by Ann Cleeves
‘Mam was right about her all along: he said. The words seemed to bounce off her skull. What was he trying to say?
She saw she couldn't sleep. She had to listen.
'What do you mean?'
'She said she was a strange girl. No good:
'She was my friend,' Sally said, though it seemed strange to be standing up for Catherine to Robert. Especially to Robert.
'She tried to make a fool of me. I couldn't let her get away with that:
'You didn't have to. She died:
'I liked her,' he said. 'Fancied her. That was what she intended. Mam said that was what she was up to. She was just mucking around with me, she said, trying to get a reaction:
For God's sake, leave your mother out of this. She saw how it would be if they got together permanently. The first sign of trouble and he'd be off to Celia, looking for a shoulder to cry on, depending on her to put everything right. Perhaps it was healthier to hate your mother. Perhaps she should be grateful that Margaret had treated her like shit. Away from the fire there was frost on the shore now. The waves when they retreated left streamers of ice, pale reflections in the moonlight. Dh God, she thought. What a mess.
'She filmed me,' he said.
'She filmed everyone:
'She filmed me hitting her. That night. She got me so wound up that I ended up hitting her, slapped her across the face so there was a red mark. It was what she wanted. It made good film. That's what she said. She had her camera set up on a tripod and provoked me so I forgot it was there. Like I was some performing seal: Sally didn't answer.
'Did you hear me?' he demanded.
Sally tried to pull away from him, but he held on to her shoulders.
'Are you going to hit me?' The words seemed to come from someone else's mouth, not hers. She shouldn't taunt him about Catherine. It wasn't his fault. She knew what Catherine was like. And it wouldn't do to make him angry.
'No,' he said. She thought he sounded like a little boy. He could be one of the kids in her mother's school. 'No, of course not:
'Walk away from her: These words though were spoken by a grown-up. They'd been facing the fire and beyond it the water, so they hadn't heard Jimmy Perez coming up behind them. Sally thought he must have moved very quietly over the shingle. He was a quiet man. Even the words, when he repeated them, weren't spoken loudly. They turned together to look at him.
'Your mother wants to speak to you, Robert. Come along:
Robert began to move and she thought, That's it then. Celia has won. Every time Celia shouts for him, he goes running. And she knew she'd probably never see him again. She watched Robert scramble away until he disappeared into the darkness. Further up the beach there were voices, something of a scuffle. She couldn't work out what that was about. She thought Robert wasn't a very elegant mover. He had rather short legs. His bum was too near to the ground. She wondered how she could have thought him worth bothering about. He'd left her his coat, but she shivered and turned back to the fire, feeling it hot and fierce on that side of her face. There'd be a red mark like a slap, she thought. In her hand she held the knife she'd taken from Robert's belt when he'd tried to hold on to her.
'Would you have killed him too?' the policeman asked.
She didn't answer. She angled the knife, so the blade reflected the embers. The blade looked scarlet in the strange red light, as if it was covered in blood already.
'We found Cassie: he said. 'She's all right!
'It was nothing to do with Robert: she said. 'He'd left the back of the van open. Cassie had wandered away from her Mam. I said I'd help her find Mrs Hunter. There was rope in the van. I was in the Girls’ Brigade. I'm good at knots! She paused. When they'd skidded at the Brae junction, she'd heard Cassie bounce around in the back. Robert hadn't noticed.
'Why did you take her?' the detective said. 'You don't have to answer. I shouldn't be talking to you at all without a lawyer, but I wondered. A kid like that. What could she have done to hurt you?'
'She saw me that night with Catherine. She'd woken up. Some nightmare. Saw me through her bedroom window in the moonlight. I convinced her it must have been a dream. Then, when I found her this evening in Lerwick, lost, all upset, I thought I couldn't take a chance. Stupid! But it wasn't only that. It was the girl. You could tell she'd turn out just like Catherine. Confident, full of herself She wouldn't be the sort of child to be bullied, to feel sick every morning before setting off for school. She'd be the one making the clever comments which would turn some other poor kid's stomach. Cocky. Her mother had been right about that.
'Why didn't you kill her straight away?' he asked.
She shrugged. 'I had to wait until it was quiet, didn't I?' Quiet, like the night I killed Catherine. A night like this.
'Was that what the knife was for?'
She shrugged again.
'You've no use for it now: he said. 'Best to give it to me!
She didn't answer. She sat down on the sand and held the knife on her knee. In the distance she heard the sound of cars driving away from the Haa.
The party was over. Robert would go home with Celia.
They deserved each other.
'Sally, give the knife to me!
She thought she might reach him with it before he could stop her. Weighed up the possibility in her head. The thrill of doing it: Would there be the same buzz as when she'd killed Catherine? Perhaps it would be more exciting. She imagined bone shattering and blood, the power of standing and watching his life seeping into the icy sand. There'd be no chance of getting away now, of course.
She'd never thought she would get away with killing Catherine. Not even when they locked up the old man. This was Shetland, where you couldn't fart without the whole place knowing. Anyway, she'd have been disappointed if it had stayed a secret for ever. Imagine her friends at school, their faces when they found out. She'd give anything to be in the house room when the news broke, when her face was on the front of the papers and on the television. She'd be a celebrity.
