Intrusion

23. Hope Abandon

Hope emerged from the culvert into the gully, daylight, sunlight, and arrest. Her arms were grabbed the moment she stepped out, and the two policemen rushed her up the gravel slope to the end of the gully in seconds. They cuffed her hands behind her back and ran a scanner up and down her body. She was just able to turn her head enough to see Nick being scooped up by a policewoman and carried, yelling, thrashing and lashing out with all four limbs, to the other end of the gully. Good boy, she thought. Get in a bite while you’re at it. A moment later, Hugh stumbled out and was grabbed too.

Then, to her utter surprise and indignation, she was shoved down on to her knees.

‘Hope Morrison,’ said one of the cops, ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of offences under the Children and Young Persons Protection (Scotland) Act.’

‘What?’ Hope yelped.

‘You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down and recorded and may be used in evidence…’

He was a big man with a Lewis accent and the correlated ruddy, freckled features and sandy hair, and looked slightly embarrassed as he recited the formula. Hope turned her head around and looked up at him.

‘Look, this is about the fix! I know it is! I’ll take the bloody fix! It’s in my pocket! Just give me it and some water, you can put it in my mouth yourself if you like.’

At that moment, she meant it; she meant it as firmly as she’d ever meant any promise in her life.

‘Do you understand what you have just been told, Mrs Morrison?’

‘Yes, I understand. Don’t take the boy! He has nothing to do with this. Just take him to the house down the hill, or Mairi’s shop, she’s his grandmother.’

‘Well, Mrs Morrison, that’s—’

Another voice and accent interrupted. ‘That’s not for us to decide, Constable.’

Anything Hope might have said next was drowned out by the sound of a helicopter, approaching and then landing behind her. She felt its downdraught through her clothes, whipping her hair. As the rotors’ throb slowed to a steady whump, earmuffs were placed on her, and she couldn’t hear anything. Two men in flying suits hurried past, carrying between them some heavy apparatus and a coil of cable, towards the gully. Her elbows were grabbed; she was hauled to her feet and propelled towards the helicopter. It was a big yellow Sea King. Her shins banged on the steps. Inside, she was pushed into a bucket seat, facing the rear of the cabin, her arms around the seat back, and was strapped in using the fitted safety belts. Her ankles were zip-tied to the seat’s supports.

The two officers who’d grabbed her then moved towards the front of the cabin. She turned her head around just in time to see Hugh likewise bundled on board. He had a hood over his head and face, with earmuffs on top of it. He was pushed out of her sight. Then the door was closed.

‘Where’s Nick?’ Hope yelled, struggling against the straps. Her voice sounded strange. ‘Where’s our son?’

The Leosach constable came around and stood in front of her. He gestured with his finger across his lips, and mouthed, ‘Shut up!’

‘Where’s our son?’ Hope shouted again.

From an inside pocket the policeman took a paper sachet and ripped it open, then slapped an adhesive tape, like a sticking-plaster without a pad, across Hope’s lips. Then he went away.

She tried to open her mouth but the tape hurt too much when it pulled on the skin. The engine’s vibration changed, the noise became loud even through the ear protection, and the floor lurched and tipped. Acceleration and inertia swayed her, this way and that. After a minute or two the aircraft levelled off into forward flight. Hope slumped in the seat, her mind lurching as uncontrollably as her body had during the take-off. One moment she would be frantic at the thought of Nick alone among the strange people who had taken her from him; the next she would reassure herself with images of him being taken to Mairi’s place by a kindly policewoman. Then she would think of him falling into the care system, taken away, fostered – no! They couldn’t do that!

But she had just been arrested under the child-protection laws… which meant they could do that… and that thought would segue into relief that at least she hadn’t been arrested under the terrorism laws, which she’d half expected. Under the child-protection laws she could fight, she could get legal support, she wouldn’t just disappear into the global archipelago of interrogation cells and black sites and ghost prisons, about which the authorities were reticent but rumour was eloquent.

But Hugh had been hooded, and that wasn’t something they did for child-protection arrests, except for abusers, and it couldn’t be that, so maybe he was being arrested under the terrorism laws…

At this point she realised that she was inflicting on herself the kind of undermining and disorientation that the arrest and interrogation process was designed to induce, and to which she would no doubt be subjected in the coming hours and maybe days, and that she might as well leave it to the professionals, who at least knew when to stop, or so they claimed, though maybe…

Stop.

