Raven Black

by Ann Cleeves

  'No,' he said slowly. 'That's very kind but I don't think I'd be good company!

  There was an awkward silence. She thought he was in a mood when he'd prefer to be alone, but she didn't think it would be good for him to be left with his obsession. Besides, she still had half a mug of coffee left and wasn't sure how she could leave without embarrassing them both.

  'What are your plans?' she asked at last. 'For the future I mean. Will you stay here? Or will you sell up and move south?'

  'I can't think that far ahead! His attention seemed caught by a small boat crossing the bay and she saw he couldn't think of anything else at the moment. He could only focus on prising meanings from his daughter's writings which might explain her death.

  'Do you think Inspector Perez is an intelligent man?' he asked suddenly.

  She considered for a moment. 'I think I'd trust him to get things right. He seems to have an open mind at least!

  'I showed him all the information we discovered about Catherine's film. The receipt and the jotter. The plan. He has everything. I only have copies!

  She saw how hard it must have been for him to relinquish the scraps of paper.

  'Fire and Ice,' he went on. 'I hope the detective picked up its full significance. I tried to explain. . !

  She didn't know what to say. How could she speak for Perez? Anyway she wasn't sure she understood entirely what Catherine had wanted to achieve with the film. It probably had no significance at all. Ross was constructing an elaborate theory from a poem and a piece of homework.

  He continued, almost to himself. 'There was ice the night Catherine was killed of course. Ice. Cold hatred.

  Destructive. And tomorrow night is the fire festival. Fire for passion. . ! She waited for him to go on, but he seemed to realize he was rambling. 'Probably nothing: he said. 'Nothing sinister at all. An excuse for men to dress up in silly costumes and show off. And then drink too much!

  When she said she would show herself out, she wasn’t sure whether or not he had heard her.

  Chapter Forty

  It was Monday morning and Sally woke up in the dark, switched on the bedside light, felt for her alarm clock and looked at the time. From the kitchen she heard her mother, the shutting of a cupboard door, the rattle of a spoon in a mug. Her mother seemed to get up earlier every morning, though there was nothing more for her to do.

  Preparation for school was completed every night before bedtime - the pile of orange exercise books marked and neatly arranged. Why couldn't she chill occasionally? Sometimes Sally even felt sorry for her. She had no friends after all. Only the parents who were frightened of her.

  In the bathroom Sally looked at herself in the mirror over the sink. Smiled. The zit on the side of her nose had gone. Monday morning and she felt OK. The stomach cramps, the migraine, the panic of the old days had gone.

  Now she almost looked forward to going to school and meeting everyone. She stood in the shower and tilted back her head so she could wash her hair.

  Over breakfast her mother seemed distracted. She'd allowed the porridge to stick to the pan and there was no bread left in the freezer for toast. Sally poured muesli into a bowl, added milk, dreamed of Up Helly Aa. It would be a great night for Robert, supporting his father as the Guizer Jarl, following him in the procession through the streets of Lerwick and around the community halls. She should be with him.

  Of course she'd be in town for the procession and the burning of the galley. That wasn't a problem. Her parents had taken her into Lerwick to see the spectacle since she was a baby. But as soon as the fire died down they would want her to leave town and go home with them. 'Tomorrow night there was no way she'd be back in Ravenswick, tucked up in bed in the school house by ten o'clock. No way.

  'I'm babysitting for Mrs Hunter again tonight!

  'Oh?' Margaret was at the sink, scrubbing the burnt pan. Her bare elbows looked red and bony like uncooked chicken thighs. Sally wasn't even sure her mother had taken in the words. Radio Shetland was on in the background.

  An excited voice, male but high-pitched, was giving the weather forecast for the following night.

  'She asked if I could stop in straight from school, give Cassie her tea while she gets ready to go out. She'll leave me something to eat. Is that OK with you?' 'I don't see why not!

  It was unexpectedly easy. There were no questions, no sarcastic comments about Fran's parenting skills. It crossed Sally's mind that there might be something wrong with her mother. The menopause maybe. When did that happen? Was her mother the right age? She didn't dwell on the possibility for long. She had other things to think about. Although it was early for the bus she left the house before her mother could change her mind.

