'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.