She stopped, and turned her head to the side, not so far as to be uncomfortable, but far enough to let her see the patch of sunlight on the floor. She concentrated on that, and on imagining the land below.

The helicopter landed. The two policemen reappeared in front of her, and released Hope from the seat straps and leg restraints. She stood up, and stuck her chin forward. The policeman who’d put the tape across her mouth shook his head. He and his colleague took her by the upper arms and escorted her to the doorway, and then one of them went in front to guard and guide her down the steps on to a runway. A police car was waiting just beyond the rotors’ circuit.

She had a moment to look around and see the sea and green machair, a control tower, a jump jet and two naval helicopters parked in the middle distance, before she was rushed to the police car. She ended up sitting in the back, hands still cuffed behind her, between the Leosach constable who’d arrested her and a policewoman already in the car. The policewoman fixed the seat belt across her. As she was doing this, Hope saw, through the car’s open doorway, Hugh, still hooded, being frogmarched across the tarmac in the direction of one of the airfield’s buildings.

The driver looked in the rear-view, got nods from the two officers in the back, and drove off the airstrip and on to a perimeter road, then out through the main gate. Hope saw a sign just outside the gate, and her diagonal glimpse left her with the impression ‘RAF Stornoway’. The drive was short – across open moorland, then through the streets of Stornoway – and ended outside a small and quite ordinary police station.

The policewoman leaned over and ripped the tape from across Hope’s mouth. She expected it to sting, but it didn’t, and she guessed it was some new material designed expressly for the purpose. She was allowed to get out, very awkwardly, in her own time, and then escorted into the station. It was a poky place, smelling of vomit and disinfectant. At a counter at the end of the reception room, Hope’s handcuffs were taken off, her pockets emptied and the contents bagged, along with her jacket, watch, boots and belt, the rings from her fingers, and her own rucksack and Nick’s. Seeing Nick’s rucksack made her cry for a moment, but she sniffed and wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her wrist and signed for everything.

She was then taken to a cell whose walls, floor, ceiling and the seating along one side were all tiled white, and left there. She looked around for the camera. There it was, in a corner of the ceiling. She settled herself in the opposite corner, on the cell’s built-in bench, leaning against the two walls, and watched the camera right back.

After an hour or so of this, the cell door opened, and the policewoman who’d been in the car escorted Hope down a short corridor to an interview room. It had a table and three chairs. A young man with a suit, a beard and a pad was waiting inside. As the policewoman closed the door behind her, he shook hands with Hope and introduced himself.

‘Hamish McKinnon,’ he said. ‘From McKinnon and Warski, solicitors, Stornoway. I’ve been appointed by the sheriff as your legal representative. You’re of course entitled to choose your own lawyer. Do you wish to do so?’

Hope shook her head.

‘So you’re happy to have me represent you?’

‘Yes,’ said Hope.

He motioned her to the seat at the back of the table, and sat down at the side. The policewoman sat down opposite Hope, and turned on some very visible and clunky recording devices. She introduced herself as Police Sergeant Dolina Macdonald, gave the date and time for the recording, and got down to business.

‘Are you Hope Morrison?’

Hope glanced at the lawyer.

‘You have a right to remain silent,’ he said, ‘but I don’t advise it. If there are any questions I think you shouldn’t answer, I’ll tell you at once.’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Is that in answer to my question?’ said Macdonald.

‘Yes,’ said Hope.

‘Are you married to Hugh Morrison, of 13 Victoria Road, Finsbury Park, London?’

‘Yes.’

‘And are you the mother of Nicholas Morrison, of the same address?’

‘Yes,’ said Hope. ‘And I want to know where he is now.’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that.’

‘Can’t, or won’t?’

‘I can’t,’ said the policewoman, ‘because I don’t know. And if I did know, I would not be allowed to tell you at this stage of the inquiry. I assure you he is in safe hands.’

‘I’m sure he is. I’m sure he’s also very distressed.’

‘Every effort will be made to comfort and reassure him. As I said, I’m certain he is in safe hands, and between ourselves I’m certain he’s more than safe.’

‘I hope for your sake he is.’

