'Hi,' she said. She knew better than to ask why he hadn't been in touch. She'd read the magazines. There was nothing more likely to put off a man than a nagging woman. She tried to keep her voice low and husky. She turned away from the crowded lobby into a corridor which was empty, except for a cleaner with a bucket and mop right at the other' end. She shut her eyes to block out the boring details of school life, pictured him.
'Any chance of meeting up?' He kept his voice light but he really wanted to see her. She could tell that.
'When ?'
'I'm in town,' he said. 'Ten minutes?'
'I don't know. . ! How could she explain about the school bus and her mum calling out the police if she wasn't on it, because she'd always been paranoid but after Catherine's death she'd turned seriously weird? How could she explain all that without sounding like a six-year-old? 'It might be awkward!
'Please, babe. It's important! And then he seemed to guess the sort of problem she might have, which proved to Sally just how sensitive he was, how he wasn't at all the boorish lout everyone made him out to be. 'Just one drink and then I'll give you a lift home. You'll still be back ahead of the bus! And that was probably true, because the bus zigzagged all over the place to drop kids off and Archie, the driver, was about a hundred and four and drove so slowly sometimes she thought it'd be quicker to walk.
'OK: she said. 'Why not? One drink.'
They met in the back bar of one of the town centre hotels, not in the bar near the docks where he usually drank.
Upstairs in the dining room there was a funeral tea. Through the open door she saw a trestle table covered with a white cloth and plates of sandwiches curling at the edges, elderly people dressed in black. The voices were becoming loud and a little desperate. One of the women was weeping.
Robert was waiting. She was pleased. Her only visits to pubs had been with Catherine on occasional illicit visits to town. She wouldn't have had the nerve to go in by herself. Before setting out, she'd stopped to put on some slap, just a bit of powder to hide the spot which might be starting by the side of her nose, and some mascara. But all the same you must be able to tell that she'd come straight from school. She had her bag with all her books and files in.
She looked into the room. It was narrow as a corridor, wood-panelled, four grubby tables, a variety of unmatched chairs. You could smell lunchtime's fry-ups and cigarette smoke. He stood up as soon as he saw her.
'What'll you have?'
She thought of her mother, standing by the stove, stirring pans. X-ray eyes and X-ray nose for smelling alcohol.
'Diet Coke!
He nodded and went straight to the bar, without touching her. She supposed he was thinking of her, being discreet, but there was no one else in the room except a little grey man slumped asleep in the chair by the fire. Robert came back with the Coke and a whisky for himself. Then he did reach out and touch her hand. She grasped his, rubbed the fine gold hairs with her thumb.
'How're things?' he asked. He seemed anxious. Usually he walked into a bar as if he owned the place. That's what Sally loved most about him, that confidence. It sort of rubbed off on her. It cancelled out all the snide remarks from the kids at school about her being the teacher's girl. When she was with him she ought to feel she owned the place too.
'Strange,' she said. 'You heard about Catherine Ross?'
'Aye!
'She was my best friend, lived near me. You remember, she was there in the car on New Year's Eve!
'I mind that: he said.
'Did you know her?' Sally looked at him over the Coke. 'I mean apart from then, had you met her?'
'I'd seen her around. You know, parties!
Sally was going to press for more details but decided against it and continued.
'They found her on the hill just up from the school, lying in the snow. A detective came to the house last night to interview me, and he's been in school all day, talking to the kids!
'How was she killed?' he asked. He had pulled his hand away gently and was playing with the glass, twisting it round and round on the table.
'No one's saying. It said on the radio they had to do forensic tests, but they're treating the death as suspicious!
He lit a cigarette, narrowing his eyes as he flicked at the lighter. Suddenly she wondered what she was doing there. It was different from the fantasies, the romantic books she'd escaped into when things at school got really rough. Once her father had taken her to the cliffs at the north end of Unst. It had been spring, the air full of wheeling screaming seabirds and the sharp stench of their untidy nests. Looking over the cliffs, even at a safe distance, she had felt dizzy and breathless. She could see the waves breaking on the boulders below, but couldn't really believe in them. It was like staring down into nothing. She'd thought she was at the end of the world and there was nowhere else to go. Now, sitting opposite Robert Isbister, she had the same feeling of panic.
What, really, did she want to come out of all this? To be loved by him? Oh that, certainly. It was what she'd been dreaming of. The small gestures of affection - his hand on her neck, stroking her hair - the gifts. But that he should make love to her? On the way home tonight, perhaps, in the back of his van? Then that she should stroll into her mother as if she'd just got off the bus to answer questions about her day at school? Was she expecting that? She felt out of her depth. Really out of her depth as if the water was coming over head and she was gasping for breath.
She realized that he'd asked her a question. 'Sorry?'
'Everyone's saying Magnus Tait did it. What did Perez tell you?'
'Nothing about that,' she said. 'He wouldn't, would he? He just wanted to know about Catherine!
'What about her?'
'Everything. Did she have a boyfriend? Who her mates were. He was trying to find out where she'd been the night before she came back to Ravenswick on the bus!
Robert leaned back in his chair. The little man by the fire snored, a rush of air through his nose, so loud that it woke him up. He looked blankly around him then fell immediately back to sleep.
'And did she have a boyfriend?' Robert asked. 'Not that I knew!
'And you would know, wouldn't you?'
'I'm not sure: she said. 'I don't know what to think any more! She wished then he would put his arm around her and hold her, comfort her, tell her it was all right, that it was natural for her to be upset. In a film that was what a hero would do. She wanted to tell him how hard it was for her to be here. Someone might come in who knew her parents. She wasn't like the other young girls he knocked around with. She'd thought he'd been able to tell she was different and that was why he liked her.