'Sally. Give it to me.'
She held the bone handle of the knife in her hand, ready to strike out at him, then was overcome by tiredness again.
She stood up, and with the last of her energy, she threw it away from her towards the sea. It twisted in the air, and landed in the shallow water. She didn't see the splash because of the dark, but she heard it.
He walked right up to her, held her hand and pulled her to her feet. It wasn't a rough or unkind gesture. It was as if he was trying to help her. He put his arm round her shoulder and walked with her up the beach. From a distance, they'd look like lovers.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Perez dropped Roy Taylor off at the airport the next morning. Now he was satisfied they had the right person for the Catherine Ross murder, the Englishman didn't want to stay. The restlessness which he'd just about managed to hold in check while the investigation kept his interest was moving him on. Already he was thinking about the next case. He shook Perez's hand warmly before leaving the lounge, but didn't look back as he walked over the tarmac to the Aberdeen plane. Perez waited until the plane took off and almost wished he was on it. He still hadn't made up his mind about the move to the Isle. His mother had given up asking him about it. She'd probably resigned herself to the fact that he wouldn't be coming home.
On the way back to Lerwick he stopped at Fran Hunter's house. He told himself as he drew up that he was stopping on impulse, but really it had been at the back of his mind since leaving the airport; even before that, he'd considered it as an option when he'd set out from home. She was pulling sheets from the washing machine into a plastic basket, didn't stop when she called for him to come in.
'I wanted to know how Cassie was feeling; he said. 'She's still asleep. By the time we got in this morning it was almost light. The doctor looked her over. Just a few bruises he said from being banged around in the back of the van!
He didn't know what to say. They both knew it wasn't the physical effects which would
last.
She'd straightened up now. 'I don't suppose I can ask you questions about what happened. I don't suppose that's allowed!
'Ask me whatever you like,' he said. 'You're not the sort to go to the press. And if anyone has a right to know, it's you!
'Did you ever think I was involved?'
'No,' he said without hesitation. 'Never!
Without asking if he wanted a drink she moved the kettle on to the hotplate, rinsed out the cafetiere which stood on the draining board and spooned in coffee.
'Why did she do it? I've been trying to think. I mean, I fell out with people when I was a teenager. You do, don't you, at that age. One minute you think you're soul mates. The next you wonder how they can be so cruel. But I never pulled a scarf round their necks and strangled them!
'It wasn't just a matter of friends falling out,' he said.
She poured his coffee, remembered that he took it black.
'She'd had a hard time at school. Since she'd been in primary. I was bullied a bit too, know what it's like. And it can't have been easy, I suppose, to have your mother as teacher!
'God, no. Especially someone like Margaret Henry.
That would be a nightmare!
'It got worse when she moved to the high school.
A sort of routine bullying. Never physical. Not really. People knocking into her in a way which could have been accidental, tripping her up. But a sort of cold indifference. She was never included. Never wanted. Everyone made it clear she wasn't worth bothering with. Maybe it turned into a sort of paranoia. Wherever she went at school she thought people were whispering about her!
'But Catherine bothered with her!
'Catherine didn't care what the other kids thought.
She had her own agenda. Sally was jealous of that! 'How do you know all this?'
'Sally told us. She wants us to know everything. It's as if she's enjoying the attention!
Fran was sitting next to the fire, with her back against the hearth. 'Did they both fancy him? Is that what they fought over? I don't really see him as Catherine's type!
He couldn't help smiling. 'He wasn't. No, not that. Sally was besotted with him. You can see that she might be, can't you? Big, handsome, in charge of that monster of a boat. A reputation which her parents would hate. And her first boyfriend. Catherine's interest was more. . ! He paused. '. . . more academic!
'What do you mean?'
'She had this project at school. A film! 'Of course,' Fran said. 'Fire and Ice!
'As I understand it, it was a sort of anthropological study of the islands. Almost a critique. But she didn't just record what she saw. She was a director. She made things happen. A teacher at school, who invited her into his home and came on to her. She pretended to be shocked but it was what she wanted. She filmed him in secret.
A young lad at Quendale who poured out his heart to her. She set him up for rejection, for humiliation and caught that on film too. He was the boy who drove the girls home on New Year's Eve. Sally claimed not to recognize him, but of course she must have done. She just wanted to create more of a mystery around Catherine! He paused again, drank the coffee, which was very good. After all, there was no hurry now, and he could think of nowhere he'd rather be than in this small warm house with this woman. 'Catherine knew Robert's father was Guizer Jarl, knew Robert was desperate to take a leading role in Up Helly Aa.
Knew he was sensitive about his father's reputation. Robert was always one for the young girls. probably felt safer with them. He'd never really grown up. I'm not saying she set him up. Not quite. But she gave him the opportunity to behave badly, and he jumped at it! He felt suddenly embarrassed. He didn't want to talk about Catherine provoking Robert, his reaction when she laughed at him. He didn't want to imply that Catherine had asked for the violence. How would that sound? Fran was a liberated young woman from the south. What would she think of him? But in fact Catherine had got just what she'd wanted.
