Raven Black (5 page)

When she opened her eyes, the scene around her had changed. She had been aware of car doors banging and voices but put off the return to full consciousness for as long as possible. Now she saw there was drama, a show
of
brisk efficiency.

'Mrs Hunter! Someone was knocking on the window of Alex Henry's Land Rover. 'Are you all right, Mrs Hunter?'

She saw the face of a man, the impressionist image of a face, blurred by the mist and muck on the glass, wild black hair and a strong hooked nose, black eyebrows. A foreigner, she thought. Someone even more foreign than me.

From the Mediterranean perhaps, North Africa even. Then he spoke again and she could tell he was a Shetlander, though the accent had been tamed and educated.

She opened the door slowly and climbed out. The cold hit her.

'Mrs Hunter?' he said again. She wondered how he knew her name. Could he be an old friend of Duncan's? Then she thought that Alex Henry would have told the police who had found Catherine when he phoned them. Of course he would. This wasn't a time for paranoia.

'Yes! Even here, seeing him in the clear, there was something unformed about his face. There were no sharp lines. A stubble of beard broke the silhouette of the chin, his hair was slightly too long for a police officer, not brushed surely, and it was a face which was never still. He wasn't wearing uniform. Underneath the heavy jacket, she knew the clothes would be untidy too.

'My name's Perez: he said. 'Inspector. Are you ready to answer some questions?'

Perez? Wasn't that Spanish? It was a very odd name, she thought, for a Shetlander. But then, he seemed a very odd man. Her attention began to wander again. Since seeing Catherine lying in the snow, it had been impossible to focus on anything.

They were stringing blue and white crime-scene tape, to block the gap in the wall where she had walked down the hill after stopping on her way back from school. Was the girl still lying there? She had the ridiculous notion that Catherine must be freezing. She hoped someone had thought to bring a blanket to cover her.

Perez must have asked her another question, because he was looking at her, obviously waiting for an answer.

'I'm sorry: she said. 'I don't know what's wrong with me!

'Shock. It'll pass! He looked at her, as she might once have looked at a model during a photo shoot. Appraising, dispassionate. 'Come on. Let's get you home!

He knew where she lived, drove her there without asking, took her keys and opened the door for her. 'Would you like tea?' she said. 'Coffee?'

'Coffee’: he said. 'Why not?'

'Shouldn't you be down there, looking at the body?' He smiled. 'I'd not be allowed anywhere near it. Not until the crime scene investigator is finished. We can't have more people than necessary contaminating the site!

'Has someone told Euan?' she asked.

'That's the girl's father?'

'Yes, Euan Ross. He's a teacher:

'They're doing that now.'

She moved the kettle on to the hotplate and spooned coffee into a cafetiere.

'Did you know her?' he asked.

'Catherine? She came occasionally to look after Cassie when I went out. It didn't happen often. There was a lecture in the town hall by a visiting author I enjoy. A PTA meeting at the school.

Once, Euan invited me down to his house for a meal.'

'You were friendly? You and Mr Ross?'

'Neighbourly, that's all.

Single parents often stick together. His wife had died. Cancer. She was ill for a couple of years and after her death he felt he needed a change. He'd been headmaster of a big inner-city school in Yorkshire, saw the job here advertised and applied on a whim:

'What did Catherine think about that? It would be a bit of a culture shock:

'I'm not sure. Girls that age, it's hard to tell what they're thinking:

'What age was she?'

'Sixteen. Nearly seventeen:

'And you?' he asked. 'What brought you back?' The question made her angry. How could he know that she'd lived here before?

'Is that relevant?' she demanded. 'To your enquiries?'

