Raven Black

'Was he pleased to see her?'

'I think so. Pleased but a bit nervous perhaps.

Anxious!

'How did she react to him?'

'She didn't. She gave no sign that she knew him, not then. She poured herself a drink and started chatting to me.

Flirting, I suppose. She was one of those women who make you feel special. They can make you believe you're interesting, funny. Fran could never do that. She could never be bothered to make the effort. But Catherine, oh, she was very good!

'She was only sixteen!

'But sophisticated,' Duncan said. 'Experienced! And a virgin.

'Is that all you have to tell me? Hardly worth a dinner at Monty's!

'While she was flirting with me, she had one eye on Robert. I don't know why. I mean, I can't imagine for a minute that she fancied him. But at one point they disappeared together. At least, I think so. I mean, I'm pretty sure.

It was before Celia hit me with the news that she was leaving. But you know how it is with parties. Good parties, at least. You get into an interesting conversation and everything around you fades into the background. You hear the music but you're not really listening. You know there are other people there, but you're not aware of what they're doing. They're just bodies moving, dancing'

'Throwing up?'

'Not that early in the evening.' Duncan said crossly.

He paused. 'No need to take the piss, man. I'm trying to help. Honestly. There was one point when I noticed neither of them was there. I'd enjoyed the girl's company. OK, I was looking for her. I looked all over for her. She'd got to me somehow. She had style. And when I've thought about it since, I've realized Robert wasn't there either. I told you it might not be important.'

The waitress came with their food. Perez didn't recognize her, although she was about his age and she sounded local. He was preoccupied for a moment trying to place her. Duncan started eating immediately, sulking because Perez wasn't more grateful for the information.

'Where did they go?'

'I'm not sure. I didn't search the whole place. It wasn't that important.'

'But they were in the house?'

'For fuck's sake I don't know. Maybe they went for a drive. Had wild and passionate sex in the back of Robert's van. Only I don't see it. Like I said before, she was an attractive young woman. Robert's a thug. A spoilt mummy's boy. Good looking I suppose if you like the blond Viking type, but she was too bright to be taken in by that.'

And what are you? Perez thought. You're a bully.

It wasn't such a big deal, the event which had made him see Duncan in a different light. It might have happened anywhere. Here, where the web of relationships caught you and held you and wouldn't let you go, it was the sort of thing you had to deal with every day. Duncan had been speeding. Crazy speeds down the road from the north. Sandy Wilson had stopped him. He'd realized he'd been drinking and said he'd have to test him. But Sandy Wilson's dad worked for Duncan's company. He was a joiner, who could turn his hand to anything, and he worked on the renovations of the buildings Duncan bought.

Duncan threatened to sack the father if Sandy did him for drink driving. Perez wasn't sure he would have done it; good craftsmen were hard to come by. But Sandy believed him and Duncan got away with just a spot fine for speeding. Blackmail. Perez found out about it later. Sandy got drunk one night and blurted out the whole story.

Perez kept it to himself. Sandy was a pea-brained bigot, but he didn't deserve to be dumped on. And anyway Perez owed Duncan, didn't he? He'd saved his life when they were at school, saved him from the Foula boys, at least. But the debt was paid and he felt he didn’t owe him any more. That was why he hated Duncan. Not because he was a bully but because he'd forced Perez to see him as one. Because when he was fourteen, he'd been Perez's best friend.

'How long were Robert and Catherine away?' Perez asked.

Duncan shrugged. 'An hour? No more than that. Less maybe. It wasn't that late. Before Celia said she'd had enough, at least. I was still sober enough to stand. And I remember Catherine coming back. Maybe they had been outside. She looked flushed, red-cheeked, as if she'd been in the cold. And she seemed elated. I told you. That was when she told me she wanted to go.into film. She had so many dreams, she said, so many projects in her head she wasn't sure she'd have time to work on them all..: He broke off and for a moment Perez could believe that he was sad. For the girl. Not

just sorry for himself.

'And how was Robert Isbister?'

'I don't know. I didn't see him again. He didn't come back:

After the meal they stood together outside the restaurant, in a narrow alley at the bottom of steep steps.

'Why don't we go on somewhere,' Duncan said.

'Have a few drinks. Like the old days:

Perez was tempted. It would have been good to get very drunk with someone who didn't work for the police.

But Duncan was too eager and Perez wondered again what the evening was all about. It couldn't be, surely, that Duncan was lonely too, that at school he'd needed the shy boy from Fair Isle as much as Perez had needed him?

Chapter Thirty -One

He watched Duncan walk away down the lane towards the market cross and his car. It was early and Perez wasn't ready to go home. Word of Tait's arrest would be all over the islands by now. The people would feel safe again, settle back into the knowledge that this had been a crazy aberration and violent crime only happened elsewhere. They'd sleep. Except for the families of the victims.

The Bruces were staying with relatives in Sandwick.

He supposed Euan Ross would be alone in the big house lose to the shore. Perez had sent a constable to inform him that Tait had been taken into custody, but thought now he should go himself. Ross had been bitter that Tait had been released after Catriona's disappearance. It seemed cowardly not to face him and answer his questions. The police owed him that much at least.

Driving past Hillhead, he remembered the raven. Should he kill it now and get it over with? The CSI must have finished with the place because the police tape had been removed and the house was in darkness. When he found the door locked he was relieved.

One of the team would have taken the key. They might even have found a home for the raven. He remembered that there was a woman in Dunrossness who cared for sick and injured birds. Maybe they'd taken it there. He'd have to check. He'd go back later.

Euan Ross was angry. His face was flushed and it showed in the violence with which he opened the door. Perez thought he had been waiting all day for someone to speak to him.

'Inspector,' he said. 'At last. I've lived here long enough to realize that there's little sense of urgency in Shetland, but I'd have thought it would have been courteous to respond to my request more quickly than this. It was your phone call which started it all off after all.'

He turned and walked away into the house, leaving Perez to shut the door behind him and follow.

They sat in the big room, with the glass wall, looking out towards Raven's Head. Euan hadn't turned on the central light. The space was lit by a couple of spots attached to the wal1. There were big areas of shadow. At some point over the winter he must have collected driftwood, because there was a chunk of pitch pine on the fire. The smell of it must be covering the last trace of Catherine's perfume.

For a moment Perez was confused. He couldn't think what the man was talking about. 'I'm sorry. No one told me that you'd asked to see me!