‘Really, he is,’ said Macdonald. ‘Now, Hope, let me explain the situation to you. You have been arrested on suspicion, but you have not yet been charged. Your rights have been explained to you, so you are being interviewed under caution. Do you have any complaints about your treatment up to this point?’

‘Yes, I have,’ said Hope. ‘I was roughly handled, and restrained unnecessarily and uncomfortably, despite the fact that I had made no resistance. I was gagged, merely for asking after my son.’

Macdonald looked impatient. ‘These are very minor complaints.’

‘I’ll take them up later,’ McKinnon said.

‘Very well,’ said Hope. ‘I’m making them for the record. Particularly given that I’m, uh, four months pregnant.’

‘I’m sure the recordings from the arresting officers’ lapel cameras will show that you were treated properly.’

‘I’m sure they will,’ said Hope. ‘I have a different recollection, and I’ll say so.’

‘That is your right,’ said the policewoman. ‘Now, do you know why you’ve been arrested?’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Hope. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘So why did you flee from the police?’

‘Flee?’ said Hope. ‘We were walking in the hills. We saw the police behind us, and the drone above us, but didn’t run from them. They didn’t pursue us, or call out or challenge us in any way. For all we knew, they were on a search-and-rescue exercise.’

‘Mrs Morrison,’ Macdonald said, with affected weariness, ‘you were found hiding in a disused culvert.’

‘We weren’t hiding,’ said Hope. ‘We were exploring. We entered the culvert – well, we entered the gully that it led off from – in full view of the police and I guess of the drone.’

‘Exploring,’ said Macdonald. ‘Exploring. Your husband walked off a job he had just started, without giving explanation or asking permission, and drove at speed to meet you. You had also just walked off a job, in a comfortable office, taking your child to the house in pouring rain. You met your husband and immediately set off up the hill, leaving behind or switching off any devices on your persons that might have been used to track you. Can you explain any of this?’

‘You don’t have to explain anything now,’ McKinnon interjected.

‘No, it’s all right,’ said Hope. ‘I can explain. My child was bored and fractious. I was unable to concentrate on my work, and he was annoying his grandmother, too, in the shop. When my husband called to ask how I was getting on – it was the first wet day we’d had here, the first day the boy was pretty much stuck indoors – I’m afraid I was so fed up that I begged him to skive off. He had the idea of teaching Nick orienteering, which is why he switched off his phone – to demonstrate to the child that we can navigate without GPS.’

‘Mrs Morrison, your husband was carrying an illegal firearm.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Hope.

‘The weapon was clearly shown on the drone’s imaging equipment. Your husband was also seen and recorded apparently discarding the weapon in the tunnel, in the course of some altercation with you.’

Hope shrugged. ‘I’d like to see the evidence for that.’

‘Oh, you will, Hope, you will. Do you deny that it happened?’

Hope said nothing.

‘You needn’t say anything at this stage,’ said the lawyer. He turned to Sergeant Macdonald. ‘You said “apparently discarding”. Why “apparently”?’

‘You’re in an interview room, not a courtroom,’ Macdonald told him.

‘I’m well aware of that,’ said McKinnon. ‘Nevertheless, my client and I are entitled to know what evidence you have against her.’

‘Not at this stage in the proceedings you aren’t!’

‘I’m only raising the point,’ said McKinnon, ‘because your choice of words suggests to me that you have no physical evidence of this firearm.’

Macdonald glared at him, then looked away. McKinnon sat back, looking smug, and tapped a note on his pad.

‘Mrs Morrison,’ Macdonald went on, ‘you most certainly fled from the police while you were in the culvert. You, your husband and child ran away down the culvert when they called on you to come out. You were warned that they were armed. You do know that running away after a warning from armed police can have very serious consequences? Even fatal consequences?’

‘Yes, I’m well aware of that,’ said Hope. ‘And you must be aware that amplified sound in such a confined space can be very distorted, as well as alarming. It certainly alarmed our child, who took off as fast as his legs could carry him. Naturally we ran after him, if you could call that running.’

‘According to the police video evidence, Mrs Morrison, your husband was in front, then the boy, and you brought up the rear.’

Hope shrugged. ‘Maybe so. It was dark, lots of shadows, very confusing. My husband may even have had the impression that Nick was ahead of him.’

‘I find that very unlikely. You ran from the police. That’s not the reaction of innocent people.’

