by Ann Cleeves
'I was thinking of going back to Brae. There's a party at the Haa. Do you want to come?'
'Why not?'
'I think I've done my bit in town, don't you?'
'Sure! She was thinking she had nothing to lose.
Her parents weren't expecting her back until the morning and anyway it might be safer away from Lerwick. She didn't want her parents turning up and making a scene if anyone had told them what was going on. 'Are you OK to drive?' Maybe he would teach her, she thought. That would make her useful to him. She could stay off the drink and drive him home after parties. He wouldn't dump her then.
'No problem: he said, though when they went out to the van, he forgot that he hadn't locked it and dropped his keys and started swearing. She wondered why he was so edgy. The whole evening had gone well and she knew he'd been looking forward to it. He hadn't admitted it of course, but he was like one of the kids in her mother's school, taking the starring role in the Christmas show. Perhaps now it was over it was an anticlimax. For the first time she thought she was the strong one in the relationship. When it came down to it, she'd be the one to look after him.
Driving north, he didn't say much. He was driving very fast and on one of the bends nearly lost control. The gritting lorries had been out earlier in the day, but now the roads were slippery. She was tempted to tell him to slow down, but the last thing she wanted was to end up like her mother, always nagging and carping. And anyway there was something exhilarating about driving so fast in the dark along an empty road. He'd pushed a CD into the player and really loud rock music was playing. It gave her the same sensation as staring up at the sky. She wasn't timid Sally any more. Everything had changed. She reached out and put her hand on his knee, rubbed her thumb along the inside of his thigh.
In Brae there were still lights in some of the houses but the place was quiet. Sally had heard about the Haa.
Catherine had told her about a party there, though Sally had never understood how she'd managed to get herself an invitation. She was thinking about that, trying not to drag up the old resentments, when Robert braked sharply to turn off the main road. The van skidded and spun. Sally had her eyes shut, imagined it sliding off the road or crashing into the wall in the corner, the boot smashed in, one or both of them dead. But somehow Robert managed to keep it upright. It was just facing in the wrong direction.
'Shit,' he said, 'that would be all I'd need. The cops sniffing round, taking breath tests! He gave a nervous little giggle which made her realize he'd been a bit frightened himself. Again, she thought she was probably stronger than he was. He reversed slowly until he was facing the right way and took the hill down towards the beach more slowly.
As they approached the house, they could see the bonfire on the beach was still smouldering.
He introduced Sally to his mother. Perhaps that was why he'd brought her. He'd known Celia would be here and he'd wanted them to meet. Sally hoped that was how it was. It made her feel like a real girlfriend, Robert wanting her to get to know his family. Now though, she wasn't sure it was going to work. She didn't think she'd get on with Celia. It was like she was in some sort of fancy dress, with the long black dress and the slash of lipstick on her white face. She'd been the first person they'd seen when they'd got to the Haa and Sally had been shocked. She'd heard of Celia Isbister, but never met her before. She'd expected her to look more like a real mother.
She couldn't let Robert know what she was thinking though. She could tell he'd been keen to see Celia. It was as if he was caught somewhere between his mother and his father, desperate to please them both. That was why he'd driven out here like a madman. It seemed a weird relationship to her. Not like mother and son at all. More like they were lovers or something. He seemed so pleased to see the woman when they went into the house and she appeared at the doorway as if she owned the place. He put his arm around Celia and pulled her to him. Sally never had that sort of physical contact with her parents. She wouldn't have wanted it. She didn't think it was healthy.
Before she followed him inside, she waited for a moment in the courtyard. Everything was quiet outside, though she imagined she could hear waves breaking on the beach. The tide would have turned. Looking up she saw a man's face at an upstairs window, staring down at her. He must have heard the van. She recognized him as Duncan Hunter.
