‘I’m looking for Hattie.’
Berglund raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you want with her?’
Perez smiled. ‘Just a chat. More loose ends.’
‘I presume she’s in the Bod.’
‘I’ve just been there. Sophie said she was with you.’ This was becoming ridiculous. He didn’t want to play hide-and-seek throughout the island, looking for a neurotic girl. He had better things to do with his time.
‘We had a quick chat earlier just about where she should take the project from here, but I haven’t seen her for a couple of hours.’
Cedric came over with Perez’s coffee. Perez waited until the landlord was engrossed in the newspaper again before continuing.
‘You didn’t bring Hattie in here?’
Berglund pulled a face. ‘Good God, no. Earlier on the place was full of men from the trawlers. It was pretty rowdy and Hattie’s a sensitive sort of flower at the best of times. We just walked along the shore below Utra. It was quite sheltered there, very pleasant.’
‘Did she say where she was going when she left you?’
‘She was going to walk on a little way, just to collect her thoughts, plan out in her own mind how she should organize the work at Setter. I thought she would go back to the dig later. Sophie was already there. I came here. As I said, it was pretty wild in the bar. I sat in my room to make some phone calls – we need to get the coins validated, but I have other work at the university too.’
Perez sipped at his coffee. He supposed Hattie had regretted the phone call to the police station as soon as she’d made it and was hiding from him, too embarrassed to face him. People often behaved irrationally in their relations with the police. The sensible thing would be for him to go back to Lerwick. But he could still hear the desperation in Hattie’s voice when she’d called him. Even if she’d changed her mind about confiding in the police, perhaps he could convince her that she needed to talk to someone. Fran would understand if he missed the call to Cassie tonight. He left the Pier House without discussing his plans with Berglund.
Perez walked to Setter along the edge of the loch. He stood for a moment looking out over the water, and a red-throated diver flew in. It was the first diver he had seen that spring. He supposed later it would breed there. It called. Fran had once said that the cry made her think of a lost child desperate for help. He’d laughed at her then, but now he knew what she meant. The old folk called the diver ‘the rain goose’, and the superstition was that its arrival predicted storm or disaster.
Setter looked just as unkempt as on his first visit. There was the same pile of rusting junk by the side of the house and the nettle patch and untidy hens were still there. The scabby cat was sunbathing on the roof of the byre. Perez wondered what his father would have made of Mima Wilson; he set great store by keeping his Fair Isle property tidy and would have disapproved of her wild ways and her drinking. He knocked at the door. He thought he heard a sound inside, but when he tried the door it was bolted from the inside. He looked through the window into the kitchen. Sandy’s father was sitting in the one easy chair. He had his head in his hands and he was weeping. Perez knew he couldn’t intrude on an old man’s grief. He looked quickly over the site of the dig to check that Hattie wasn’t there and then he walked away.
Chapter Twenty-two
Perez missed the last ferry home and ended up taking a room at the Pier House Hotel. He’d expected a quick trip into the island, to be home in time for supper, and now felt stranded there. Marooned. But he knew he wouldn’t sleep much if he did get back to Lerwick. He wanted to be here if Hattie turned up. He’d sat with Evelyn for most of the evening while she phoned all her neighbours. Nobody had seen Hattie since Paul Berglund had walked away from her on the shore. If she was still in Whalsay she wasn’t with anyone who’d known her in the past.
Joseph arrived just as Perez was leaving. ‘Should we organize a few of the men to walk over the hill?’ he said. ‘Maybe the lass has fallen, broken an ankle.’
Perez hesitated. It was dark now. And Hattie was last seen on the shore. Why should she be wandering over the hill? In the end it was Sandy who answered.
‘Should we not wait until the morning when it’s light? We don’t know that she didn’t leave the island, and she’d hate a fuss.’
Perez called in at the Bod again on his way back from Utra and was surprised to find Sophie still there. He didn’t have her as the sort of woman to spend a whole evening in on her own. She was lying on the bed reading a book, a can of lager in one hand, and didn’t move when he knocked; she just shouted for him to come in. Now the sun had gone in, it felt cold in the stone building but she didn’t seem to notice. Her rucksack was beside her on the floor with clothes spilling out.
‘Is there still no news?’ Now she did seem almost concerned. At least she did look up from her book. ‘It’s not like her. She doesn’t usually do much except work.’
‘I wondered if you had a phone number for her mother.’
‘No. I don’t think they keep in touch a lot.’ She set down the novel and twisted her body so she was lying on her side, facing him. ‘Hattie’s mum’s a politician, more worried about her work than her daughter. Hattie didn’t say so, but that was the impression I got.’
‘What about her father?’
Sophie shrugged. ‘He’s never mentioned at all. But we don’t really go in for girly heart to hearts about our families.’
‘How has Hattie been lately?’
‘Well, she’s always been kind of weird. I mean intense. Mostly on digs you work hard during the day then party in the evenings. I think she’d keep working all night given half a chance. And she definitely has a problem about food. Most people eat like a horse on a dig – it’s hard physical work. She hardly swallows enough to keep a sparrow alive. But towards the end of last season she lightened up a bit. Maybe the place was getting to her, helping her to relax. When she came back this time she seemed full of the joys of spring.’
‘Finding the coins must have made her feel she doesn’t have to put in so much effort.’
‘You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you? But since Mima died she seems to have gone super-weird again. Withdrawn. I’ve had enough of the mood swings. And I’m not sure archaeology is my thing after all. I’m hoping to persuade my parents to invest in a little business for me. An old schoolfriend is opening a cafe bar in Richmond and she’s looking for a partner. More my scene. I mean, a girl needs some fun. I told Paul this afternoon that I was resigning.’
‘Did Hattie know you’d decided to leave?’
‘Well I didn’t tell her. I didn’t want to provoke one of her sulks. I thought Paul would do it when he took her off on her own this afternoon.’ She pointed to the overflowing rucksack. ‘I was making a start with the packing. Now I’ve decided to leave I want to go as soon as possible.’
Had the news that Sophie had resigned been enough to push Hattie over the edge, to make her hide or run away? Perhaps. She could have seen it as rejection of a sort. It hadn’t prompted Hattie to phone him though. She’d done that before her meeting with Berglund.
Back at the hotel, Perez found Berglund still in the bar, still working. He’d moved on to whisky, was sitting with a glass in one hand and a pen in the other.
Perez took a low chair on the other side of the table. ‘Sophie tells me she’s resigned.’
‘I know, it’s a bugger. I don’t know who we’ll find to replace her at this stage.’
‘What did Hattie make of the news?’
‘She seemed pleased. She said she’d just as soon work on her own. I have the feeling the girls haven’t got on so well this season. I’m not sure how that would play with our health and safety officer though, especially as Setter is empty now.’
‘You didn’t think to tell me about this when I was looking for Hattie earlier?’
‘It didn’t seem important. Besides, I’m still hoping I can persuade Sophie to change her mind. Haven’t you found Hattie yet?’