McKinnon leaned forward again. ‘Perhaps, Sergeant, it’s the reaction of innocent people who think that they are being threatened and pursued by whoever the police were searching for?’

‘You’re not here to suggest lines of argument to your client, Mr McKinnon.’

‘When we entered the culvert,’ Hope said, gratefully grabbing the lifeline, ‘the police were hundreds of metres away, and not obviously pursuing us. Then the drone buzzed the gully, and we heard shouts and loud noises behind us. It was a moment of panic. I can’t even say what I thought I was running from.’

‘I bet you can’t,’ said Macdonald. ‘But not because you didn’t know you were fleeing from the police.’

‘Fleeing where?’ Hope asked. ‘We were in a dead end.’

‘Oh,’ said Macdonald, ‘and how did you know that? Before you reached it, I mean.’

‘Oh, I can explain that,’ said Hope. ‘My husband grew up in that very village, in the house just down the hill, as you know. He found the culvert when he was… in his early teens, I think, with some pals. No doubt they can verify that; they shouldn’t be hard to trace. Anyway, Hugh remembered it as quite an adventure, and thought it would be exciting for Nick to see it too.’

Macdonald was about to respond, with irritation judging by the look on her face, when McKinnon raised a finger.

‘One moment,’ he said. ‘I notice that you asked my client if she knew why she had been arrested. She said she didn’t. And you haven’t yet told her. Nor have you alleged any breaches of the Children and Young Persons Protection Act.’

‘Yes I have,’ said Dolina Macdonald. ‘The child was, with the full knowledge and consent of your client, in the presence and in fact jointly in the care of a person carrying an illegal firearm.’

‘For which, it seems, there’s no physical evidence, and no evidence at all other than some no doubt ambiguous images on a drone camera.’

‘I’ve seen these images,’ said Macdonald, ‘and I assure you, Hamish, there’s nothing ambiguous about them. The drone carries a military-grade sub-millimetre radar-imaging device, widely used in all conflict theatres. In a combat zone, an image like that would be more than enough to justify calling down a drone strike.’

‘We’re not in a combat zone, Dolina, for which we must be thankful.’

‘Legally we are,’ Macdonald pointed out. ‘Near enough.’

‘I’m familiar with the emergency provisions for the North Atlantic defence perimeter, thank you very much, Dolina. But even if that image on its own could convince a jury, and not some military kangaroo court, which I doubt, it’s no evidence at all about my client’s full knowledge and consent, which is what you have to establish.’

‘We can establish that, right enough,’ said Macdonald. ‘The Metropolitan Police were this morning issued a search warrant for the Morrisons’ flat, and a seizure order for the interior cameras. A police semantic AI is trawling the sounds and images as we speak. We have every reason to think that this will within an hour or two provide incontrovertible evidence on the point of your client’s knowledge and consent.’

‘Excuse me!’ cried McKinnon, almost jumping up. ‘Their flat in London was searched? On what possible basis? And what evidence – seeing you admit you don’t have any from the search – sent the Stornoway police supposedly chasing after this family in the first place?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Mr McKinnon.’

‘If you can’t even give me prima facie evidence to justify the arrest…’

‘I already have, Mr McKinnon. The image of the gun, and the recording of the altercation in the tunnel.’

‘If indeed there was an altercation between my client and Mr Morrison about this alleged weapon,’ said McKinnon, ‘that would tend to suggest that she did not know or approve of his carrying it. Would it not also suggest, that she was shocked and surprised to see it? Or perhaps to see something which – in the dark and confusion and panic she has described – she might have mistaken for a weapon?’

‘Such as what?’ asked Macdonald.

McKinnon spread his hands. ‘Any number of things. A torch, perhaps awkwardly held? A tool of his trade – you said he had walked off a job in a hurry. I saw from my first glance at the preliminary documents’ – he looked down and poked at his pad – ‘that Mr Morrison is a carpenter. A carpenter’s square, or a power tool with a pistol grip, could easily have been in his pocket, forgotten. What if he realised at the last moment what all the shouting was about, and removed that tool from his pocket?’

‘Some fine speculation, Hamish, but none of that alters the prima facie basis of the arrest, which is the drone image. And that was no power drill, or any such thing.’

‘That doesn’t explain what the investigation was all about in the first place.’

‘Och, Hamish,’ Macdonald said, ‘if you had done more than “glance” at the preliminary documents, you would know fine well—’

‘Don’t you “och, Hamish” me, Dolina!’ snapped McKinnon.