'You found a body. The body of a murder victim. You'll have to answer questions. Even personal questions which seem to have no relevance: He gave a little shrug to show that it was part of the system, beyond his control. 'Besides, your husband, he's a big man round here. People gossip. You can't have expected that you could slip back to Shetland unnoticed:

'He's not my husband,' she snapped. 'We divorced:

'Why
did
you come back?' he asked. He was sitting in the chair by the window, his crossed legs stretched in front of him. He'd taken off his boots at the door. His socks were made of thick white wool and were bobbled from washing. His jacket was hanging on the hook on the wall, next to one of Cassie's and he was wearing a crumpled red plaid shirt. He leaned back in his chair, a mug in his hand, looking out. He seemed entirely relaxed. She itched to get a large sheet of paper and a stick of charcoal to sketch him.

'I love it here,' she said. 'Because I stopped loving Duncan, it seemed contrary to deprive myself of the place. And it means that Cassie can maintain contact with her father. I enjoyed London, but it isn't a good place to bring up a child. I sold my flat there and that gave me enough to live for a while: She didn't want to tell him about her painting, the dream that it could support them, the failed relationship which had triggered the move. How she'd grown up without a father and hadn't wanted to do that to her daughter.

'Will you stay?'

'Yes,' she said. 'I think I will:

'What about Euan Ross? Has he settled?'

'I think he still finds it hard, coping without his wife:

'In what way?'

She struggled to find the words to describe the man. 'I don't know him well. It's hard to judge: 'But?'

'I think he might still be depressed. I mean, clinically depressed. He thought the move would change things, solve things. How could it, really? He's still without the woman he was married to for twenty years! She paused. Perez looked at her, expecting her to continue. 'He called in the day I arrived to introduce himself. He was very kind, charming. He brought coffee and milk, some flowers from his garden. He said we were almost neighbours.

Not quite, with Hillhead in the way, but he lived down the hill between here and the school. I'd never have realized on that first meeting that anything was wrong, that there was any sadness at all in his life. He's a very good actor. He hides his feelings very well. When he saw Cassie, he said he had a daughter too, Catherine. If ever I needed a babysitter she was always desperate for cash. That was it. He didn't mention his wife at all. Catherine told me about that, the first time she came to look after Cassie.

'When he invited me for a meal, I wasn't sure what to expect. I mean, a single woman of my age, sometimes men hit on you, think you're desperate, try it on. You know what I mean. I hadn't picked up any of those signals, but sometimes you get it wrong!

'You went anyway, even though you were unsure of his motives?'

'Yeah,' she said. 'I don't have much of a life, you know. Sometimes I miss adult company. And I thought, anyway, would it be so awful? He's an attractive man, pleasant, unattached. There aren't so many of those around here!

'Was it a good night?' He smiled at her, in an encouraging, slightly teasing way. The style was fatherly, almost, though there could scarcely be any difference in their ages.

'To start with. He'd gone to a lot of effort. It's a lovely house. Do you know it? There's that new extension, all wood and glass, with wonderful views down the coast. Lots of photos of his dead wife. I mean they were everywhere, which seemed a bit spooky. I wondered what it must be like for Catherine, growing up with that. I mean, would you think you were second best, that he wished
you
had died instead of your mother? But then I thought everyone deals with grief in their own way. What right did I have to judge?

'We sat down to eat almost immediately. The food was mind-blowing, I mean as good as any I've had anywhere. We managed to keep the conversation going OK. I told him the story of my divorce. Kept it light and amusing. I've had plenty of practice. Pride. It's hard to admit to the world that your husband has fallen passionately in love with a woman who's almost old enough to be your mother. Plenty there to joke about. He was drinking quite heavily, but then so was I. We were both rather nervous!

She could see the scene quite clearly in her head. Although it had been dark outside he hadn't drawn the blinds, so it was as if they were a part of the night-time landscape, as if the table was set on the cliff. The room was softly lit by candles; one lamp shone on a big photograph of the dead woman, so Fran had almost believed that she was present at the meal too.