Everyone was inside now. The bonfire was still alight because someone had put a huge bit of driftwood on it but even that was nearly burnt away, so there was nothing much left but embers and ash. Celia took them through to a long living room which was almost empty, to show the fire to them through French doors. Everyone else was in the kitchen. A baking tray with blackened sausages stood on the top of the stove, with some baked potatoes, cold now, their skins wrinkled, brown like a tortoise's neck. Nobody was eating. It wasn't like a party. They were still there, still drinking, but the music was turned very low and there was a quiet, subdued air.
'Duncan's daughter's missing,' Celia said. 'The police came earlier. We haven't got any details. Duncan phoned Fran, but she couldn't tell him much. It's probably nothing. She's that sort of kid. The kind to wander off. But with all that's happened lately, you can imagine what Duncan's going through. He's waiting upstairs by the phone!
'Cassie?' Sally said. 'I babysit for her sometimes! She thought it was quite exciting to be on the edge of the drama.
'It'll kill him if anything happens to her: Celia said.
'Should we be here, then?' Sally didn't want to imagine what it would be like to lose a child, but she didn't think you'd want a load of strangers in your house.
'God yes, we daren't go. Duncan hates being by himself! Celia had a way of talking which made you feel a bit stupid. Sally couldn't take to her at all, though of course she'd try for Robert's sake. It probably wasn't fair to judge.
Celia had obviously been drinking very heavily. Besides the lipstick, she was wearing black eyeliner which had become smudged and close to she looked a bit of a mess. There was something sticky and disgusting on the sleeve of her cardigan.
Margaret might not be a brilliant mother, but at least she maintained a bit of dignity. She knew how to behave in company. Sally would have liked to escape. Instead she started drinking again. She knew it was a mistake and she should keep a clear head, but when she saw Robert and Celia whispering to each other, standing so close that their heads were touching, she couldn't help herself.
Chapter Forty-Four
Magnus was nearly asleep when he heard voices outside his cell. It sounded like an argument. He thought, It's Up Helly Aa. Someone with too much drink inside him. His uncle had taken him to watch the procession when he'd been a boy and there'd been a lot of drinking even then. One year, Agnes had been there too. She'd have been very young. He could remember how her eyes shone with the excitement of being allowed out so late, and the bag of sweeties his uncle had carried in his pocket.
Then the metal flap in the thick door clicked open and Magnus could see the face of a policeman, backlit from the strip lights in the corridor. Magnus was lying on the narrow bed and wriggled back on his buttocks, so his head was higher and his back was leaning against the wall. He wondered what they could be wanting now. Were they going to send him away? Surely not. The ferry had long gone and there'd be no more planes at this time. Unless they'd chartered one. That happened sometimes. If people got so ill that they needed to go to the hospital in Aberdeen where they had all the fancy machines, they flew them out in a special plane. Despite his panic, he felt a small thrill at the idea that they hired an aeroplane specially for him. He swung his legs round so he was sitting on the bed.
There was the sound of keys rattling together and then he heard the key move in the lock and the door was opened. The policeman in uniform stood aside to let someone in.
'You've got a visitor,' the policeman said. He sounded bad-tempered. Magnus couldn't think what he'd done to annoy him. When the man had come in earlier to collect his tea tray he'd been all right, almost friendly
. They'd chatted about the parade. 'You don't have to see him if you don't want to! Behind the policeman in his uniform Magnus could see the detective from Fair Isle. He was still dressed for outdoors in a big padded jacket and he had his hands in his pockets.
Magnus thought then that the policeman was cross with the Fair Isle man and not with him.
'I'll see him,' he said, anxious to please. 'Oh yes. Why not?'
'You don't want your lawyer here?'
Magnus was quite certain about that. He didn't like the lawyer at all.
Jimmy Perez sat opposite him on a plastic chair. Magnus didn't hear the footsteps of the policeman moving away. He must be standing there, just outside the door. Because he was thinking about that, about why the policeman was still standing in the corridor instead of going back to his office where it would surely be more comfortable, he missed the detective's first question. There was a pause and Magnus knew he was supposed to answer. He looked around him, embarrassed and confused.
