Before, floating around the edge of several groups, not really accepted by any of them, she'd tried too hard.
She'd talked too much, laughed too loud, felt big and clumsy and stupid. Now that they wanted to hear what she had to say words failed her. She stumbled through some answers. And they loved her for that. Lisa put her arm around Sally's shoulder.
'Don't worry,' she said. 'We're all here for you.'
Sally knew that if Catherine had been here, if she'd heard, she'd have stuck two fingers down her throat and pretended to be sick.
Sally was tempted to tell Lisa and all the others that she could see through them. They weren't sorry Catherine was dead at all. Certainly they hadn't particularly liked her when she was alive. Lisa had called her a stuck-up southern cow only last week, when Mr Scott had read out a chunk of her essay on Steinbeck. They were enjoying every minute of this. They weren't in the least sorry that Catherine would never take her place again in the front row for English.
But she didn't say that. She had to survive in school without Catherine. And she was enjoying all the sympathy, the arm around the shoulders, the loving whispers. It didn't matter any more what Catherine thought of them.
Catherine was dead.
A bell rang and they wandered off to first lesson, leaving the posse in the house room gagging for more.
She and Lisa had English and they walked together. Sally hated the English department. It was housed in the oldest part of the school and the high-ceilinged rooms were always freezing. They had to pass a glass case with a load of stuffed birds inside. Catherine had loved those birds. They'd made her laugh. She'd brought in her camera specially to record them, though Sally had never been able to see the joke. Catherine had said the whole English department would make a brilliant set for a Gothic movie.
In the classroom too, there was a ready audience. Lisa acted as her agent, protective, encouraging, helping her to put the most exciting spin on the story. Sally was in the middle of describing her interview with the detective from Fair Isle when Mr Scott came in. The girls who'd made up her audience slipped reluctantly from the window sill where they'd been warming their legs on the radiator and into their seats. There was no urgency in this manoeuvre. Even in ordinary times he wasn't a teacher who inspired fear or respect. Today, they knew they'd get away with anything.
Mr Scott was a young man, straight from college, unmarried. Everyone said he'd fancied Catherine. That was why she'd got good marks, why he raved about her work. It was because he was trying to get into her knickers. And perhaps there was some truth in the rumours. Sally had seen him staring at Catherine when he thought no one was looking. She knew about unrequited lust. She'd dreamt of Robert Isbister for months following the dance when they'd first met up. It had been enough just to see him out in the town to make her blush. She recognized the signs.
Mr Scott was a pale, thin man. A stick of forced rhubarb said Sally's mother, who had seen him at a parents'
evening. Today, in the snowy grey light he seemed more pale than usual. He blew his nose over and over. She wondered if he had been crying. Catherine had always been scathing about him. She'd said he was a crap English teacher and a pathetic human being. But Catherine had talked about everyone in that cold, hard way and she hadn't always meant it. Looking at him now, as he tried to speak without breaking down, clutching on to the big white handkerchief, Sally thought there was something cute about him. With her new popularity she could afford to be generous.
After taking the register, Mr Scott stood in front of them in silence for a moment. He looked very serious, and so faintly ridiculous. Sally wondered if Catherine could have led him on, just for the fun of it. He seemed to have difficulty speaking.
'There will be a different timetable this morning. We'll have normal lessons up till break and then there will be a special assembly just for the sixth year. It'll be an opportunity for us all to come together to remember Catherine and her father. One of the detectives working on the investigation will speak to us too.' He paused, looked bleakly, rather theatrically around the class. 'I know everyone will be deeply upset by this tragedy. If you need to speak to someone today or in the future, the staff will be available to talk to you. Specialist counselling can be provided if we think that would be helpful. You don't need to be alone in your grief. We're all here to support you.'
Sally imagined Catherine pulling a face, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling. She realized with astonishment that next to her, Lisa was enjoying a good cry.
There were a lot of tears at the special assembly. Even some of the boys seemed to get caught up in the emotion of the occasion. Some must have been genuine. Apart from Sally, Catherine had found it easier to get on with boys than girls. But even the dead heads the thugs, the footballers and the bullies - seemed moved. At one point Sally thought she was the only person in the hall with dry eyes. In the end she dabbed at her cheek with a tissue, just so she wouldn't seem hard-hearted. She wondered if there was something wrong with her. Why couldn't she cry? But she knew Catherine wouldn't have cried either. She would have mocked the hypocrisy and the sentiment.
'Maudlin rubbish!' she'd said one evening when they'd been watching the telly in her little living room and there'd been a fuss about a rock star who'd been killed in a car crash.
Sally hadn't known what maudlin meant and had looked it up in a dictionary. Now, refusing to be taken in by the false grief, she muttered the same words under her breath like a chant.
The policeman who'd come to talk to her at home was sitting on the stage next to the head teacher. Sally had seen him as soon as she had walked in. She found his presence disturbing and although she tried not to, she kept flicking her eyes towards him. He'd made some effort to dress for the occasion, he was wearing a grey shirt, a sober tie and a jacket, but the overall impression was still one of untidiness. It was as if he'd had to borrow the garments and had thrown them on at the last minute. She couldn't tell if he'd recognized her in the crowd of faces turned up towards the stage.
She didn't hear the head make the introduction because she was watching the policeman prepare to speak. He was straightening his tie, collecting up the papers he'd put on the floor by his seat. She sensed his nervousness, felt a tightening in her own stomach. He stood up, looked out at them and said how sorry he was about the way Catherine had died. It was a double tragedy for them because they all knew Catherine and her father. Sally thought he was one of the few people in the room who was genuinely sorry. That was strange because he'd never met Catherine. Then she thought it was easier for him to be sad just because he'd never met her. In his mind she could be anything he wanted her to be.
But now he was saying how important it was for the police to know the real Catherine. 'Now, when we're suffering such shock, we can't imagine why anyone would want to kill her. We just want to remember her kindly.
But this isn't a time for kindness. It's a time for honesty. It's important for me to understand everything about her.
Perhaps there were parts of her life which she would have preferred to keep secret. She doesn't have that choice now. If you know, or suspect, that she was involved with activities which might have led, even indirectly, to her death, you have a duty to share that information with me. If you had any sort of relationship with her, I need to speak to you. I'll be in school all day. Mr Shearer has allowed me to use his office. If you prefer to speak anonymously to an officer who doesn't usually work in Shetland that can be arranged too! He was just about to leave the stage when he turned back to them. 'Come and talk to me: he said. 'All of you know more about Catherine than I do. All of you have something important to contribute!