Raven Black Read online

  'Sally?'

  'Sally Henry, the teacher's lass!

  'But yesterday Catherine was on her own?'

  'On her own. Yes!

  'Did she stay long?'

  'She took some cake,' Magnus said. 'A cup of tea! 'So she wasn't here all afternoon?'

  'No. Not long!

  'What time was it, when she left?'

  'I can't say for sure!

  Perez looked around the room. 'That's a fine clock' 'It belonged to my mother!

  'It keeps good time?'

  'I check it with the wireless every night!

  'You'd have noticed what time the girl left, surely.

  The clock, sitting there on the shelf. You'd have glanced at it when she went out. It would be automatic!

  Magnus opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn't come out. His thoughts seemed frozen, sluggish.

  'I don't remember,' he said at last. 'Was it light when she left you?' 'Oh yes, it was still light!

  'Because this time of the year, it gets dark so early. . ! Perez paused," looked towards Magnus as if expecting him to change his mind. When there was no response he continued, 'Where was she going?'

  'Home!

  'Did she say that was where she was going?'

  'No, but that was the direction she was headed in. 'To that house halfway down the bank where the building work was done. The one with all the glass at the front. She lives there!

  'Did you see her go in?'

  Was that another trick? Magnus looked at the policeman. He became aware that his mouth was open and he shut it.

  'It'd only be natural,' Perez said. 'You'd watch her go down the hill, wouldn't you? Nothing wrong with watching a pretty young girl anyway. But you must spend a lot of time sitting here looking at the view.

  This weather, there's not much else to do!

  'Yes,' Magnus said. 'I saw her go in!

  They sat. The silence lasted for such a long time that Magnus wondered if that was it, if the policeman would go now and leave him alone. Suddenly he wasn't even sure that was what he wanted. 'Would you like some tea?' he asked. He frowned, imagining how it would be in the house, with the policeman gone, and only the noise of the ravens calling from the hill outside.

  'Yes,' Perez said. "Tea would be fine!

  Neither of them spoke until the tea was made and they were sitting together back at the table.

  'Eight years ago,' Perez said, 'a girl went missing. She was younger than Catherine, but not that much younger.

  Catriona, she was called. Did you know her, Magnus?'

  Magnus wanted to shut his eyes to shut out the question, but knew that if he did, he'd imagine himself back in the police station with the fist pulling back from his face, the taste of blood in his mouth.

  He stared into space.

  'You did know her, didn't you Magnus? She came to visit you for tea too. Like Catherine. She was very bonny, I hear!

  'She was never found,' Magnus said. He tried to compose the muscles in his jaw to stop the dreadful smile. He fixed his lips tight shut and remembered his mother's words. Tell them nothing.

  Chapter Eight

  Perez drove back to Lerwick after leaving Magnus Tait's house. He wanted to talk to Catherine's father and knew that the man was still at the high school. There might not be much he could do at this stage the man would be in shock - but it seemed respectful to introduce himself and explain the procedures. He couldn't imagine what it must be like to lose a child.

  Not really. Sarah, his wife, had had a miscarriage, and that for a while had seemed like the end of the world. He'd tried not to show how much it hurt him. He hadn't wanted Sarah to feel that he loved her any less, or blamed her for the loss of the baby. Of course it had been himself he'd blamed. Himself and the weight of his family's expectations. He'd felt that almost physically, pictured it as a crushing pressure, which made it impossible for the baby to survive. It would have been a boy. The pregnancy had been sufficiently advanced for them to know that. There would have been another Perez to carry on the family line.

  Perhaps he'd played the role too skilfully. Perhaps Sarah had thought he really didn't care. Though surely she must have known him well enough to realize it was an act for her benefit. It was from the miscarriage that he charted the breakdown of his marriage. Sarah grew grey and distant. He spent more time at work. When she told him she was leaving, it was almost a relief. He couldn't bear to see her looking so miserable.

