hand. He was involved for certain, but surely he didn’t fall into the category of “demon,” as in exorcising thereof.
“But come on, Christine,” Joan continued. “You haven’t spit it all out yet. I can tell. What else have you been thinking about me and Tormod?”
Now I was the one feeling cornered. I could deflect the question, deny it, which was a kind of lie or, as she said, “spit it out.” I spat.
“Was he my father?”
I don’t know what I expected really. A tearful acknowledgement, a tearful denial? Neither. She stiffened, stared at me for a moment, then answered calmly.
“No, he wasn’t, Chris. And I swear that is the truth as well.”
I believed her, but I’d also seen the fleeting expression of fear and the glance of surprise from MacKenzie. I wasn’t the only one who had questions, it seemed.
Joan smiled slightly. “Well then, is that all? You thought Tormod had diddled me and you were the result.”
“Something like that. It’s not unheard of.”
“You can put your mind at rest on that score then. I didn’t hate Tormod MacAulay because he’d had his way with me.”
“How did you feel about him?”
“It was a long time ago. I can hardly remember.”
That comment made me hot with anger. “That’s strange. I can remember how I felt about everybody I’ve ever known. I might not be able to tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Cohen looked like, but I can say for sure that I liked them.”
“Are you asking me if I liked Tormod? Well, I didn’t. Open your ears, Christine. I
did not like him
. Got that? And that’s all I’m going to say about it. It’s all in the past.”
Lies if ever I smelled lies, but shaking her wasn’t going to get the truth, so I just sat back defeated.
She stood up and said in a gratingly cheerful voice.
“Now we’ve cleared the air, are you going to put me into hypnosis or not?”
“The air is not cleared, Joan. It still smells.”
Duncan practically eviscerated me with a look. “Cut it out. Don’t speak to your mother like that.”
“It’s all right, Duncan. I know my daughter. She just needs a little time. Isn’t that right Chris?”
“Yes! No... Oh hell, it doesn’t matter.”
“I tell you what, why don’t Duncan and I go into the kitchen and give you a bit of space. Say, five minutes?”
That was so ridiculous, I actually laughed. I stood up.
“I’m going to go outside and commune with the sheep. It may be longer than five minutes.”
“Of course.” Joan was using her reasonable voice, which she did when she wanted something. I headed for the door. Joan called after me.
“Whatever comes of this, Chris, I will take full responsibility.”
Ha! That would be a first, I thought.