young. He could remember how her eyes shone with the excitement of being allowed out so late, and the bag of sweeties his uncle had carried in his pocket.
Then the metal flap in the thick door clicked open and Magnus could see the face of a policeman, backlit from the strip lights in the corridor. Magnus was lying on the narrow bed and wriggled back on his buttocks, so his head was higher and his back was leaning against the wall. He wondered what they could be wanting now. Were they going to send him away? Surely not. The ferry had long gone and there'd be no more planes at this time. Unless they'd chartered one. That happened sometimes. If people got so ill that they needed to go to the hospital in Aberdeen where they had all the fancy machines, they flew them out in a special plane. Despite his panic, he felt a small thrill at the idea that they hired an aeroplane specially for him. He swung his legs round so he was sitting on the bed.
There was the sound of keys rattling together and then he heard the key move in the lock and the door was opened. The policeman in uniform stood aside to let someone in.
'You've got a visitor,' the policeman said. He sounded bad-tempered. Magnus couldn't think what he'd done to annoy him. When the man had come in earlier to collect his tea tray he'd been all right, almost friendly. They'd chatted about the parade. 'You don't have to see him if you don't want to! Behind the policeman in his uniform Magnus could see the detective from Fair Isle. He was still dressed for outdoors in a big padded jacket and he had his hands in his pockets.
Magnus thought then that the policeman was cross with the Fair Isle man and not with him.
'I'll see him,' he said, anxious to please. 'Oh yes. Why not?'
'You don't want your lawyer here?'
Magnus was quite certain about that. He didn't like the lawyer at all.
Jimmy Perez sat opposite him on a plastic chair. Magnus didn't hear the footsteps of the policeman moving away. He must be standing there, just outside the door. Because he was thinking about that, about why the policeman was still standing in the corridor instead of going back to his office where it would surely be more comfortable, he missed the detective's first question. There was a pause and Magnus knew he was supposed to answer. He looked around him, embarrassed and confused.
'Did you hear what I said, Magnus?' There was an impatience in the man's voice which Magnus hadn't heard before, except maybe when he'd shown the detective Catriona's ribbons at Hillhead. 'Cassie's missing. You know Cassie? Mrs Hunter's daughter?'
Magnus smiled despite himself. That smile that always got him into trouble. He remembered the girl being pulled past his house on a sledge, that snowy day when the ravens were out over the headland. 'She's a bonny little thing.'
'Do you know where she could be, Magnus? Do you have any ideas?'
Magnus shook his head.
'But you would like to help me find her?'
'Would they let me out?' he said uncertainly. 'I'd come if they would, but there'll be a lot of men to help in a search and I'm not as young as I was.' He thought of when the other girl went missing and the line of men stretched over the hill that time. He'd helped too until the two policeman had come from Lerwick to take him away.
'I don't need that kind of help. I need you to tell me about Catriona. What happened to Catriona, Magnus?'
Magnus opened his mouth, but no words came out.
'Did you kill her, Magnus? If you did and you tell me that would help us find Cassie. And if you didn't, but you know who did it, that would help too.'
Magnus slid from the bed so he was standing. He felt he couldn't breathe. 'I promised,' he said.
He could sense the detective's impatience again and backed away from him. Was the policeman still waiting outside the door?
'Who did you make the promise to?'
'My mother.'
Tell
'She's dead, Magnus. She'll never know. Besides, she loved children, didn't she? She'd want you to help Cassie.'
'She loved Agnes,' he said and added, though he knew he shouldn't, because you shouldn't speak against your mother, 'I'm not sure she loved me.'
'Tell me what happened that day. When Catriona ran up the hill. It was the school holidays, wasn't it? One of those blustery, sunny days?'
'I was working in the field,' Magnus said. 'Cutting hay. I had nearly finished and then I was going to do some gardening. We had a garden in those days at the side of the house where there was a bit of shelter. I don't bother so much now. I only keep up with a few tatties and neeps. Then I had greens in the spring, cabbage later, carrots and onions.' He paused, sensed that the man from Fair Isle was getting impatient, though nothing about his face had changed. 'I saw the girl running up the hill. She had a bunch of flowers in her hand. I always liked it when she came to visit and I thought I'd take a break. Have a cup of coffee in the house.' He looked up defensively. 'There was nothing wrong with that, was there? To take a break and talk tothe girl.'
'Of course not if that was all you did.' He said nothing.
'Will you tell me?' Jimmy Perez said. His voice was very quiet, so quiet Magnus had to strain to hear it and his hearing was very good. Not like some old folks. Not like his mother who'd gone deaf in the end. Thoughts were racing round in his head. Pictures of Catriona and of Agnes when she was ill and his mother braced in her chair by the fire, the knitting pin trapped under one arm, clicking away in that sad, unforgiving way she had. And of sitting in Sunday school as a boy, the rough wooden chair full of splinters that rubbed in the back of your knees, looking up at the dust caught in the light coming from the long window.
Listening to the things they were taught by the minister. That the only way to find happiness was through the forgiveness of God. Not really understanding the words, not all the words, but glimpsing the meaning of it occasionally like shapes in the fog. And later not believing any of it.
He decided not to tell the detective, but when he opened his mouth, it all came out.
'She danced up the bank with the flowers in her hand and I knew she was coming to see us. She would never have thought that she might not be welcome/
She had her hair tied up with two ribbons..! He held his hands at the top of his head to show what he meant. '…
Like horns, maybe. I was in the kitchen by then, my hands washed, ready for some coffee. She came right in. She never bothered to knock. And you could tell that she was full of mischief that day. Could it be the wind? When it's windy you see the children rushing round the playground and so noisy sometimes you can hear them from my house. My mother was knitting. I could tell she didn't want Catriona there. Some nights she didn't sleep so well. I think she just wanted to be left alone that day. She'd had a bad night and she wanted to sit and knit in peace!
'But you wanted to see the child?'
'I liked to see her,' he said. 'I gave her a glass of milk and a biscuit. But she said she didn't want milk; she wanted juice. We had no juice in the house. She wouldn't settle. Some days when she visited she would sit and draw a picture, or when mother was in the mood they would bake together. That day she was all over the place, opening drawers and looking into cupboards. I suppose she was bored. She said she was bored! He spoke in a puzzled voice.
Boredom was an idea he found hard to understand. Here in the police station he hated being locked in, and he worried about what was going on with his land at Hillhead, but he wasn't bored.
'So she left?' Perez said. 'Is that what you're telling me? She was bored so she left. Where did she go? Who did she see?'
There was a silence. 'Magnus?'
'She didn't leave,' he said. 'She went into my room and starting looking in there for things to play with! He remembered the girl pushing open the door, bouncing on his bed, her head thrown back, laughing, the horns of hair flying. His confusion as he watched her, watching the small brown body, glimpsing her knickers as her skirt rode up.
'She shouldn't have done that. Not without asking first!
'No,' the detective agreed. Magnus expected him to ask another question then, but he didn't. He sat looking at