  Now she was married to a GP and living somewhere in the Borders. It seemed she'd had no problems conceiving with her new partner. There were already three children and the Christmas card - it had been a very civilized divorce and they still kept in touch informed him that there was another baby on the way. He imagined her sometimes living in one of those solid country houses he'd glimpsed from the train south. He'd see her in a kitchen which looked out over woods and a meadow.

  She'd be giving the kids their tea, a baby on her hip, laughing. Not being part of that seemed a sort of bereavement.

  Bad enough. What must it be like for Catherine's father to lose a real child?

  Euan Ross was sitting in the head teacher's office, on an easy chair, next to a round coffee table. This would be where the head would sit when he came out from behind his desk to put anxious parents or nervous students at ease. The female uniformed officer beside him looked as if she longed to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. Ross was an angular man in his mid-forties, greying. When he saw Perez, he reached into his pocket for a pair of spectacles. He wore dark trousers, a jacket and tie, everything smart, too smart for most of the teachers Perez had come across.

  If he hadn't known, Perez would have put him down as a lawyer or accountant. There was a tea tray on the table. It was untouched and looked as if it had been there some time.

  Perez introduced himself.

  'I want to see my daughter,' Ross said. 'I've tried to explain how important that is.'

  'Of course, But I'm afraid that will be later. No one is allowed to disturb her now. We have to preserve the crime scene.'

  Ross had been sitting very upright, but now he collapsed and put his head in his hands. 'I can't believe it. Not until I see her.' He looked up. 'I was with my wife when she died. She'd been ill for months and we'd been expecting it. But even then I couldn't quite believe it. I kept expecting her to turn her head to me and smile.'

  Perez didn't know what to say, so he kept quiet. 'How did Catherine die?' Ross asked. 'No one will tell me anything.' He looked at the policewoman. She pretended not to hear.

  'We believe she was strangled,' Perez said. 'We'll know more when the team from Inverness arrives. They have more experience of serious crime than we do.'

  'Who would want to kill her?'

  He didn't seem to be expecting an answer, but Perez took advantage of the question. 'We're hoping you'll have the information to help us discover that. There isn't anyone who comes immediately to mind? A boyfriend she's recently dumped? Anyone who might be jealous, angry?'

  'No. At least there might be, but I'm not the person to ask. You'd think we'd be close. There are only the two of us after all. But she didn't confide in me, Inspector. I know very little of what she got up to. We lived under the same roof, but sometimes I thought we were strangers.'

  'I suppose that's how it is with teenagers,' Perez said. 'They resent their parents' prying.' Though how would I know?

  I don't have children and when I was that age I was boarding out at the hostel. I'd have loved to have my parents to talk to every night. 'But you'll be able to give me the names of her friends. They'll be able to help.'

  There was a moment of silence before Ross answered. 'I'm not sure Catherine was very close to anybody. She didn't need people. Liz, my wife, was very different. She had so many friends. At her funeral the church was packed, people standing at the back, people I'd never met but who felt close to her, touched by her warmth. I don't know who will come when we bury Catherine. Not many people.'

  The
statement almost took Perez's breath away. It seemed such a sad and chilling thing to say. He wondered if that was how it had always been. If Catherine had always been compared to Euan's wife and been found wanting.

  'Didn't she hang around with Sally Henry?' he said at last.

  'The teacher's daughter? Yes, she did. They came into school on the bus together. I didn't usually bring Catherine in.

  I leave the house too early and get back too late for her.' He gave a little smile which made Perez at last feel some sympathy for him. 'Besides, it wouldn't have been very cool, would it? Getting a lift with your Dad? Sally was often in the house. I was pleased that Catherine had the company. I'm not sure though how close they were.'

  'Had she a regular boyfriend since you moved to Shetland?'

  'I don't think she's ever had a regular boyfriend,' Ross said. 'And I'm not sure I'd know about it if she had.'

