So then Perez wondered if it had been Robert who'd been making the point. Some attempt to make Catherine jealous perhaps? Surely he hadn't been so obsessed by the girl that he'd been driven to kill her.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Cassie wanted to spend January 25th with her father. He always celebrated Up Helly Aa on the same day as the festival in Lerwick. There was a big bonfire on the beach then everyone went back to the Haa. It wasn't like the big show for the tourists in Lerwick. It was a community gathering. Fran rejected the plan out of hand. Up Helly Aa at Duncan's place was a piss-up. The party to end all parties. How could Duncan take responsibility for a child, especially without Celia to keep him on the straight and narrow?
It was Sunday afternoon and Duncan had taken Cassie to Unst to visit an elderly uncle. Now they stood on Fran's doorstep arguing but trying to keep their voices civilized because Cassie was inside watching television.
'Come on: he said. 'She'll love it. It'll take her mind off everything that's been going on here.'
'You must be joking.' Fran had a nightmare vision of Duncan's Up Helly Aa from a small child's perspective.
She imagined Cassie abandoned on the beach looking up at the towering strangers around her while Duncan was playing with his mates. The flames would throw odd shadows on to their faces. Cassie already dreamt enough about monsters. 'She'd be terrified. And you'd be too drunk to look after her properly.'
His face paled and he blinked violently as if he'd been slapped. She stepped away, expecting an angry outburst, but when he spoke it was almost in a whisper. 'Do you really think that badly of me?'
Then he turned and walked away without a word, not even calling in to Cassie to say goodbye. Fran watched him go with a stab of guilt. Perhaps she'd misjudged him. Should she call him back and tell him Cassie could go with him if he promised to take care of her? But then he'd always found ways to manipulate her. Perhaps guilt was just the response he'd been working for.
He must already have promised Cassie she'd be spending Up Helly Aa with him, because back in the house that was all she could talk about. He'd have talked it up. He had a knack of conjuring magic with his words. When Fran made it clear the trip wasn't going to happen Cassie had a major tantrum. She threw herself on to her bed, sobbing, gasping for breath, scaring Fran into thinking she was having some sort of seizure. There were words too, tangled, pushed out hysterically between the sobs.
The hair around her face was matted with tears. Fran stroked it from her cheeks and her forehead. 'We'll go into Lerwick,' she said. 'We'll look at the procession and see the boat being burned. That's the real Up Helly Aa. More exciting than a bonfire on the beach at the Haa!
The crying stopped abruptly. There were a couple of dramatic shudders. Fran found herself wondering if a skill to manipulate was carried in the genes, transferred of course through the paternal line.
It seemed Euan Ross had been thinking about Up Helly Aa too. The next day Fran called in on him after she had dropped Cassie at school. He made her coffee and took her into the living room with its huge pointed window looking over the bay.
'According to the police Catherine hadn't finished her film. She'd asked for an extension so she could include the fire festival. It would fit with the theme, wouldn't it?'
Fran saw that he had thought of nothing else since he'd found the notebook and the storyboard. Ideas about his daughter's death were fizzing in his brain, stopping him sleeping or eating, driving him slowly crazy. He'd stuck the plan on the kitchen wall and while he was making the coffee he couldn't take his eyes off it. She was about to ask if he'd seen a doctor, but he started talking again.
'I knew Catherine had been to the library to research the history of Up Helly Aa. She was very scathing about it.
All men, of course, in the squads, which must have seemed impossible today to an independent young woman. The festival started off, it seems, as some sort of game. In the eighteenth century they rolled burning barrels of tar through the streets of Lerwick to celebrate midwinter. It sounds remarkably dangerous. Catherine would have been there tomorrow. We discussed it, though I didn't realize it had anything to do with her film.
She would have been more interested, I suspect, in the ridiculous incidents surrounding the event than in the spectacle itself: He seemed caught up again in his own thoughts, then turned from the window to look at Fran. 'I'll probably go into Lerwick tomorrow night. I told Catherine I'd be there. It was one of the last conversations we had.
It must sound foolish but I feel as if I made some sort of commitment. It wouldn't have mattered to her either way, but I said that I'd be there so I think I should!
'You're welcome to come with us. I've promised Cassie I'll take her. The other kids at school are so excited about it she'd feel left out if she wasn't there!
'No,' he said slowly. 'That's very kind but I don't think I'd be good company!
There was an awkward silence. She thought he was in a mood when he'd prefer to be alone, but she didn't think it would be good for him to be left with his obsession. Besides, she still had half a mug of coffee left and wasn't sure how she could leave without embarrassing them both.
'What are your plans?' she asked at last. 'For the future I mean. Will you stay here? Or will you sell up and move south?'
'I can't think that far ahead! His attention seemed caught by a small boat crossing the bay and she saw he couldn't think of anything else at the moment. He could only focus on prising meanings from his daughter's writings which might explain her death.
'Do you think Inspector Perez is an intelligent man?' he asked suddenly.
She considered for a moment. 'I think I'd trust him to get things right. He seems to have an open mind at least!
'I showed him all the information we discovered about Catherine's film. The receipt and the jotter. The plan. He has everything. I only have copies!
She saw how hard it must have been for him to relinquish the scraps of paper.
She didn't know what to say. How could she speak for Perez? Anyway she wasn't sure she understood entirely what Catherine had wanted to achieve with the film. It probably had no significance at all. Ross was constructing an elaborate theory from a poem and a piece of homework.
He continued, almost to himself. 'There was ice the night Catherine was killed of course. Ice. Cold hatred.
Destructive. And tomorrow night is the fire festival. Fire for passion..! She waited for him to go on, but he seemed to realize he was rambling. 'Probably nothing: he said. 'Nothing sinister at all. An excuse for men to dress up in silly costumes and show off. And then drink too much!
When she said she would show herself out, she wasn’t sure whether or not he had heard her.
Chapter Forty
It was Monday morning and Sally woke up in the dark, switched on the bedside light, felt for her alarm clock and looked at the time. From the kitchen she heard her mother, the shutting of a cupboard door, the rattle of a spoon in a mug. Her mother seemed to get up earlier every morning, though there was nothing more for her to do.
Preparation for school was completed every night before bedtime – the pile of orange exercise books marked and neatly arranged. Why couldn't she chill occasionally? Sometimes Sally even felt sorry for her. She had no friends
