The first thing he said, as soon as the door was open, was, 'I haven't got anything to tell you. We haven't found her. Not yet: Because she'd convinced herself that Cassie was dead in the moment of his walking from the car to the house, she felt relieved. She could have kissed him.
'I have some questions: he said.
'Of course. Anything:
He looked over her shoulder at Euan Ross. 'I'm sorry. We'd like to talk to Mrs Hunter alone. You understand?'
'I'll go home: Euan said. 'Give me a ring if you'd like me to come back. Or stay with me, Fran, if you'd prefer. Don't worry about the time. I'll be up!
Fran wasn't aware of his leaving. She knew she should thank him, see him out, offer coffee and food to the detective, but she sat impatiently waiting for the questions. She thought Perez had an idea, ideas. There was hope.
As she waited she saw the lights of another car coming from the direction of Lerwick, but it didn't stop.
He pulled out a hard dining chair and sat on that, facing her, his long legs twisted under the seat. The policewoman eased her chair back into a corner. Fran sensed an urgency. He was desperate for her to answer quickly. When she paused for a moment he didn't tell her to hurry, but she knew that was what he wanted. The questions made no sense to her. They seemed entirely random.
He asked about Cassie and how she was doing at school, about Fran's social life and the friends she'd made away from Ravenswick. She didn't demand to know what the questions were about. She could do nothing more to find her daughter. She was in his hands. And if he wasted time explaining his ideas to her, it might be too late.
It didn't take long. After a quarter of an hour he stood up again. 'You shouldn't be on your own here,' he said.
'Euan said he'd come back!
'No. Not Mr Ross. He's too close to all this. There must be someone else!
Fran thought of Jan Ellis who'd been so kind about the dog, whose husband didn't mind making a fool of himself by dressing up as a baby. She heard Perez phone her, standing outside, using his mobile. As soon as Jan's car pulled up outside, he disappeared. He didn't say anything to her before he left and she didn't watch him go. She understood he didn't want to tell her that everything would be OK, to make promises he wouldn't be able to keep.
Chapter Forty-Six,
Jimmy Perez pulled away from Fran Hunter's house and turned down 'the bank towards Hillhead. He stopped outside the old man's place and wiped the condensation from the windscreen. At the bottom of the hill there were still lights on in the schoolhouse and at Euan's, but no sign of the activity going on inside. Roy Taylor understood the need for discretion. The cars had been parked out of sight from the road.
It was tempting to drive down and join them. There would be something reassuring in the detail of a search.
It would help him forget the panic. He could concentrate on sifting through objects and belongings, proving a theory which had already convinced him.
But it wouldn't bring Cassie back. He was certain she. wasn't in Ravenswick.
Perez forced himself to breathe slowly, to think rationally about what he should do next. His thoughts chased one after the other and he struggled to bring an order to them. They were strange thoughts which had little to do with the matter in hand, distractions.
The ravens. Every time he'd been here in daylight they'd been flying over these fields. Where would they go in the dark? Looking out over the frozen headland, he found it hard to imagine them sheltering on ledges of the cliff, but where else was there for them to go? Did they roost close together to keep out the cold? He didn't know how they could survive a winter like this.
Magnus's raven was already dead. Perez had taken it to the woman who cared for injured birds and animals and she'd fed it as Magnus had instructed, but something about the change of home had disturbed it. It had died the first night for no apparent reason. Sometimes it happened like that, the woman said.
Then he thought about Duncan. Who had once been a friend and had become an enemy. How would Perez talk to him if his daughter was dead? And that brought him to the murderer. He knew what he should do. He started the engine and backed into the gateway opposite Magnus's house to turn round. He drove north again.
In Lerwick he made a phone call to Taylor.
'Anything?'
'You were right. We found them. Well hidden though. Easy to miss!
But you didn't miss them, Perez thought. He could hear the triumph in Taylor's voice, subdued because he'd feel guilty for feeling that way, but there just the same. Magnus Tait hadn't killed Catherine. An Englishman had proved them all wrong. An Englishman and a Fair Islander.
'Go out to Quendale. Talk to the boy there.
There was something I missed! He shouldn't be the one to be giving orders, but he didn't care.
Perez hung up and contacted the rest of the team who were already searching the halls.
By this time the dances were breaking up, people were drifting home. Those with more stamina had moved on to private parties.
'Any sign of him?'
'No one's seen him for a while.'
'You've checked the house?'
'All quiet. The door was open and we had a look round. No one's there.'
He drove slowly around the streets, stopping occasionally to talk to groups of revellers on their way home. No one had seen Robert. Not for hours. On the phone again, he said, 'Talk to taxis. And rouse the folks working on the Whalsay ferry. He could have gone to the boat.' He thought that would be an efficient way to dispose of a small child. Tip her overboard. This temperature she'd only survive for seconds, even if she could swim.
For some reason the image of the raven flashed into his head for a moment. It wouldn't take any depth, he thought. Depending on the state of the tide, there was a chance her body would never be found, even if she was thrown over where the boat was moored.
Perez was thinking of friends who had boats and lived close to Vidlin. Someone he could persuade to take him across to Whalsay. Then he had another idea. Celia was at the Haa, had been at least when he'd tried there earlier. It was worth looking there first. For the second time that night, Perez drove north, across the bare wastes of heather moorland.
At the Brae junction he saw skid marks on the road and he changed gear to go down the bank to the house.
There were two figures on the beach, silhouetted in the embers of the fire, but he couldn't make out who they were.
He hadn't known what to expect in the house. He couldn't tell how Duncan would react to his daughter's disappearance. He wouldn't have been surprised by a riotous party in full swing, Duncan the exhibitionist pissed, trying to pretend that nothing was wrong. But it was very quiet there. Even when he switched off his engine, he couldn't hear music. The faint breeze that had come with the change of the tide had dropped again. The smoke rose in a straight line from the tall chimney. He could see it in the moonlight and he could smell the wood in it.
He opened the door without knocking. In the kitchen someone he didn't know was asleep in the Orkney chair. It was a young woman, with her legs curled under her. 'Two men sat at the table eating toast. They were dressed in suits and ties, could have been having a breakfast meeting in the city. They looked up when they heard him, took him for one of Duncan's friends.