She'd been triumphant about it. He felt himself stumbling over the words. 'Catherine captured Robert on film. It showed him in a bad light. She was going to show it in school. You know how things get around here. By that evening everyone would be talking about it. He might even have been charged and taken to court. His father had been through enough embarrassment over Celia's affair. Imagine the publicity of a court case!
'Robert had a motive for killing Catherine,' Fran said. 'But Sally didn't. Did she? Am I missing something?'
She frowned, but in a way which was curious, not anxious. He felt a rush of relief that it had ended well for her. He knew the response was completely selfish. He wouldn't have been able to face her if Cassie had been harmed.
'I told you that Sally was besotted with Robert. I don't think he had any plans at that stage for a permanent relationship. He'd been drunk at the market cross on New Year's Eve and they'd ended up together. That was all. But Sally was full of romantic notions. To hear her talk you'd think she'd been designing her wedding dress. Almost.
That afternoon, the day she died, Catherine spent some time with Magnus Tait. He ;1 talked to her about Catriona Bruce. He didn't give away his mother's secret. Not quite. But he talked about the girl and Catherine filmed him. Later that evening she met up with Sally!
He set down his mug and tried to picture.,.the scene in his head. 'They were in Catherine's house. Her father was out. Catherine knew he'd be going out for a meal with colleagues after the meeting at school. Sally's mother thought she was in her room finishing homework. Margaret didn't like her out in the evening, even when it was only to go up the road to Catherine's and it wouldn't be the first time Sally'd slipped out without her realizing. Catherine was full of her film, of the great material she'd got. Robert Isbister behaving like an animal and Magnus Tait talking about the disappearance of a young girl and about how the whole community had shunned him for years. Not the sort of picture the Shetland tourist board would want to portray. She showed the film to Sally. They'd been drinking. Not a lot - they'd shared a bottle of wine. But it would be enough for them to talk more freely. Catherine would say what she really thought of Robert. You can imagine the taunting. How can you bear to go out with someone like that? I couldn't stand to have him touch me. It would be like the bullying all over again.
'Somehow they ended up outside. A notion of Catherine's probably. She liked the dramatic. Another scene for her film. It hadn't started to snow again yet. There was a full moon. Everything very icy. Cassie woke up and looked down the hill from her bedroom window. She saw the girls together, silhouetted against the white field. Catherine couldn't let the matter of Robert Isbister go. Perhaps she had Sally's best interests at heart and knew he'd only hurt her later. More likely, I think, that she hoped to provoke another outburst to catch on the camcorder.
She certainly did that. Sally lost it. When we took a statement this morning, she said she just wanted to stop Catherine's taunting. She pulled her scarf tight around her neck. At last there was silence. She left her there in the snow. Cassie saw her walk alone back to the Ross house. She was half asleep, didn't realize then the importance of what she'd seen. It was only when Sally came to babysit for you, turned up wearing the same coat she'd been wearing that night, that it triggered a memory. Cassie still wouldn't have thought it significant, but it troubled her.
She must have said something to Sally!
'I left her alone with Cassie in the house,' Fran said. "Twrice! She thought of the drawing Cassie had made on the beach at the Haa. She'd known then that Catherine was dead. 'I should have realized'.
'You couldn't have known. None of us had any idea then! He wanted to reach out and stroke the nape of her neck, where some hair had become unfastened from its clip, to tell her that everything was all right, but knew this time he couldn't let emotion run away with him.
He twisted his fingers together to trap them and make it easier to resist the temptation. 'Magnus saw it too.
Some of it. The girls going down the track together. Only one of them c
oming back. The next morning he went out early and found Catherine was dead. He swept the snow off her face!
'Why didn't he say something?'
Perez paused. 'He'd had a bad experience with the police when the other girl disappeared. He didn't think anyone would believe him. He told me in time to get Cassie back safely. I asked Taylor to search the school house.
He found Catherine's keys in Sally's room.
She'd been in Euan's house to get the film!
'So Sally killed Catherine to protect a man who didn't even care about her!
'It seems she was quite calm afterwards,' Perez said. He thought Fran had a right to the whole story. 'She took the camcorder with her. She was wearing gloves, of course, had put them on before going out because of the cold.
She went into Catherine's room, found the script and the disk and deleted Fire and Ice from the computer. Then she went home. Her parents were asleep by then and heard nothing. They never knew she'd been out. She even made herself a cup of tea before she went to bed!
There was a moment of silence. He knew he should go. There was all the work which followed an arrest and he couldn't trust Sandy to get it right. At last, reluctantly, he got to his feet. She stood up too.
'Thank you,' she said.
He was going to say it was nothing, he was only doing his job, but before he could speak, she came up to him and kissed him on the cheek. A light dry kiss. Of gratitude.
'Thank you,' she said again as she shut the door behind him.
He drove back to Lerwick. Before going to his office he called at his house and phoned his mother.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen