Raven Black (28 page)

'I would never have made the decision to break things off with Duncan if it hadn't been for the girl,' she said abruptly.

'The girl?' said Perez, though he knew exactly who she meant.

'The dead girl. Catherine!

'What could she possibly have said to make you leave Duncan?'

'She didn't say anything. But I saw myself suddenly through her eyes. A middle-aged woman giving up her life for a younger man who took her for granted. A fool!

'How did she do that?' The question came
out
as polite interest. He gave the impression he was sustaining the conversation. Nothing more.

'She was filming us. It was very discreet. She didn't hide the fact that she was doing it, but after a while everyone stopped noticing. You know those fly-on-the-wall documentaries on television? You look at people making idiots of themselves and you think, What are they doing? They must know the camera's running. But I could understand how that happens!

'Duncan mentioned the camera!

'Did he? He certainly featured in the film. He made an absolute fool of himself. Perhaps as the evening went on he forgot what she was doing. Or was too drunk to care what a spectacle he was making. I was aware of her all the time because I kept imagining how I would look in her film. Ridiculous. In the end I couldn't stand it. I told Duncan that it was over and walked out!

'Was that the only reason?' Perez's voice was tentative, apologetic. 'I thought you had a text message!

'Did I?' She was stalling for time.

'According to Duncan. He said you received a message on your mobile, read it and left immediately after!

'I'm sorry. I don't remember that.'

'Who else was Catherine filming?'

'She was filming the party. All the folk who were there!

'Robert then?'

Celia frowned. 'I suppose so. Along with everyone else!

'But they disappeared together for a while.

Catherine and Robert!

She set down her mug. 'Who told you that?'

'Does it matter?' She held his gaze and finally he conceded. 'Duncan. He said they went off together. She came back looking flushed and excited. Robert never returned. Soon after you had a text message and left!

'Well,' she said. 'Duncan's just making mischief.

You shouldn't believe what he says. He can't stand Robert. Never has been able to!

'Why not?'

'Who knows what goes on in Duncan's head? The boy was a nuisance to him when he was younger, because he was my responsibility. I put him first. Duncan sulked about that. It'll be interesting to see how he copes when Cassie's old enough to make demands on him. He adores her now that she's no trouble!

'And now that Robert's older, more independent?' She flashed a smile at him. 'Now he just reminds him of the age gap between us. He's much closer in age to Robert than he is to me!

'Does he have any other reason for disliking Robert?'

He saw then that he'd pushed her too far. She stood up, formidable and articulate in her anger. 'What is all this prying for, Jimmy? I've always thought it was an unpleasant way to make a living, setting yourself in judgement over your friends. Are you still jealous of Duncan? Is that what this is about?'

Perez had no answer for her. He felt shy and awkward, the boy from Fair Isle facing the Lerwick sophisticates in the Janet Courtney hostel at Anderson High.

She put him out of his misery. 'You'd better go,' she said, dismissing him. 'I won't answer any more questions without a lawyer!

When he walked back to his car he sensed her looking after him.

Sally had a free period and sat in the house room. A group of boys had pulled benches at an angle around a low table and were playing cards. There was music she didn't recognize coming out of the CD player. At one time she'd hated coming in here. She'd preferred to spend her free time in the library. Now it was hard to remember what it was that had so scared her about the place, why the stares and scowls of the insiders could cause such panic. She'd tried to explain to / Catherine.
They hate me.
'Of course they don't hate you,' Catherine had said. 'They need you.

They wouldn't feel superior without someone to despise. They're inadequate!

Catherine hadn't cared. She'd walked over the posse's bags, taken their favourite seats, put her own music on the CD. She'd walked right up to them protected by her camcorder, pushing it into their faces, enjoying their hostility, catching it on film. Then she'd turned to Sally as if to say,
See. The world hasn't ended. What can they do
to you?
And it had helped. Sally had been able to face them too. But it had never been easy.

Now Sally felt almost at home in the sixth-year house room.

She looked with pity at the outsiders who lingered in the corridor without finding the nerve to come in. She bitched to Lisa about them. Lisa was an easier friend than Catherine. She told Sally what she wanted to hear. Sally was tempted to tell her about Robert. They were sitting on their own in the corner of the house room, Lisa big and comfortable and sympathetic, lying back in the battered armchair.

She'd been out the night before and was moaning about her hangover. It was on the tip of Sally's tongue.
Guess
who I'm going out with?
She knew Lisa would be dead impressed, longed to see her face when she heard. But whatever Lisa was, she wasn't discreet. It'd be all over the school in minutes. Sally couldn't risk it. She'd tell her parents in her own time, when she was ready.

Instead, she rooted in her bag and switched on her phone. There was a text message. Robert was back from the fishing and wanted to meet. She turned away from Lisa and hit the buttons.
Babysitting for Fran Hunter 2nite. See
me there?
She felt a sudden thrill. It made it even more exciting, agreeing to meet Robert at Fran's house.

'Anything interesting?' Lisa asked. She had her eyes shut to show how rough she was feeling.

'No. Just about babysitting tonight!

She supposed she should feel guilty about arranging to meet Robert like that. Her mother would be horrified.

She didn't think Fran would mind though. Or her father. It came to her suddenly that perhaps he had a secret lover, that he arranged meetings like this of his own. She smiled at herself for being ludicrous. Even if he had the nerve for an affair someone would know about it. Word would have got' out. As it would about her and Robert eventually.

At lunchtime the weather seemed to lift and she thought she'd go out into the street to get something to eat.

Perez was standing in reception. He saw her coming down the corridor and waved at her.

'They've just sent someone to find you: he said. 'I was hoping for a chat!

'Why? I thought it was all over!

'Just a few more questions!

'I was on my way to lunch!