  First lesson was English with Mr Scott. They were still doing Macbeth, reading it out loud in class, everyone taking a different character. Since Catherine's death, Sally had found lessons easier too. Teachers had been more patient, more ready to explain. They'd noticed her. She talked less, thought more carefully about what she had to say. That was because she wasn't so nervous.

  They'd had to write an essay for Mr Scott about Lady Macbeth and her relationship with her husband.

  Last term she'd have been a wreck waiting for it to be handed back, gabbing away about nothing to whoever would listen to her, just so she wouldn't think about what he would say. Now there was just a sort of curiosity about what the teacher had made of it. It wasn't as if he'd lay into her about it even if it was crap. Scott wasn't so bad, she thought. Not sexy like Robert, but gentle, sensitive. Catherine had been hard on him.

  Now he sat on her table, just as he'd used to sit on Catherine's. His hand, rested flat on the wood supporting himself, was very close to hers. He was wearing the old man's jacket and she could smell the wool. 'An excellent piece of writing, Sally. Some very interesting points. You really seem to have found your voice this term. Perhaps I can recommend some extra reading!

  Beside her she knew that Lisa was smirking.

  They'd all take the piss at break in the house room, but she couldn't help being flattered.

  'Thank you, Mr Scott

  That'd be great!

  All day the school felt different, like they were small kids again in the build-up to Christmas. That slightly manic air. Everyone with too much energy and not being able to concentrate. It was all about Up Helly Aa. The sixth years mocked the whole thing, but even in their house room there was a suppressed excitement, a collective silliness. At lunchtime they had a go at her as she'd expected. 'Scottie really fancies you,' Lisa said. 'You can tell!

  Then someone said. 'You want to watch it. He really fancied Catherine and look what happened to her! And the room went quiet for a moment until James Sinclair threw the remains of his sandwich at Simon Fletcher and chaos broke out again.

  Sally didn't have a lesson last thing and walked into town, to the hall where they were putting the final touches to the galley. Robert was already there. He looked as if he'd been there all day. He had splashes of varnish in his hair. Although they had arranged to meet, he seemed briefly shocked to see her and she wondered what was the matter with the people she knew at the moment - her mother, Robert, even her father. They all seemed wrapped up in their own dreams or preoccupations so the demands of everyday life seemed to come as a surprise.

  She thought the galley looked stunning. It was enormous and the dragon's head at the prow reared up over her, its flared painted nostrils and fiery eyes somehow hypnotic, pulling her attention. Robert grinned. He took a horned helmet from a shelf beside him and put it on, then held the shield across his breast.

  'Well? What do you think? My dad gets back later. I want everything perfect for him!

  She thought he was like a little boy showing off. A picture of Mr Scott reading Shakespeare to them came into her head and she wondered in a fleeting, disloyal moment if perhaps Robert wasn't the right person for her after all.

  Then she saw how magnificent he looked, with his blond beard and blond hair. How could Scott
compete with that?

  He held the shield high above his head and she thought how strong he was. He'd be able to lift her aloft just as easily, snap her wrist with one of his hands.

  'I'm babysitting again tonight. Will you be able to make it? I told you. Remember?'

  She saw from the moment of confusion on his face that he'd forgotten all about it.

  'I'm not sure: he said, keeping his voice low.

  'There's a last-minute meeting of the squad. The official photograph. My dad will need me. He trusted me to look after things while he was away. But we can be together tomorrow. I've got you a ticket for one of the halls. But tonight? You know how it is. I have to be there!

  No, she thought. I don't know how it is.

  'Please! She reached up and touched his face, then kissed him quickly on the mouth, pushing the point of her tongue between his lips. She saw him look over her shoulder at the two men working on the galley. They were crouched in the hull fitting the base of the mast into its casing and didn't see. What does it matter to him? she thought. I have my parents to worry about, but he's an adult, free. Why does he want to keep this secret?

  'I'll try to get there later,' he said. She couldn't tell if he'd really try or if he would have promised anything then to get rid of her.