  Perez left him, sitting in the head's office, staring into space. He couldn't tell if it was his daughter Ross was grieving for or his wife. Outside the school he looked down at the familiar town. He'd moved back to Shetland after Sarah had left. He'd seen it as a failure, an act of running away. It had been a sort of promotion, but it wasn't real policing, was it?

  That was what his colleagues in Aberdeen had said. A bit young for retirement, aren't you, Jimmy lad? After losing the baby and separating from Sarah, he hadn't really cared. The big cases hadn't excited him any more. He'd stopped caring about the glory. And now he had a big case on his own patch and he felt something of the old thrill. Nothing to make a song and dance about just yet. But something stirring in his guts so he felt a bit more alive. The possibility of getting it right.

  Chapter Nine

  When Fran arrived at the school to collect Cassie, a crowd of adults was already there. This was unusual.

  Most of the children - even the younger ones - were allowed to make their own way home. Fran stood apart for a moment watching the group. There was something intimidating about them, gathered in a circle. It was almost dark and it was hard to make out individuals.

  They stamped their feet against the cold and talked in low, intense voices in a dialect she had problems understanding. Then she thought she had as much right to be there as they did. And when she approached them, they welcomed her, said how much of a shock it must have been to come across the body like that. They were sympathetic and she was the centre of attention. Inside the school the lights were on. They shone on the playground, reflecting from the ice where boys had made a slide and a half-built snowman.

  At first their curiosity offended her but she thought none of them had really known Catherine. It wasn't as if she'd grown up there. They saw the girl as a character, someone they might have seen on TV. They crowded around Fran asking for details. Was it true that the birds had ripped out both the eyes? That Catherine had been naked? Was there blood? Despite herself Fran answered.

  '1 saw that detective from Fair Isle was in Magnus 'Tait's house.' Fran didn't recognize the speaker. It was a sharp-faced, pinched little woman. In her forties, she could have been a mother or a young grandmother. She continued shrilly, breaking in on the conversation around her, 'Perhaps this time they'll put him away where he belongs.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Didn't you know? It's not the first time it's happened. A girl was killed here before.'

  'Now, Jennifer, we don't know she was killed.'

  'Well, she'd not have disappeared into thin air, would she? And although it was summer, it was stormy that week. I mind it fine. There were no planes or boats south for days. Not that Catriona could have got on to either without someone realizing it was odd for a young girl to be on her own.'

  'Who was she?' Fran told herself this was malicious gossip. She should stand apart from it and not get involved. But it didn't prevent the question.

  'Catriona Bruce. Eleven years old. The family lived in the house where Euan Ross stays now. Some coincidence huh? They had to move. How could they stay there with reminders of her everywhere and not knowing for certain what happened to her? I think it was a worse crime than killing her, not letting on what he'd done with the body.'

  'But if Magnus was never charged,' Fran's Guardian values reasserted themselves, 'you can't be certain it was him.'

  'It was him all right. We always knew he was daft in the head. He was like a child himself. Everyone thought he was harmless. We were more innocent in those days, maybe. People thought they were doing a kindness, letting their children in to talk to him. We know better now!

  I let Cassie talk to him, Fran thought. Nobody warned me not to. She remembered Magnus hurrying out of his house to greet them, almost stumbling in his eagerness to catch up with them, before they'd walked on. She shivered.

  Inside the school a bell rang and the children ran out.

  By the time they arrived home it was quite dark. This time of year once the sun fell below the horizon night came very quickly. She went in and drew the curtains before switching on the lights. She'd hurried Cassie past Magnus's house, tugging on the mittened hand, jollying her along with the promise of treats at home. She'd wondered how she'd react if Magnus came out, but wasn't put to the test. She'd glanced once towards Hillhead, thought she'd glimpsed a pale, staring face and had looked quickly away. Perhaps she'd imagined it; perhaps he'd already been arrested.

  Now she imagined what Euan must be going through. The police would have gone to the high school and told him about Catherine's death. Surely they wouldn't expect him to look at the body? Not lying where it was in the field.