'I'll take you: he said. 'Let's go into town. My treat! He bought her fish and chips and they sat on a bench looking out over the harbour eating them. When he suggested it, she thought it wasn't much of a treat, but the fish tasted good and it wasn't so bad, being there, talking to him. Better than being in the house room, at least. The new Sally didn't get shy with strangers any more. She thought she'd been transformed, like the frog kissed by a princess in the fairy story. Though Robert made a pretty weird princess.

'You must miss her: Perez said. 'Catherine, I mean!

It was what her father had said too. She didn't like everyone thinking she'd been dependent on Catherine. She tried to choose her words carefully and to be as honest as possible. 'I'm not sure how much longer we'd have been close friends. I felt a bit overshadowed by her. She was too intense for me!

'In what way intense?'

'She questioned everything people said or did, dug around for the meaning behind it! She shrugged.
At first I was impressed by that. After a bit it gets tedious. You just want to get on with your life!

'Is that what the film was about? Digging around?' 'Yeah, I suppose!

'Why didn't you mention the film she was making?'

'It was just a school project. No big deal! 'Important to her though?'

'You could say that. It mattered to her more than anything!

"Tell me about it!

'Why? I thought you'd arrested Magnus Tait:

'We have!

She waited for him to go into more detail, but he said nothing. He screwed up the chip paper into a ball and threw it into the bin.

'The film was like her comment on us. On Shetland!

'A documentary? I mean not a story. Factual!

'Her view of the facts! Sally knew she shouldn't sound so critical of a dead friend, but she couldn't help it. 'I mean, hardly objective!

'What was in it? Did she show you?'

'Bits!

'It wasn't finished then?'

'Just about!

'But you didn't see it all?'

'No. Like I said, just bits as she was making it. Shots she was specially proud of:

'Such as?'

'There was one scene filmed in the house room ,that's like the common room at school!

'I know: he said. 'I went there, don't forget!

'There are these two lads talking. They can't have realized she was filming them. People got used to her wandering around with the camera. Sometimes it was switched on. Usually it wasn't. We stopped taking any notice of her after a bit. These lads were talking about foreigners. You know sometimes in the summer we get visitors. . .

Not white people. . : She could tell she was flushing, felt as awkward as when Catherine had played the film to her. '.

. . And they were talking about how they hated foreigners and how Shetland's no place for them and what they'd like to do to them.

It wasn't so much what they were saying as how Catherine made them look on the film. I mean they looked really violent and mad: Sally paused. 'She said something like,
I’ll have
to
get this
to
Duncan Hunter, won't I? Get
him
to
include
it
in the latest tourist campaign. Show what a welcoming lot you Shetlanders are.
She thought we were all like that. Ignorant, prejudiced, stupid. That was what the film would have showed:

'Did you see anything else?'

I think there might have been a piece about Mr Scott in it. I think she might have filmed that secretly. She talked about how she might do it. She'd put the camera into a bag with a gap in the seam. Then she said what a laugh it would be when she played it back in class. I'm not sure she would have done that though. You could never tell with Catherine. Sometimes she spoke in that really cruel way, but she didn't mean it. It was a weird kind of humour.

I don't think she deliberately set out to hurt people: Sally shook her chip paper and they were surrounded for a moment by gulls.

'Did she tell you what the scene with Mr Scott contained?'

'No. She said she didn't want to spoil the surprise:

Perez stood up to show that the meeting was almost at an end. Sally wondered what the conversation had really been about. At the car he paused. 'We can't find the camera or the disk. Do you know where it might be?'

Sally thought back to the last time she'd been in the big house in Ravenswick. 'She always kept the disk in a metal pencil box in her bedroom. She said if the house caught fire, it would have a chance of surviving. If it's not there, I don't know what she would have done with it:

When Sally got off the bus that evening, her mother was still in the school. She saw Sally walking across the yard and waved her to come in. Inside, there was the familiar smell of plasticine, floor polish and powder paint.

Sally hadn't enjoyed her time in the little school.

From the moment she started a couple of the older lads had made fun of her. They'd made her cry and she'd gone to her mother, who'd told her not to be a baby, but had shouted at the boys all the same. After that, every time her mother made an unpopular decision, somehow it was her fault.
Snitcher Sally
they'd called her. Her work got trashed when she wasn't looking and they tripped her up in the playground. She'd been a round dumpling of a girl in those days and that hadn't helped. Now, though, even Anderson High didn't seem so bad. She felt more in control than she had since starting there.

The children had been working on some painting to tie in with Up HeIly Aa. A Viking longboat in corrugated cardboard lay across several desks. They did the same display every year - Sally remembered it from her time in primary seven. Margaret Henry didn't have much imagination when it came to art.

'I need to get it up on the wall. Give me a hand will you?'

'You should get them to make torches to go with it. Collage. Anything red, orange or yellow they can cut out of magazines. Or something more shiny. Cellophane, wrapping paper.'

'Aye. Maybe I should.' Margaret stepped back to check that the boat was straight. Sally could tell she
wouldn't
get the kids to do anything different.

'Will Dad be home on time tonight?' 'No. A meeting in Scalloway.'

'I'm babysitting for Mrs Hunter.'

'I'd not forgotten.' Margaret wiped her hands on a paper towel. 'Let's hope the child doesn't play you up. She a handful, that Cassie Hunter. Full of herself.' Her attention was still on the longboat and she was talking almost to herself. 'There's something about her that reminds me of Catriona Bruce.'

Sally arrived at Fran's house carrying a bag with some books in and some make-up. This time she'd make a bit of an effort for Robert. Cassie was already in bed.

'She's knackered,' Fran said. 'Sometimes she gets a bit restless at night, but that's usually later. You shouldn't have any bother.'