Macdonald’s face froze. ‘Let’s try and keep this professional.’

‘Indeed,’ said McKinnon. ‘Sorry.’ He cast Hope an embarrassed glance. ‘Stornoway is a small place, Mrs Morrison, and everybody knows everybody else, and as it happens Sergeant Macdonald and I have known each other, off and on, since we were at primary school.’

‘Hence the lapses into talking as if you still were?’ Hope asked, tartly.

The lawyer and the copper looked equally abashed.

‘Let’s take the apologies as mutual and move on,’ said Macdonald. ‘As I was saying, Mr McKinnon, the initial basis for the investigation is given in the preliminary documents.’

‘A moment ago you said you couldn’t tell me that. Now you say it’s in the documents.’

‘I can’t tell you everything,’ said Macdonald, ‘because it might jeopardise another line of inquiry, currently under active and urgent investigation. But it’s also true that there’s enough in the preliminary documents to justify this investigation, and the urgency of today’s search for the Morrison parents.’

McKinnon looked down at his pad and twiddled a theatrical finger on its surface.

‘Sergeant Macdonald, I assure you’ – he glanced at Hope – ‘and you, Mrs Morrison, that I have read every line of these documents, quickly but carefully. What I see here are some social-service background reports, on a quite irrelevant matter of private conscience, which is for the present a live issue only in England and Wales, and some records of phone calls between Mrs Morrison, Mr Morrison, and two people who have separately confessed to terrorism offences under circumstances of severe duress, which you know as well as I do is enough to have them thrown out by magistrates and sheriffs, let alone by the courts. Not even the Met have the brass neck to take such stuff to a magistrate, in most cases.’ He turned to Hope. ‘This is what you meant, was it not, when you said at the moment of arrest that this was all about the fix?’

‘Yes,’ said Hope. ‘The social services and the Health Centre back home have been putting me under a lot of pressure to take the fix, and I came here in the hope of getting away from all that for a bit. Some chance! They’ve obviously decided quite arbitrarily to make an example of me, and that’s why they’ve put this trumped-up nonsense about terrorism to the police. It’s all just a ploy to make me out to be an unfit mother.’

‘As I thought,’ said McKinnon. He held up his pad, between thumb and forefinger. ‘This is pish.’

He let the pad drop, to clatter on the table, and sat back, folding his arms. Hope looked over at him with gratitude and admiration. For the first time she saw the law as Maya had once explained it to her, not as an impersonal and ever more complicated system to crush you, but as a system whose very complexity and impersonality could shield you; and in that moment she saw McKinnon as a knight holding that shield in front of her.

‘You may well think so, Mr McKinnon,’ said Macdonald. ‘But the magistrate in Islington did not, and the sheriff in Stornoway did not, and you will soon find out why. In the meantime, you have no grounds for questioning the prima facie case for arrest in the circumstances of earlier today, regardless of how these circumstances came about.’

McKinnon scowled. ‘This is getting us nowhere. I suggest we wait until you can produce some evidence, rather than holding it over my client as a threat or inducement, and in the meantime that you provide her with some refreshment.’

‘I’m happy to take up that suggestion,’ said Macdonald. She consulted her own pad. ‘Interview adjourned. Expect to resume within two hours.’

‘In the meantime,’ said the lawyer, ‘I wish to talk to my client in private.’

‘Denied,’ said Macdonald. ‘You can’t do that until she’s charged, and we don’t have to charge her for sixty-four days.’ She smiled maliciously. ‘Minus three and a half hours.’

The interview resumed. Hope felt somewhat the better for having had two cups of tea, a beaker of orange juice and a pizza, especially as the policeman who came to her cell – the Leosach who’d arrested her – had allowed her to order from a takeaway menu, and had smiled understandingly and glanced at her bump when she’d specified anchovies and pineapple. And now there were cups of water on the table. But as she took her seat again, her heart sank at the expressions of Macdonald and McKinnon: the policewoman chipper, the lawyer glum.

‘Mrs Morrison,’ Macdonald said, after getting the formalities out of the way, ‘I would like now to bring to your attention some new developments and productions.’

‘Productions?’

‘Items of evidence,’ McKinnon explained.

