When she opened her eyes, the scene around her had changed. She had been aware of car doors banging and voices but put off the return to full consciousness for as long as possible. Now she saw there was drama, a show of brisk efficiency.
'Mrs Hunter! Someone was knocking on the window of Alex Henry's Land Rover. 'Are you all right, Mrs Hunter?'
She saw the face of a man, the impressionist image of a face, blurred by the mist and muck on the glass, wild black hair and a strong hooked nose, black eyebrows. A foreigner, she thought. Someone even more foreign than me.
From the Mediterranean perhaps, North Africa even. Then he spoke again and she could tell he was a Shetlander, though the accent had been tamed and educated.
She opened the door slowly and climbed out. The cold hit her.
'Mrs Hunter?' he said again. She wondered how he knew her name. Could he be an old friend of Duncan's? Then she thought that Alex Henry would have told the police who had found Catherine when he phoned them. Of course he would. This wasn't a time for paranoia.
'Yes! Even here, seeing him in the clear, there was something unformed about his face. There were no sharp lines. A stubble of beard broke the silhouette of the chin, his hair was slightly too long for a police officer, not brushed surely, and it was a face which was never still. He wasn't wearing uniform. Underneath the heavy jacket, she knew the clothes would be untidy too.
'My name's Perez: he said. 'Inspector. Are you ready to answer some questions?'
Perez? Wasn't that Spanish? It was a very odd name, she thought, for a Shetlander. But then, he seemed a very odd man. Her attention began to wander again. Since seeing Catherine lying in the snow, it had been impossible to focus on anything.
They were stringing blue and white crime-scene tape, to block the gap in the wall where she had walked down the hill after stopping on her way back from school. Was the girl still lying there? She had the ridiculous notion that Catherine must be freezing. She hoped someone had thought to bring a blanket to cover her.
Perez must have asked her another question, because he was looking at her, obviously waiting for an answer.
'I'm sorry: she said. 'I don't know what's wrong with me!
'Shock. It'll pass! He looked at her, as she might once have looked at a model during a photo shoot. Appraising, dispassionate. 'Come on. Let's get you home!
He knew where she lived, drove her there without asking, took her keys and opened the door for her. 'Would you like tea?' she said. 'Coffee?'
'Coffee’: he said. 'Why not?'
'Shouldn't you be down there, looking at the body?' He smiled. 'I'd not be allowed anywhere near it. Not until the crime scene investigator is finished. We can't have more people than necessary contaminating the site!
'Has someone told Euan?' she asked.
'That's the girl's father?'
'Yes, Euan Ross. He's a teacher:
'They're doing that now.'
She moved the kettle on to the hotplate and spooned coffee into a cafetiere.
'Did you know her?' he asked.
'Catherine? She came occasionally to look after Cassie when I went out. It didn't happen often. There was a lecture in the town hall by a visiting author I enjoy. A PTA meeting at the school.
Once, Euan invited me down to his house for a meal.'
'You were friendly? You and Mr Ross?'
'Neighbourly, that's all.
Single parents often stick together. His wife had died. Cancer. She was ill for a couple of years and after her death he felt he needed a change. He'd been headmaster of a big inner-city school in Yorkshire, saw the job here advertised and applied on a whim:
'What did Catherine think about that? It would be a bit of a culture shock:
'I'm not sure. Girls that age, it's hard to tell what they're thinking:
'What age was she?'
'Sixteen. Nearly seventeen:
'And you?' he asked. 'What brought you back?' The question made her angry. How could he know that she'd lived here before?
'Is that relevant?' she demanded. 'To your enquiries?'
'You found a body. The body of a murder victim. You'll have to answer questions. Even personal questions which seem to have no relevance: He gave a little shrug to show that it was part of the system, beyond his control. 'Besides, your husband, he's a big man round here. People gossip. You can't have expected that you could slip back to Shetland unnoticed:
'He's not my husband,' she snapped. 'We divorced:
'Why did you come back?' he asked. He was sitting in the chair by the window, his crossed legs stretched in front of him. He'd taken off his boots at the door. His socks were made of thick white wool and were bobbled from washing. His jacket was hanging on the hook on the wall, next to one of Cassie's and he was wearing a crumpled red plaid shirt. He leaned back in his chair, a mug in his hand, looking out. He seemed entirely relaxed. She itched to get a large sheet of paper and a stick of charcoal to sketch him.
'I love it here,' she said. 'Because I stopped loving Duncan, it seemed contrary to deprive myself of the place. And it means that Cassie can maintain contact with her father. I enjoyed London, but it isn't a good place to bring up a child. I sold my flat there and that gave me enough to live for a while: She didn't want to tell him about her painting, the dream that it could support them, the failed relationship which had triggered the move. How she'd grown up without a father and hadn't wanted to do that to her daughter.
'Will you stay?'
'Yes,' she said. 'I think I wilclass="underline"
'What about Euan Ross? Has he settled?'
'I think he still finds it hard, coping without his wife:
'In what way?'
She struggled to find the words to describe the man. 'I don't know him well. It's hard to judge: 'But?'
'I think he might still be depressed. I mean, clinically depressed. He thought the move would change things, solve things. How could it, really? He's still without the woman he was married to for twenty years! She paused. Perez looked at her, expecting her to continue. 'He called in the day I arrived to introduce himself. He was very kind, charming. He brought coffee and milk, some flowers from his garden. He said we were almost neighbours.
Not quite, with Hillhead in the way, but he lived down the hill between here and the school. I'd never have realized on that first meeting that anything was wrong, that there was any sadness at all in his life. He's a very good actor. He hides his feelings very well. When he saw Cassie, he said he had a daughter too, Catherine. If ever I needed a babysitter she was always desperate for cash. That was it. He didn't mention his wife at all. Catherine told me about that, the first time she came to look after Cassie.
'When he invited me for a meal, I wasn't sure what to expect. I mean, a single woman of my age, sometimes men hit on you, think you're desperate, try it on. You know what I mean. I hadn't picked up any of those signals, but sometimes you get it wrong!
'You went anyway, even though you were unsure of his motives?'
'Yeah,' she said. 'I don't have much of a life, you know. Sometimes I miss adult company. And I thought, anyway, would it be so awful? He's an attractive man, pleasant, unattached. There aren't so many of those around here!
'Was it a good night?' He smiled at her, in an encouraging, slightly teasing way. The style was fatherly, almost, though there could scarcely be any difference in their ages.