Raven Black

that wouldn't be right. He had kept all the toys which had belonged to Agnes. But he couldn't see there would be any harm in her holding it and tying a ribbon into its hair.

His dreams were interrupted by the sound of an engine. It was another Land Rover, this time a navy blue one – and it was driven by a man in a uniform. The sight of the heavy waterproof jacket, the tie, the cap which the man put on his head when he got out of the vehicle, threw Magnus into a panic. He remembered the last time. He was back in the small room with the shiny gloss paint on the walls, he heard the furious questions, saw the open mouth and the fat lips. There had been two of them wearing uniforms then. They had come to the house for him early in the morning. His mother had wanted to come with them, had hurried away to find her coat, but they'd said there was no need.

That had been later in the year, not so cold, but damp, a squally westerly full of rain.

Had only one of them spoken? He could only remember the one.

The memory made him shake so violently that the cup rattled in the saucer he was holding. He could feel his mouth form the grin his mother had hated so much, the grin which had been his only defence to the questions and which had irritated his interrogator beyond endurance.

'Is it funny?' the man had shouted. 'A young lass missing. You think that's a joke? Do you?'

Magnus hadn't thought it a joke, but the grin stuck, petrified. There had been nothing he could do about it. Neither could he reply.

'Well?' the man had screamed. 'What are you laughing at, pervert?' Then he had lifted himself slowly to his feet and while Magnus watched confused, as if he was nothing but an observer, he'd drawn his hand into a fist and smashed it down on Magnus's face, forcing back his head with a jolt that rocked the chair. There was blood in his mouth and chips of broken tooth. The man would have hit him again if he hadn't been stopped by his partner.

Now Magnus thought that blood tasted of metal and ice. He realized he was still holding the saucer and set it carefully on the table. He knew it couldn't be the same policeman. That had been years ago. That policeman would be middle-aged by now, retired maybe. He returned tentatively to the window, resisting the first impulse, which had been to hide in the back room with his eyes shut. When he had been a boy he had imagined that if he shut his eyes, nobody could see him. His mother had been right. He had been a very foolish child. If he shut his eyes now, the policeman would still be there, outside his house, the ravens would still be in the sky, tumbling and calling, their claws stained with blood. Catherine Ross would still be lying in the snow.

Chapter Six

Alex Henry had sent her back to sit in the Land Rover. She'd still been screaming when he came up to her about the birds. She couldn't leave Catherine there with the birds.

'I won't let them back,' he'd said. 'I promise.'

For a while she sat upright in the front seat of the Land Rover, remembering Catherine as she'd last seen her. There'd been a PTA meeting, the AGM, and Fran had asked Catherine to babysit. Fran had given her a glass of wine and they'd chatted before she'd gone down to the school. Catherine had a poise and confidence which made her seem older than she really was.

'How have you settled into Anderson High?' Fran had asked.

There'd been a brief pause, a slight frown before Catherine had answered. 'Fine.'

Despite the difference in their ages Fran had hoped they might become friends. There weren't that many young women in Ravenswick after all. Now it was sweltering in the Land Rover. The heater was pumping out hot air. Fran shut her eyes to push out the picture of the girl in the snow. She fell suddenly and deeply asleep. A reaction to the shock, she thought later. It was as if a fuse had blown. She needed to escape.

When she opened her eyes, the scene around her had changed. She had been aware of car doors banging and voices but put off the return to full consciousness for as long as possible. Now she saw there was drama, a show of brisk efficiency.

'Mrs Hunter! Someone was knocking on the window of Alex Henry's Land Rover. 'Are you all right, Mrs Hunter?'

She saw the face of a man, the impressionist image of a face, blurred by the mist and muck on the glass, wild black hair and a strong hooked nose, black eyebrows. A foreigner, she thought. Someone even more foreign than me.

From the Mediterranean perhaps, North Africa even. Then he spoke again and she could tell he was a Shetlander, though the accent had been tamed and educated.

She opened the door slowly and climbed out. The cold hit her.

'Mrs Hunter?' he said again. She wondered how he knew her name. Could he be an old friend of Duncan's? Then she thought that Alex Henry would have told the police who had found Catherine when he phoned them. Of course he would. This wasn't a time for paranoia.

'Yes! Even here, seeing him in the clear, there was something unformed about his face. There were no sharp lines. A stubble of beard broke the silhouette of the chin, his hair was slightly too long for a police officer, not brushed surely, and it was a face which was never still. He wasn't wearing uniform. Underneath the heavy jacket, she knew the clothes would be untidy too.

'My name's Perez: he said. 'Inspector. Are you ready to answer some questions?'

Perez? Wasn't that Spanish? It was a very odd name, she thought, for a Shetlander. But then, he seemed a very odd man. Her attention began to wander again. Since seeing Catherine lying in the snow, it had been impossible to focus on anything.

They were stringing blue and white crime-scene tape, to block the gap in the wall where she had walked down the hill after stopping on her way back from school. Was the girl still lying there? She had the ridiculous notion that Catherine must be freezing. She hoped someone had thought to bring a blanket to cover her.

Perez must have asked her another question, because he was looking at her, obviously waiting for an answer.

'I'm sorry: she said. 'I don't know what's wrong with me!

'Shock. It'll pass! He looked at her, as she might once have looked at a model during a photo shoot. Appraising, dispassionate. 'Come on. Let's get you home!

He knew where she lived, drove her there without asking, took her keys and opened the door for her. 'Would you like tea?' she said. 'Coffee?'

'Coffee’: he said. 'Why not?'

'Shouldn't you be down there, looking at the body?' He smiled. 'I'd not be allowed anywhere near it. Not until the crime scene investigator is finished. We can't have more people than necessary contaminating the site!

'Has someone told Euan?' she asked.

'That's the girl's father?'

'Yes, Euan Ross. He's a teacher:

'They're doing that now.'

She moved the kettle on to the hotplate and spooned coffee into a cafetiere.

'Did you know her?' he asked.

'Catherine? She came occasionally to look after Cassie when I went out. It didn't happen often. There was a lecture in the town hall by a visiting author I enjoy. A PTA meeting at the school.

Once, Euan invited me down to his house for a meal.'

'You were friendly? You and Mr Ross?'

'Neighbourly, that's all.

Single parents often stick together. His wife had died. Cancer. She was ill for a couple of years and after her death he felt he needed a change. He'd been headmaster of a big inner-city school in Yorkshire, saw the job here advertised and applied on a whim:

'What did Catherine think about that? It would be a bit of a culture shock:

'I'm not sure. Girls that age, it's hard to tell what they're thinking:

'What age was she?'