‘With regard to productions,’ Macdonald went on. ‘The forensic semantic AI trawl of your home cameras has been completed, and in accordance with privacy legislation only those sections directly relevant to the case or cases have been made available by the AI to the investigation.’ She looked up at Hope, with a thin smile. ‘Just in case you were worried about coppers sniggering over your personal life. Isn’t allowed, doesn’t happen. All right?’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Hope.

‘Very well. Further sections may be made available on a new search warrant. I have here’ – Macdonald nodded down at her pad – ‘a recording of you moving off camera, verifiably into a cupboard in your home, then coming back into view in a… distracted condition. From the evening of the same day, a conversation with your husband, Mr Hugh Morrison, obliquely but clearly alluding to the presence of an illegal firearm, very probably a pistol, in a box or similar unsecured container in that cupboard. Mr McKinnon here has viewed the recording and can confirm its contents. Do you wish to view the recording yourself?’

‘Not at the moment,’ said Hope.

‘OK. Now, as to new developments. Mrs Morrison, your husband has been formally charged with offences under the Terrorism Act, the Children and Young Persons Protection Acts of both jurisdictions, the Firearms Act and the Firearms (Scotland) Act.’

‘What?’ Hope tried to sound disbelieving and outraged, although she’d expected something like this. ‘That’s ridiculous!’

‘I insist,’ said McKinnon, ‘that my client be told the details of the charges against her husband.’

‘I was coming to that,’ said Macdonald. ‘They are very much relevant to the charges she faces, and others that she may yet face.’ She thumbed her pad and read out:

‘You, Hugh Morrison, of 13 Victoria Road, London, et cetera, are hereby charged with the following offences, to wit, that you did have in your possession at the above premises an illegally held firearm, further that you stored it on said premises in an insecure manner contrary to the provisions of the Firearms Act and of the Children and Young Persons Protection Act, that in violation of the Firearms (Scotland) Act you transported said firearm to Scotland, concealed it likewise illegally and insecurely on the premises of The Old Manse, Uig, Eilean Siar, in further violations of the same Acts as applied to Scotland, et cetera, that you carried it illegally from said premises on this day, and that furthermore on challenge by the constabulary you failed to surrender the weapon as ordered and instead deposited it in a place of concealment and refused to disclose the location of said place of concealment, said place being within the North Atlantic Forward Defence Area, a region covered by the emergency provisions, thus violating such-and-such provisions of the Terrorism Act, as amended et cetera et cetera.’

Macdonald looked up. ‘I’ve paraphrased to skip all the sections and dates referred to, but that’s the substance. Do you wish to read it yourself?’

‘Not at this moment.’

‘Mr McKinnon, have you read the indictment?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it correctly and legally formulated, and have I given your client a correct impression of its substance?’

McKinnon hesitated. ‘On an initial reading, and without prejudice to any objections that might be or might already have been lodged by Mr Morrison’s own solicitor, I would have to agree, yes.’

Hope saw the room begin to fade to monochrome. She felt dizzy and sick. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and held it, then opened her eyes and breathed out and took a sip of water. She tried not to think about what Hugh must be going through. At least nothing had been said about a confession. She was not sure whether or not that was something to be thankful for. It might mean they hadn’t worked him over, or it might mean they were still working him over. Or had just started working him over.

Stop. She sighed again, and took a gulp of water, and looked Macdonald straight in the eye.

‘So what all this adds up to,’ she said, ‘is that the police still haven’t found this supposed firearm, and they’re using this absence of evidence as evidence that Hugh has hidden it so cleverly that they can’t find it!’

‘My client has put the matter very well,’ said McKinnon, visibly brightening. ‘I suggest you explain the relevance of these ridiculous charges to her own position.’

‘Indeed,’ said Macdonald. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and fixed Hope with the sort of concerned, helpful gaze that Hope had come to expect from Fiona Donnelly, the health visitor.