  In the end she was back at school in time to get the bus home, and she didn't need the cover she'd made up that morning to explain her absence. But she couldn't face her mother, who would be even more bad-tempered after a day of hyperactive children. Sally could remember what it was like in the primary school just before Up Helly Aa -

  all the kids going wild, beating each other up with cardboard swords. Her mother would be in a foul mood. She got off the bus on the main road and went to Fran's anyway.

  'I thought I could give Cassie her tea and you'd have the chance to get ready in peace,' she said, standing on the doorstep, a model babysitter, eager to please. 'If you'd like me to. I haven't much homework tonight! This was the story she'd given her mother. Sally was a good liar, knew the importance of sticking to the same untruth. And of getting corroboration whenever possible. 'But I can come back later if you want.'

  'No,' Fran opened the door to let her in. 'That'd be great. Cassie's as high as a kite. I've promised to take her into Lerwick tomorrow for Up Helly Aa. Her first time. Will you be there?'

  'Oh, I'll be there! She was going to say, boasting, My boyfriend's in the Guizer Jarl's squad, but something stopped her. Standing just inside the door, an idea came to her. A story which would keep her mother off her back, give her the chance of a proper night out. Mrs Hunter has asked me to go with her tomorrow. Help her keep an eye on Cassie. She says, can I sleep over so she can go to a party in the hall? That's OK, isn't it? Of course Margaret would find out about Robert sooner or later. But Sally wanted time to get her story right, to decide exactly what to say.

  Cassie was still awake, fractious and difficult when Fran went out. Sally thought she'd never met a child so full of questions and imaginings. How could you keep your patience and answer all that? As' soon as her mother had gone Cassie was up, restless and fidgety, wanting water and a book to read, talking all the time, wearing Sally down.

  Sally found it hard to keep her temper, understood for the first time why her mother was so sharp to the kids in school.

  Robert could turn up at any time and she wanted Cassie asleep by then.

  At last she got the child to bed and watched until she fell into a light and fitful sleep.

  When Robert arrived Cassie must have been woken by his knocking or by the strange man's voice because she appeared again at the bedroom door, her hair tousled, her pyjamas untucked. Sally thought the interruption would make him angry, but he'd drunk just enough to make him mellow, and he sat in the big chair by the fire and took the little girl on to his knee. She resisted for a moment then gave in. Sally couldn't tell if the big stranger in her house had frightened her into silence or if she was enjoying it. Cassie stayed on his knee until she fell asleep. He carried her to her room and laid her gently on the bed. In his arms she looked as floppy and lifeless as a doll.

  When Fran came home, Sally thought she should tell her that Robert had been there. It wouldn't do for it to come from Cassie.

  'I hope you don't mind. A friend called in. He didn't stay long!

  Sally was waiting for questions. She had her story prepared. But Fran too seemed preoccupied and lost in her own thoughts. 'Right,' she said. 'OK. No problem!

  Chapter Forty-One

  Fran hadn't thought there could be this many people in Shetland. All of them, every person from the country and from the north isles and from Bressay, Foula and Whalsay, must be crammed into town tonight. It wasn't just Shetlanders filling the streets either. There were tourists from all over the world. The hotels, guest houses and B&Bs must be full. In the crowd she heard American voices. and Australians and languages she couldn't understand.

  Only now the pipe band leading the procession was coming closer and she couldn't hear much except the music and the cheering, and all the voices seemed to swell together to make one overwhelming sound.

  Cassie stood beside her, fidgeting because she couldn't see. Some of the children had squeezed through to the front of the crowd, but Fran was afraid that if Cassie let go her hand, they would never find each other again. Cassie had been in a strange mood all day, full of some secret she'd been told at school. She'd been in turns silent and mysterious, not answering her mother's questions, then suddenly excitable, letting out a stream of words which hardly made sense. Now she was restless, watching for the distant torches.

