Raven Black

Now Sally felt almost at home in the sixth-year house room.

She looked with pity at the outsiders who lingered in the corridor without finding the nerve to come in. She bitched to Lisa about them. Lisa was an easier friend than Catherine. She told Sally what she wanted to hear. Sally was tempted to tell her about Robert. They were sitting on their own in the corner of the house room, Lisa big and comfortable and sympathetic, lying back in the battered armchair.

She'd been out the night before and was moaning about her hangover. It was on the tip of Sally's tongue. Guess who I'm going out with? She knew Lisa would be dead impressed, longed to see her face when she heard. But whatever Lisa was, she wasn't discreet. It'd be all over the school in minutes. Sally couldn't risk it. She'd tell her parents in her own time, when she was ready.

Instead, she rooted in her bag and switched on her phone. There was a text message. Robert was back from the fishing and wanted to meet. She turned away from Lisa and hit the buttons. Babysitting for Fran Hunter 2nite. See me there? She felt a sudden thrill. It made it even more exciting, agreeing to meet Robert at Fran's house.

'Anything interesting?' Lisa asked. She had her eyes shut to show how rough she was feeling.

'No. Just about babysitting tonight!

She supposed she should feel guilty about arranging to meet Robert like that. Her mother would be horrified.

She didn't think Fran would mind though. Or her father. It came to her suddenly that perhaps he had a secret lover, that he arranged meetings like this of his own. She smiled at herself for being ludicrous. Even if he had the nerve for an affair someone would know about it. Word would have got' out. As it would about her and Robert eventually.

At lunchtime the weather seemed to lift and she thought she'd go out into the street to get something to eat.

Perez was standing in reception. He saw her coming down the corridor and waved at her.

'They've just sent someone to find you: he said. 'I was hoping for a chat!

'Why? I thought it was all over!

'Just a few more questions!

'I was on my way to lunch!

'I'll take you: he said. 'Let's go into town. My treat! He bought her fish and chips and they sat on a bench looking out over the harbour eating them. When he suggested it, she thought it wasn't much of a treat, but the fish tasted good and it wasn't so bad, being there, talking to him. Better than being in the house room, at least. The new Sally didn't get shy with strangers any more. She thought she'd been transformed, like the frog kissed by a princess in the fairy story. Though Robert made a pretty weird princess.

'You must miss her: Perez said. 'Catherine, I mean!

It was what her father had said too. She didn't like everyone thinking she'd been dependent on Catherine. She tried to choose her words carefully and to be as honest as possible. 'I'm not sure how much longer we'd have been close friends. I felt a bit overshadowed by her. She was too intense for me!

'In what way intense?'

'She questioned everything people said or did, dug around for the meaning behind it! She shrugged. At first I was impressed by that. After a bit it gets tedious. You just want to get on with your life!

'Is that what the film was about? Digging around?' 'Yeah, I suppose!

'Why didn't you mention the film she was making?'

'It was just a school project. No big deal! 'Important to her though?'

'You could say that. It mattered to her more than anything!

'Tell me about it!

'Why? I thought you'd arrested Magnus Tait:

'We have!

She waited for him to go into more detail, but he said nothing. He screwed up the chip paper into a ball and threw it into the bin.

'The film was like her comment on us. On Shetland!

'A documentary? I mean not a story. Factual!

'Her view of the facts! Sally knew she shouldn't sound so critical of a dead friend, but she couldn't help it. 'I mean, hardly objective!

'What was in it? Did she show you?'

'Bits!

'It wasn't finished then?'

'Just about!

'But you didn't see it all?'

'No. Like I said, just bits as she was making it. Shots she was specially proud of:

'Such as?'

'There was one scene filmed in the house room,that's like the common room at school!

'I know: he said. 'I went there, don't forget!

'There are these two lads talking. They can't have realized she was filming them. People got used to her wandering around with the camera. Sometimes it was switched on. Usually it wasn't. We stopped taking any notice of her after a bit. These lads were talking about foreigners. You know sometimes in the summer we get visitors…

Not white people..: She could tell she was flushing, felt as awkward as when Catherine had played the film to her. '.

.. And they were talking about how they hated foreigners and how Shetland's no place for them and what they'd like to do to them.

It wasn't so much what they were saying as how Catherine made them look on the film. I mean they looked really violent and mad: Sally paused. 'She said something like, I’ll have to get this to Duncan Hunter, won't I? Get him to include it in the latest tourist campaign. Show what a welcoming lot you Shetlanders are. She thought we were all like that. Ignorant, prejudiced, stupid. That was what the film would have showed:

'Did you see anything else?'

I think there might have been a piece about Mr Scott in it. I think she might have filmed that secretly. She talked about how she might do it. She'd put the camera into a bag with a gap in the seam. Then she said what a laugh it would be when she played it back in class. I'm not sure she would have done that though. You could never tell with Catherine. Sometimes she spoke in that really cruel way, but she didn't mean it. It was a weird kind of humour.

I don't think she deliberately set out to hurt people: Sally shook her chip paper and they were surrounded for a moment by gulls.

'Did she tell you what the scene with Mr Scott contained?'

'No. She said she didn't want to spoil the surprise:

Perez stood up to show that the meeting was almost at an end. Sally wondered what the conversation had really been about. At the car he paused. 'We can't find the camera or the disk. Do you know where it might be?'

Sally thought back to the last time she'd been in the big house in Ravenswick. 'She always kept the disk in a metal pencil box in her bedroom. She said if the house caught fire, it would have a chance of surviving. If it's not there, I don't know what she would have done with it:

When Sally got off the bus that evening, her mother was still in the school. She saw Sally walking across the yard and waved her to come in. Inside, there was the familiar smell of plasticine, floor polish and powder paint.

Sally hadn't enjoyed her time in the little school.

From the moment she started a couple of the older lads had made fun of her. They'd made her cry and she'd gone to her mother, who'd told her not to be a baby, but had shouted at the boys all the same. After that, every time her mother made an unpopular decision, somehow it was her fault. Snitcher Sally