Raven Black

Still the policeman was silent.

'Will you do that?'

'Yes,' the detective from Fair Isle said. 'I'll do it! 'It eats dog food. If you can find someone to look after it, that's what it eats!

The room had been painted since he'd last been there – so recently painted that Magnus could smell it – but it was still the same colour on the wall. The colour of the top of the milk when it separated in the churn.

That made him think of Agnes with the cow again.

There was a big radiator and that was cream too. It was very hot. On his way in Magnus had heard the constables behind the desk talking about it. One of them said there must be something wrong with the controls, but the other thought nobody had bothered to turn the heating down since the freeze. He would have liked to take his jacket off. He could hang it over the back of his chair so it wouldn't crease. But he wasn't sure that would be respectful. So he left it on.

The detective from Fair Isle was there and a woman, younger, who wasn't a Shetlander. The detective introduced her but Magnus didn't remember the name. If he’d been given the first name he would probably have remembered that. He liked women's first names. Sometimes when he found it hard to sleep he repeated them in his head. The detective introduced himself with the strange foreign name which Magnus had heard before and which now stuck in his mind. And there was a lawyer, who looked as if he had a bad head from the drink, wearing a suit much smarter than the one Magnus was wearing.

It was a crush the four of them sitting round the little table. Magnus knew he should keep the grin from his face. Sometimes he missed what they said to him because he was trying so hard to keep his face straight.

'We're not charging you,' Perez said. 'Not yet. We'll just be asking you some questions!

The lawyer had told him he didn't need to answer all the questions and again Magnus remembered his mother's words tell them nothing.

'When did you get the ribbons from Catriona's hair?' Perez asked. 'Did she give them to you?'

Magnus thought for a moment. 'No: he said at last.

'I asked her if I could keep them, but she wouldn't let me.' He shut his eyes remembering the teasing voice why would you want ribbons, Magnus? You've hardly any hair.

'You took them then?'

'Aye, I took them.'

Should I have said that? He was suddenly confused.

Perhaps that was something to keep quiet about. But when he looked at the lawyer, his face was blank.

'Was Catriona alive when you took the ribbons, Magnus?'

This time he knew exactly how to answer. 'No, man. If she'd been alive I'd not have taken them from her. She'd have needed them. She was dead then. What use would she have of them?'

'Did you take anything from Catherine Ross, after you'd killed her?'

He was bewildered and for a moment he didn't know who they were talking about. Then he realized. Catherine.

His raven. 'I didn't kill her,' he said, rising in his seat to make them believe him. The idea was so shocking that he stopped thinking about his face and he could feel the grin sliding back. 'She was my friend. Why would I kill her?'

Chapter Twenty – Nine

At breakfast, Sally's mother was full of the fact that they'd taken away Magnus Tait.

'What a relief,' she said. 'My nerves have been on edge all week, knowing that he's been staying there, just up the bank.'

Sally supposed that it was a relief for her too, though of course it couldn't bring Catherine back.

'Did you see them arrest him?'

'No. Maurice saw them take him away as he drove down this morning. He said there were so many cars all over the top road he could hardly get through.' Maurice was the school caretaker and cleaner. Alex came into the kitchen. He'd just come out of the shower and his hair was wet. He had on a short-sleeved T-shirt and carried his sweater over his arm, so he could put it on before he went outside. Sally thought he looked good like that, with the jeans and white T-shirt, younger and fitter.

As young certainly as Mr Scott from school. Margaret ladled porridge into a bowl and put it at his place on the table. He poured milk on to it and started to eat. Margaret stopped talking about Magnus Tait and started complaining about one of the kids in school who wouldn't behave. Everything was so normal and ordinary that Sally thought she must have been imagining all the crazy things that had happened. When she walked up to the bus stop outside the Ross's house, Catherine would be waiting for her. Her father would look himself again, boring and middle-aged. Soon she'd wake up.

The phone rang. They let Margaret get it. Sally thought the story of Magnus's arrest would have got out and everyone in Ravenswick would be wanting the news. It wouldn't do to spoil her mother's fun. She put her plate on the draining board and began gathering together her things for school. Alex was still at the table, slowly buttering toast. When Margaret came back in her face was flushed. She stood just inside the door and waited for them to look at her.

'That was Morag,' she said. 'She thought we should know. It'll be all over the news soon anyway!

In the past, Sally thought, Alex would have asked his wife what she'd found out, but today he just sat, chewing his toast, waiting for her to come out with it. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of asking. Sally was curious but she didn't say anything either.

Margaret seemed driven to the verge of tears by their lack of interest. 'It's Catriona,' she said. 'They've found her body in one of those peat banks on the hill. Morag said it was perfectly preserved. You'd have thought she'd only died yesterday! She paused for a moment. 'That's why they arrested Tait. They've got the evidence now. Who else could it be?'

Alex put down his knife. 'How did they find her?'

'The rain and the melted snow must have caused a bit of a landslip. Catriona had been lying in a peat bed and the landslip shifted it. Cassie Hunter's mother was up there with that dog of the Andersons. It was she who raised the alarm!

Sally was watching her father's face. She couldn't tell what he was thinking. 'Poor woman,' he murmured. 'What a terrible coincidence to fall over a dead body twice!

Sally thought that sounded terribly funny. It conjured up a ridiculous picture in her head, Cassie Hunter's mother tripping up, falling on her arse. But she knew she couldn't laugh. 'At least Kenneth and Sandra will know what happened to the girl now,' Margaret said. 'They might even feel able to come home!

At school Sally was the centre of attention again, because nobody else had heard the news about Magnus 'Tait and the dead little girl. In registration she told Mr Scott that Catherine's murderer had been arrested. His reaction surprised her. It was as if she'd given him a present. He thanked her, not in that polite, dry way that he might if she was handing in a piece of work, but as if he was really grateful. 'It was good of you to let me know so quickly. I wouldn't have liked to have heard it in the staff room!

It occurred to her that Robert Isbister might not have heard the news yet either. It would be a good excuse to phone him. He'd been interested after all and it would mean she wouldn't have to wait for him to ring her. She didn't think she could stand the strain of waiting.

First lesson was French. She couldn't bear French. She told Lisa that the news had made her think all over again about Catherine, she wouldn't be able to concentrate. Would Lisa tell the teacher? It was the first time she'd skipped a lesson without a proper excuse. She went into the toilets, locked the door of a cubicle and phoned Robert.

He answered quickly. The reception wasn't much good and his voice sounded like a stranger's. She didn't have the usual physical response to hearing him.

'Magnus Tait's been arrested,' she said. 'For Catherine's murder. They've found the body of the other little girl. I thought you'd be interested! Why did she know he'd be interested? She wasn't sure why he was so fascinated.