Everything was slightly elaborate - the heavy cutlery, engraved glasses, starched napkins, expensive wine. And then he started to weep. Tears ran down his cheeks. It had been silent at first. She hadn't known how to react so she'd continued eating. The food after all was very good. She'd thought that given a little time, he might pull himself together. But then he began to sob, embarrassing, choking sobs, wiping the snot and the tears on one of the pristine napkins, and pretence had been impossible. She'd got up and put her arms around him, as she might have done if Cassie had woken suddenly from a bad dream.

'He couldn't hack it,' she told the detective now. 'He broke down. He wasn't ready for entertaining.' The enormity of the tragedy of Catherine's death suddenly hit her. 'Oh God, and now he's lost his daughter too.' It'll push him over the edge, she thought. No one will be able to save him now.

'How did they get on?' Perez asked. 'Did you have any sense of tension, friction? It must be hard for a man bringing up a teenage girl. Just the wrong age. They're rebellious then anyway. And they hate being different.'

'I don't think they ever argued,' Fran said. 'I can't imagine it. He was so wrapped up in his own grief that I think he just let her get on with things. I don't mean he neglected her. Not that. I'm sure they were very fond of each other.

But I can't see him making a big deal over the clothes she wore or the time she went to bed or whether or not she'd done her homework. He had other preoccupations.'

'Did she talk to you about him?'

'No. We didn't talk about anything important. I probably seemed as old as the hills to her. She always seemed very self-contained to me, but then I think most young people are like that. They never confide in adults.'

'When did you last see her?'

'To talk to? New Year's Eve, in the afternoon. I'd left a message on her mobile. There's a concert I'd like to go to in a couple of weeks' time. I asked if she'd be able to babysit. She called in to say that would be fine.'

'How did she seem?'

'Well. As animated as I'd known her. Quite forthcoming. She said she was going into Lerwick with her friend that evening to see in the new year.'

'Which friend?'

'She didn't say, but I presumed it would be Sally Henry. She lives at the school. They seem to knock around together.'

'And that was the last time you saw her?'

'To speak to
,
yes. But I did see her yesterday. She
got off
the lunchtime bus. She walked down the road with the strange old guy who lives in Hillhead.'

The police came to Magnus at the only moment that day when he wasn't looking out for them. He was in the bathroom when they knocked at the door. His mother had got Georgie Sanderson to build a bathroom at the back of the house. It was when Georgie's leg was so bad that he couldn't go to the fishing any more. A sort of favour, because he hated being idle and she would pay him for the work. Georgie was a practical kind of a man, but there would have been better people to ask. The bath had never fitted properly against the wall. The light had fused soon after Magnus's mother died and Magnus had never bothered getting it fixed. What would be the point? He shaved in the sink by the kitchen and he could see the toilet from the light in the bedroom.

He'd been aware for some time of the need to relieve himself, but he'd not been able to leave his post at the window.

More people had arrived. Constables in uniform. A tall man in a suit. An untidy chap had gone up to the young woman sitting in Henry's Land Rover and taken her away in his car.

Magnus hoped she wasn't in the room with the shiny walls in the police station. At last he hadn't been able to put off the visit to the bathroom any longer, and it was at that moment, when he was standing there, like a peerie boy, with his trousers and his pants round his ankles, because he'd been in too much of a hurry to fiddle with zips and flies, that the knock came. He was thrown into a panic.

'Just wait,' he shouted. He was in midstream. There was nothing he could do about it. 'I'll be there in just a minute.'

He finished at last and pulled on his pants and his trousers all in one go. The trousers had an elasticated waist. Now that he was decent again the panic began to subside.

When Magnus went back to the kitchen the man was still waiting outside. Magnus could see him through the window. He was standing quite patiently. He hadn't even opened the door into the porch. It was the scruffy-looking man who had driven away the young woman. He couldn't have taken her all the way into Lerwick then. Maybe just up to the house by the chapel. Magnus thought the police probably dealt differently with women.

Magnus opened the door and stared at the man. He didn't know him. He didn't live round here. He didn't look like anyone Magnus knew, so he probably didn't have relatives round here either.