  The Guizer Jarl appeared, magnificent in his costume, the shield and the horned helmet gleaming, followed by his squad of Vikings. Fran lifted Cassie on to her shoulders so she could see him, but something about the spectacle - the Vikings, so fierce and warlike, or the following squads of guizers dressed in carnival costumes or the fire - seemed to scare her, because soon she squirmed to be let down. Fran could see that there was a nightmare element to the scene. A dozen Bart Simpsons followed a dozen James Bonds, followed by a dozen cartoon donkeys with enormous flashing teeth. All the men were rowdy, those faces not covered by carnival masks were flushed by the torches and by drink.

  The procession took longer to pass than she'd expected. It had to file through the narrow street, trapped on each side by tall grey houses.

  'Have you seen enough now?' She bent to yell into Cassie's ear. 'Should we go home?'

  Cassie didn't answer immediately. Fran thought she was ready to leave, but knew that the next day she'd have to face the children at school, boasting about how late they'd stayed up, teasing her for having missed the climax of the evening.

  'We have to see the galley being burned,' she said at last, stubbornly, expecting a fight. But Fran knew how cruel children could be.

  So they stayed, and they were swept along by the crowd towards the King George V playing field, where the galley would be set alight. And again Fran thought the whole of Shetland must be here because everywhere she looked there were people she knew. Sometimes she just glimpsed people in the distance, at others she travelled along with them for a little way until they were separated by the pressing mass.

  She saw Euan Ross standing in a doorway. He was at the top of a small flight of steps, observing events without being a part of them. Just like Catherine, Fran thought. Just as Catherine would have acted if she'd been here. She pulled Cassie with her out of the stream and approached him. It was quieter here. The band had moved on.

  She could talk without shouting.

  'What do you make of it?'

  .

  He didn't answer immediately. He joined them on the pavement, crouched to say hello to Cassie, knotted her scarf more snugly around her neck. Watching him, Fran thought, He's remembering Catherine at that age. When he had a wife and a child.

  'It's rather fun, isn't it?' he said, straightening. 'One knows it's a Victorian invention, but so much time and effort have gon
e into making it a success that it would be churlish to criticize. It brings people together after all. I hope Catherine would have recognized that in her film!

  'Will you come to watch the galley being burned?' 'Of course: he said. 'I'll have to see it through now. But don't wait for me. I'll get there in my own time!

  Singing had started. Loud, boisterous men's singing. Like a rugby song or a football chant. Fran left Euan standing there in his doorway, but when she turned back, he'd already gone. Cassie hurried her away, worried that they'd get left behind and they'd miss the action on the field, but back on the street the procession continued, a stream of grotesque grinning faces. There they met Jan Ellis, the Ravenswick woman who'd given them the dog, and her daughter Shona.

  Jan seemed pleased to see them, began to ask about Maggie, but Fran didn't get a chance to answer because Jan's husband marched past, dressed like the rest of his squad as a baby in a romper suit and nappy, a pink knitted bonnet on his head. The crowd laughed and cheered.

  'It drove me crazy knitting that outfit: Jan yelled.

  'What is it with men and dressing up?'

  And then she was gone too, pulled along by Shona, who wanted another glimpse of her father looking ridiculous.

  Fran stood still for a moment. The noise made her feel giddy and a bit sick. She worried that she might faint and she bent her head and breathed in deeply. As she straightened, she thought she saw Duncan on the other side of the road, in intense conversation with a large woman in a red anorak. She knew it couldn't be Duncan. He would already be at the Haa with his drinking cronies, preparing to light his bonfire on the beach. She wondered if she was secretly hoping to see him. Tonight in her imagination anything was possible. The whole evening was like an elaborate sleight of hand. A Victorian invention dressed up as a Norse midwinter festival, a boat which would never sail, men as babies. This was fantasy masquerading as reality, a conjuror's dream. It made her head spin.

  Up Helly Aa at Duncan's house before Cassie's birth had been very different. It had been carried off with a certain style. Duncan had always been a good showman. He had made the festival romantic. She almost wished that she was there, away from the crowd, standing on the frosty beach. The flames from the bonfire would be reflected in the sea. She stared back at the man she'd mistaken for Duncan, but now there was no sign of him or the woman in red amongst the crowd on the opposite pavement. I'm going mad. Is this how it is for Magnus Tait? Has he lost touch with reality too?