  Perez had told her that it would be there all night. But perhaps he would want to see his daughter. Perez had said a team would come from Inverness and the detectives and scene of crime officers would need to see the body on site.

  He'd thought it hardly likely they'd make the three o'clock plane from Aberdeen. More likely the six-thirty. But she supposed there would be questions for Euan. Perhaps that would be a distraction of a sort. She thought the worst time would be returning to the big glass house and his dreams of two dead women.

  She considered phoning to check if he was home. It wasn't having to confront the image of Catherine's death which prevented her. She hated seeming like the relatives waiting by the school gate. What if Euan thought her prurient and intrusive? What if her motives had more to do with curiosity than an attempt to provide support?

  There was a knock at the door. Cassie was engrossed in a television programme and hardly looked up. The tension and excitement outside the school seemed to have passed over her head. Usually Fran would just have shouted, It's open, come in. Today she hesitated, opened the door a crack, thought in the moment of opening it What if it's the old man? Would I turn him away?

  Euan stood outside. He was wrapped up in a long black overcoat, but he was shaking.

  'I was on my way home,' he said. 'They offered to send someone with me. I told them I preferred to be on my own.

  But now I can't face going into the house. I don't know what to do!

  She felt she should offer him comfort, put her arms around him as she had when he'd broken down talking. about his wife. But now he was too cold and distant. She thought it would be like attempting to hug a formidable headmaster if you were still at school. Impossible.

  'Come in,' she said. She sat him by the fire and poured him whisky.

  'I was teaching a group of third years. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Maggie came in. She's in charge of RE. Maybe they thought that was appropriate. Could she have a word? I could tell it was serious, but I thought one of the kids in my class. . ! He stopped. 'I don't know what I thought. But not that!

  'I'll phone Duncan,' Fran said. 'He's always wanting extra time with Cassie. She can spend the night with him. Then I can come back with you to the house, see you in. I can spend as long there as you need!

  At first she wasn't sure if he'd heard, but eventually he nodded. He sat with his coat still on while she made the arrangements, but after a few moments set
the whisky carefully on the table and took off his gloves with great concentration.

  Duncan arrived with a flourish, his palm on the horn. She took Cassie out to him although on other occasions this loutish behaviour would have kept her in the house, forcing him out of the comfort zone of his 4x4 to knock at the door.

  'Shall we go?' she said to Euan. He had sipped the whisky, but barely touched it.

  He stood up without a word. She was reminded of a visit to a psychiatric hospital to see one of her London friends who was being treated for anorexia. Euan had the same stiff gait and immovable features of some of the other patients in the day room, drugged up she'd supposed, to keep them quiet and safe.

  Automatically polite, he opened the passenger door for her, and drove slowly down the hill. At his house he braked a little sharply, forgetting the snow and the car skidded for a few yards before stopping.

  She walked into the house before him and switched on all the lights. He hesitated before following. He stood in the hall, apparently bewildered. It was as if this place was strange to him.

  'What would you like me to do?' she asked. 'Would you prefer to be alone?'

  'No!' he said sharply. 'I'd like to talk about Catherine. If you can bear it! He turned to face her. 'They said you found her body!

  'Yes! She held her breath, dreading that he would ask what Catherine had looked like, but he just stared at her for a moment and moved on. She realized she was trembling.

  He led her through to the back of the house, to a room she hadn't seen on her previous visit. It was small. The walls were painted deep red and there were a couple of posters for art-house movies. At one end stood a desk with television and DVD player and a rack of DVDs. Against the wall was a small sofa which looked as if it let down into a bed. There was a book face down on the sofa. A paperback anthology of Robert Frost's poetry. Fran supposed it was a school set text.

  'This is where Catherine brought her friends,' Euan said. 'She liked her privacy, kept her bedroom to herself. The police have already been in here. I gave them a key earlier. She'd have hated that, the thought of them going through her things! He looked around him. 'It's not usually this tidy. Mrs Jamieson came in yesterday to clean!