'To start with. He'd gone to a lot of effort. It's a lovely house. Do you know it? There's that new extension, all wood and glass, with wonderful views down the coast. Lots of photos of his dead wife. I mean they were everywhere, which seemed a bit spooky. I wondered what it must be like for Catherine, growing up with that. I mean, would you think you were second best, that he wished you had died instead of your mother? But then I thought everyone deals with grief in their own way. What right did I have to judge?
'We sat down to eat almost immediately. The food was mind-blowing, I mean as good as any I've had anywhere. We managed to keep the conversation going OK. I told him the story of my divorce. Kept it light and amusing. I've had plenty of practice. Pride. It's hard to admit to the world that your husband has fallen passionately in love with a woman who's almost old enough to be your mother. Plenty there to joke about. He was drinking quite heavily, but then so was I. We were both rather nervous!
She could see the scene quite clearly in her head. Although it had been dark outside he hadn't drawn the blinds, so it was as if they were a part of the night-time landscape, as if the table was set on the cliff. The room was softly lit by candles; one lamp shone on a big photograph of the dead woman, so Fran had almost believed that she was present at the meal too.
Everything was slightly elaborate - the heavy cutlery, engraved glasses, starched napkins, expensive wine. And then he started to weep. Tears ran down his cheeks. It had been silent at first. She hadn't known how to react so she'd continued eating. The food after all was very good. She'd thought that given a little time, he might pull himself together. But then he began to sob, embarrassing, choking sobs, wiping the snot and the tears on one of the pristine napkins, and pretence had been impossible. She'd got up and put her arms around him, as she might have done if Cassie had woken suddenly from a bad dream.
'He couldn't hack it,' she told the detective now. 'He broke down. He wasn't ready for entertaining.' The enormity of the tragedy of Catherine's death suddenly hit her. 'Oh God, and now he's lost his daughter too.' It'll push him over the edge, she thought. No one will be able to save him now.
'How did they get on?' Perez asked. 'Did you have any sense of tension, friction? It must be hard for a man bringing up a teenage girl. Just the wrong age. They're rebellious then anyway. And they hate being different.'
'I don't think they ever argued,' Fran said. 'I can't imagine it. He was so wrapped up in his own grief that I think he just let her get on with things. I don't mean he neglected her. Not that. I'm sure they were very fond of each other.
But I can't see him making a big deal over the clothes she wore or the time she went to bed or whether or not she'd done her homework. He had other preoccupations.'
'Did she talk to you about him?'
'No. We didn't talk about anything important. I probably seemed as old as the hills to her. She always seemed very self-contained to me, but then I think most young people are like that. They never confide in adults.'
'When did you last see her?'
'To talk to? New Year's Eve, in the afternoon. I'd left a message on her mobile. There's a concert I'd like to go to in a couple of weeks' time. I asked if she'd be able to babysit. She called in to say that would be fine.'
'How did she seem?'
'Well. As animated as I'd known her. Quite forthcoming. She said she was going into Lerwick with her friend that evening to see in the new year.'
'Which friend?'
'She didn't say, but I presumed it would be Sally Henry. She lives at the school. They seem to knock around together.'
'And that was the last time you saw her?'
'To speak to , yes. But I did see her yesterday. She got off the lunchtime bus. She walked down the road with the strange old guy who lives in Hillhead.'
Chapter Seven
The police came to Magnus at the only moment that day when he wasn't looking out for them. He was in the bathroom when they knocked at the door. His mother had got Georgie Sanderson to build a bathroom at the back of the house. It was when Georgie's leg was so bad that he couldn't go to the fishing any more. A sort of favour, because he hated being idle and she would pay him for the work. Georgie was a practical kind of a man, but there would have been better people to ask. The bath had never fitted properly against the wall. The light had fused soon after Magnus's mother died and Magnus had never bothered getting it fixed. What would be the point? He shaved in the sink by the kitchen and he could see the toilet from the light in the bedroom.
He'd been aware for some time of the need to relieve himself, but he'd not been able to leave his post at the window.
More people had arrived. Constables in uniform. A tall man in a suit. An untidy chap had gone up to the young woman sitting in Henry's Land Rover and taken her away in his car.
Magnus hoped she wasn't in the room with the shiny walls in the police station. At last he hadn't been able to put off the visit to the bathroom any longer, and it was at that moment, when he was standing there, like a peerie boy, with his trousers and his pants round his ankles, because he'd been in too much of a hurry to fiddle with zips and flies, that the knock came. He was thrown into a panic.
'Just wait,' he shouted. He was in midstream. There was nothing he could do about it. 'I'll be there in just a minute.'
He finished at last and pulled on his pants and his trousers all in one go. The trousers had an elasticated waist. Now that he was decent again the panic began to subside.
When Magnus went back to the kitchen the man was still waiting outside. Magnus could see him through the window. He was standing quite patiently. He hadn't even opened the door into the porch. It was the scruffy-looking man who had driven away the young woman. He couldn't have taken her all the way into Lerwick then. Maybe just up to the house by the chapel. Magnus thought the police probably dealt differently with women.
Magnus opened the door and stared at the man. He didn't know him. He didn't live round here. He didn't look like anyone Magnus knew, so he probably didn't have relatives round here either.
'Whar's du fae?' he demanded. It was what came into his head. If he'd thought about it, he'd have used different words, as he had with the girls, so if this stranger had come from the south he would have understood. But it seemed he understood anyway.
'Fae Fair Isle: the man said, echoing the rhythm of Magnus's words. Then, after a beat, 'Originally. I trained in Aberdeen and now I'm working out of Lerwick.' He held out his hand. 'My name's Perez.'
'That's a strange kind of name for a Fair Isle man! Perez smiled but he didn't explain. Still Magnus didn't take the hand. The old man was thinking he'd never been to Fair Isle. There was no roll-on roll-off ferry even now.
The trip took three hours in the mail boat from Grutness, the harbour in the south close to the airport. He'd seen pictures once of the island. It had a big craig on its east side.
The minister who'd lived in that house next to the chapel had been preacher on Fair Isle. There'd been a slide show in the community hall and Magnus had gone with his mother. But he couldn't remember any more details.
'What like is it there?' he asked.
'I like it fine!
'Why did you leave then?'