'Did you hear what I said, Magnus?' There was an impatience in the man's voice which Magnus hadn't heard before, except maybe when he'd shown the detective Catriona's ribbons at Hillhead. 'Cassie's missing. You know Cassie? Mrs Hunter's daughter?'
Magnus smiled despite himself. That smile that always got him into trouble. He remembered the girl being pulled past his house on a sledge, that snowy day when the ravens were out over the headland. 'She's a bonny little thing.'
'Do you know where she could be, Magnus? Do you have any ideas?'
Magnus shook his head.
'But you would like to help me find her?'
'Would they let me out?' he said uncertainly. 'I'd come if they would, but there'll be a lot of men to help in a search and I'm not as young as I was.' He thought of when the other girl went missing and the line of men stretched over the hill that time. He'd helped too until the two policeman had come from Lerwick to take him away.
'I don't need that kind of help. I need you to tell me about Catriona. What happened to Catriona, Magnus?'
Magnus opened his mouth, but no words came out.
'Did you kill her, Magnus? If you did and you tell me that would help us find Cassie. And if you didn't, but you know who did it, that would help too.'
Magnus slid from the bed so he was standing. He felt he couldn't breathe. 'I promised,' he said.
He could sense the detective's impatience again and backed away from him. Was the policeman still waiting outside the door?
'Who did you make the promise to?'
'My mother.'
Tell them nothing.
'She's dead, Magnus. She'll never know. Besides, she loved children, didn't she? She'd want you to help Cassie.'
'She loved Agnes,' he said and added, though he knew he shouldn't, because you shouldn't speak against your mother, 'I'm not sure she loved me.'
'Tell me what happened that day. When Catriona ran up the hill. It was the school holidays, wasn't it? One of those blustery, sunny days?'
'I was working in the field,' Magnus said. 'Cutting hay. I had nearly finished and then I was going to do some gardening. We had a garden in those days at the side of the house where there was a bit of shelter. I don't bother so much now. I only keep up with a few tatties and neeps. Then I had greens in the spring, cabbage later, carrots and onions.' He paused, sensed that the man from Fair Isle was getting impatient, though nothing about his face had changed. 'I saw the girl running up the hill. She had a bunch of flowers in her hand. I always liked it when she came to visit and I thought I'd take a break. Have a cup of coffee in the house.' He looked up defensively. 'There was nothing wrong with that, was there? To take a break and talk tothe girl.'
'Of course not if that was all you did.' He said nothing.
'Will you tell me?' Jimmy Perez said. His voice was very quiet, so quiet Magnus had to strain to hear it and his hearing was very good. Not like some old folks. Not like his mother who'd gone deaf in the end. Thoughts were racing round in his head. Pictures of Catriona and of Agnes when she was ill and his mother braced in her chair by the fire, the knitting pin trapped under one arm, clicking away in that sad, unforgiving way she had. And of sitting in Sunday school as a boy, the rough wooden chair full of splinters that rubbed in the back of your knees, looking up at the dust caught in the light coming from the long window.
Listening to the things they were taught by the minister. That the only way to find happiness was through the forgiveness of God. Not really understanding the words, not all the words, but glimpsing the meaning of it occasionally like shapes in the fog. And later not believing any of it.
He decided not to tell the detective, but when he opened his mouth, it all came out.
'She danced up the bank with the flowers in her hand and I knew she was coming to see us. She would never have thought that she might not be welcome/
She had her hair tied up with two ribbons. . ! He held his hands at the top of his head to show what he meant. '. . .
Like horns, maybe. I was in the kitchen by then, my hands washed, ready for some coffee. She came right in. She never bothered to knock. And you could tell that she was full of mischief that day. Could it be the wind? When it's windy you see the children rushing round the playground and so noisy sometimes you can hear them from my house. My mother was knitting. I could tell she didn't want Catriona there. Some nights she didn't sleep so well. I think she just wanted to be left alone that day. She'd had a bad night and she wanted to sit and knit in peace!
'But you wanted to see the child?'