‘Look, Hope,’ she said, interlacing her fingers and then spreading her hands, a couplet of gestures she repeated apparently at random as she went on, ‘I’m asking you, with your best interests and the best interests of your wee boy very much in mind, to reconsider your position. You’ve been denying all knowledge of the firearm in your husband’s possession. I’ve just drawn attention to evidence that you were well aware of its presence in your house, and that you failed to urge him to turn it in or to report it yourself, thus making you an accessory to his crime as well as liable to the charges under suspicion of which you’ve been arrested. If you continue to deny the obvious truth, you will be charged. And just to anticipate Mr McKinnon, that charge need not refer to the events of this particular day. It could just as well refer to the even more serious charge arising out of your knowing about the illegal gun in your own house, where a child was present – in breach of both the Firearms Act and the Child Protection Act. These charges would of course be brought by the London Metropolitan Police, quite separately from the similar charges that could be brought against you by us. Do you understand that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now as you know, Hope, even having that charge brought against you, regardless of the outcome of the case, is quite enough for the social services, in this country as well as in England, to apply for a court order to the effect that you are unable to provide a safe environment for your child, and to have the child taken into care. Do you understand that?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Hope, fighting down dismay with anger. ‘And it’s outrageous. Even if I’m found innocent, I’m still guilty.’

‘I’m afraid that isn’t how it works, Hope. You see, that would be a matter for the family court, and it would be quite free and indeed obliged to take into account all the relevant evidence, including evidence that might not be admissible in a criminal trial, or that might not be enough to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Mr McKinnon will confirm that point of law.’

McKinnon nodded, unhappily. ‘That’s true, yes.’

‘It’s in this context,’ Macdonald went on, ‘that the matter that Mr McKinnon alluded to earlier, the matter of private conscience as he put it, is not as he said irrelevant to the present case but very relevant indeed. Because the developing legal position in England and no doubt very soon in Scotland is that refusal to take pre-natal genetic medication without good cause is tantamount to child neglect, and itself grounds for declaring you an unfit mother.’

‘Oh Jesus,’ said Hope, her head in her hands. ‘I knew this was about the fix.’

‘No, Hope, it isn’t. That’s just part of it, which I’m reminding you of in your own best interests. And it’s only a small part, because now that serious charges have been laid against your husband, you – look up, Hope! Look at me! – you too are open to having serious charges laid against you.’

Hope looked up. Macdonald’s face blurred. The policewoman passed her a tissue. Hope wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

‘Go on,’ she said.

‘Hope, your husband has been charged with terrorist offences. Because of the detail of these offences, and the specific events of this morning and early afternoon, you could now be charged as an accessory to these same offences. All that I’ve said before about the charges you were arrested on suspicion of applies many times over to the much more serious charge of being an accessory or indeed an accomplice to an act of terrorism. Now, you may think this is trumped up or overblown, but believe you me, Hope, deliberately concealing a firearm in a secret location in an area covered by the emergency provisions, which given its front-line location the Isle of Lewis most definitely is, is beyond any quibble an act of terrorism in its own right, regardless of any further connections or conspiracies that may be alleged or discovered. If you continue to stonewall this investigation, there may be no alternative but to charge you as an accomplice to that terrorist act. And don’t kid yourself for a moment that your guilt or innocence of this charge depends on your husband’s guilt or innocence.’

‘What?’ Hope cried. McKinnon jolted upright in his seat.

‘Yes,’ Macdonald went on, with a smug glance at the lawyer, ‘the charge against you depends on your having good reason to believe that such an act was committed, and the evidence you have been confronted with is in and of itself good and indeed compelling reason, in the eyes of the law, for you to believe that. Regardless of whether that evidence leads to a conviction, you would still be deemed knowingly complicit in the alleged act.’

Hope glared at Macdonald and turned to McKinnon. ‘Is that so?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said McKinnon. ‘I’m afraid it is. Lots of precedents over recent years, in Scotland and in England.’

‘But that’s just another…’ Hope’s mouth was dry. She took a swallow of water. ‘Another case of being guilty even if you’re innocent.’

‘Be that as it may,’ said Macdonald, ‘the fact remains that it’s the law, and under the law, if you’re found guilty on this charge you could be put away for life, and if you’re innocent you could still lose all access to your child. And, Hope, I hate to bring this up, but that applies also to the child you’re expecting.’

Hope sagged forward in the chair. ‘No!’

‘Yes,’ said Macdonald, ‘I’m sorry, but that’s the case. Another point I’m reluctant to bring up, but which I’m obliged to in your own interests, is that once you’ve been charged with or even suspected of terrorism, you become liable to enhanced interrogation to uncover any further possible lines of inquiry. Oh, Hope, don’t look away, don’t hide from the truth! Save yourself, for heaven’s sake! You have no idea what else your husband could be charged with – treason, even.’