'I liked to see her,' he said. 'I gave her a glass of milk and a biscuit. But she said she didn't want milk; she wanted juice. We had no juice in the house. She wouldn't settle. Some days when she visited she would sit and draw a picture, or when mother was in the mood they would bake together. That day she was all over the place, opening drawers and looking into cupboards. I suppose she was bored. She said she was bored! He spoke in a puzzled voice.
Boredom was an idea he found hard to understand. Here in the police station he hated being locked in, and he worried about what was going on with his land at Hillhead, but he wasn't bored.
'So she left?' Perez said. 'Is that what you're telling me? She was bored so she left. Where did she go? Who did she see?'
There was a silence. 'Magnus?'
'She didn't leave,' he said. 'She went into my room and starting looking in there for things to play with! He remembered the girl pushing open the door, bouncing on his bed, her head thrown back, laughing, the horns of hair flying. His confusion as he watched her, watching the small brown body, glimpsing her knickers as her skirt rode up.
'She shouldn't have done that. Not without asking first!
'No,' the detective agreed. Magnus expected him to ask another question then, but he didn't. He sat looking at Magnus, just waiting for him to go on with the story.
'I'd kept some things which had belonged to Agnes,' Magnus said. 'You remember, I told you about Agnes. She was my sister. She died when she Was still a girl. She caught the whooping cough. My mother had asked me to get rid of them. She didn't want them in the house. But I couldn't bear to.
They were in a box, which I kept under my bed! Except when mother did the spring cleaning. Then I had to move them. He didn't tell the detective those details. He didn't think he'd understand what it was to have just one secret, one thing only for yourself. 'Catriona found them. There wasn't much. A soft toy. A rabbit. And a doll with long hair. That was all Agnes had. It wasn't like these days when the children have so many toys! 'You didn't want her to play with them,'
Perez said.’ Because they'd belonged to Agnes!
'No!' Magnus wasn't sure how he'd make the policeman see how it had been. 'I liked to see her playing with them. I was afraid she'd laugh at them, because they weren't like the toys she was used to. But she didn't. She took the doll in her arms and held it. She rocked it as if it was a baby. Agnes used to do that.
She used. to rock the baby and sing to it. Catriona didn'
t sing, but she was gentle with it. She asked if she could brush its hair. She wasn't a bad girl. No, not bad. She just had too much spirit. They didn't know what to do with her!
'What happened next?' the detective asked.
Magnus shut his eyes, not to recapture the scene, but in an attempt to block it out. But he couldn't block it out.
There it was playing in front of him, and when he opened his eyes again he could still see it. His mother appearing suddenly at the door, the horsehair belt holding the knitting needle still round her waist. Give that to me. Reaching out and grabbing for the doll. The girl, defiant, enjoying the scene she was making, the fuss all around her, doing a kind of teasing jig, with the doll held above her head. Not understanding, because how could she? Agnes was never mentioned in the house after her death.
Mother must have held on to the memory in her fierce, unforgiving way, but Magnus was never allowed to speak of her. So Catriona would never even have known of her existence. It's my dolly now. Magnus gave her to me.
The icy hatred in his mother's eyes when she turned and looked at him. Then the girl trying to dance her way out of the house, skipping and laughing.
But she never made it to the door. Because his mother had reached for the scissors. They were the scissors she used to snip the wool when she was knitting, and cut the cloth when she was sewing. Not big scissors, but narrow-bladed and very sharp. And then the girl was still and dead, looking almost like a doll herself, lying on the rag rug in front of the fire. His mother had raised the scissors above her head and using both hands thrust them down to kill Catriona.
Catriona had made a little sound, hardly a cry at all, taken a small step and fallen on to the rug. Magnus had remembered his mother making that rug, cutting up the scraps of old clothing and pulling the material strips through a piece of sacking with a crochet hook. He'd knelt down on it to look at Catriona, turned to his mother, looking for guidance. What should they do? They had no telephone but he could run to the Bruce house. His mother had spoken in her quiet firm voice. She shouldn't have played with Agnes's toys. Then she sat back in the chair and continued her knitting.