‘Treason?’ Hope had thought she was now beyond surprise, but no.

‘He booked a flight to Prague last week, and spoke of emigrating to Russia, all quite legal of course, but in conjunction with concealing a weapon in an area within the North Atlantic Defence—’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ Hope jumped up. The chair clattered behind her. ‘You’d charge a man with treason for leaving a bloody air pistol where the fucking Russian Army might find it?’

‘Yes,’ said Macdonald, pushing her chair and herself backward. ‘We would. And if you don’t sit down and stop waving your arms around, I’ll see to it that you’re charged with assaulting a police officer.’

Hope retrieved her chair and sat down. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t threatening you. I was just – overcome with astonishment.’

‘Och, that’s quite understandable,’ said Macdonald. She pulled herself and the seat forward to the table, propped her elbows, and looked Hope in the eye. ‘Now – what was that about an air pistol?’

‘Oh, fuck,’ said Hope.

‘You don’t need to say anything,’ McKinnon said.

‘Indeed you don’t,’ said Macdonald, cheerfully. ‘If you don’t mind being charged forthwith, as follows…’ She looked down at her pad. ‘You, Hope Morrison, are hereby—’

‘Stop!’ Hope cried. ‘Stop! I’ll tell you everything.’

For a frantic moment, she thought Macdonald would go on reading the charge. Then the policewoman looked up.

‘Everything?’

‘Yes,’ said Hope. ‘Everything.’

When she’d finished, half an hour later, the policewoman and the lawyer sat back in their chairs and triangulated her with looks of deep bewilderment.

McKinnon spoke first.

‘Mrs Morrison,’ he said, ‘do I take you to be giving me a testimony to deliver to my colleague defending your husband, in support of him urging your husband to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity?’

Hope felt as if she was looking up from the bottom of a pit of despair and betrayal, and not sure whether she was seeing a rope to get out or a spade to dig herself in deeper.

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said. ‘Do what you like. I’ve told you the truth.’

‘This interview is terminated,’ said Macdonald. She stood up. ‘Hope, I must ask you to return to the cell.’

Hope had been in the cell for half an hour when the door banged open. Dolina Macdonald stood there.

‘Come with me to the front desk, please.’

As she emerged into the reception area, Hope saw Nigel Morrison sitting on a chair at the back, his face grim. He gave her the barest flicker of a smile before she was taken to the desk. Hamish McKinnon stood beside her as her possessions were returned.

‘You’ve been released on bail,’ the lawyer told her. ‘The bail has been posted by Nigel Morrison. You must remain on Lewis, but as long as you’re on the island you can go wherever you like. The charges are still pending. The child-protection charges, that is – the police haven’t said anything more about the other charges Dolina mentioned, and you can be sure I’ll be making a complaint about her bringing them up in the interview. Still…’

‘Yes,’ said Hope, in a dull voice. She slid the wedding ring on, then the monitor ring, which immediately began to sting from all the contaminants in the air around her. Alcohol and nicotine molecules in the remaining traces of sick, she guessed. She looked at the fix, still in its carton and bubble, and shoved it in her pocket. ‘Still. Where’s Hugh? If they’ve charged him, shouldn’t he be here?’

McKinnon shook his head. ‘Still being held in the military brig at the airbase, I’m afraid. My colleague is making urgent representations about that.’

‘Oh please, please, go on doing that and let me know…’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘Did you really take what I said to Hugh’s solicitor?’

‘Yes,’ said McKinnon. ‘For whatever good that’ll do. I didn’t say anything about an insanity defence, of course. That was… just my first reaction. Not very professional. Sorry.’

‘What about our child? Where is he?’

‘I don’t know,’ said McKinnon. ‘You’ll have to ask his grandfather.’

‘Well, thanks for everything,’ said Hope. ‘I’m sure I’ll see you again.’

‘I’m afraid so, yes.’

Hope shook hands with him, stiffly, then walked over to Nigel, who jumped up to meet her.

‘Where’s Nick?’ she asked. ‘Is he with Mairi?’

‘No,’ said Nigel. He took her in his arms. ‘They haven’t told us where he is.’

He held her until she stopped crying, and then helped her out of the police station and along the street to the car. He carried her rucksack, but she wouldn’t let go of Nick’s.