Perez went right back to Hattie’s first few weeks at university, before the breakdown and the hospital admission. The paper was plain A4, but the letters were handwritten, not printed from a PC. She never missed the weekly letter. Perez was surprised by the discipline: most students surely led disorganized lives, they went to parties, gigs, had hangovers and last-minute essays to complete. But perhaps Hattie’s life at university was unusually ordered. It was clear that she was ambitious and determined to do well academically. The university letters were mostly about her work. If she had any social life she didn’t tell her mother about it. He read each one carefully, looking for references to friends who might be contacted for information about Hattie’s state of mind, but those who were mentioned were talked of in passing as colleagues. It seemed unlikely that Hattie had kept in touch with any of them.
He had almost given up hope of learning anything from the letters apart from an insight into Hattie’s life. He finished the coffee and stood up to stretch, looking down at the harbour. Everything there was unusually quiet. The ferry was making its way towards Laxo, but no other boats were moving. He supposed that most of the island would be at the funeral. Then, reading a letter from an address he didn’t recognize, he saw a familiar name.
It was dated at the end of June and came in Hattie’s first long vacation, the summer before the stay in the psychiatric unit. The tone was happy and enthusiastic. Perez thought how relieved Gwen James must have been to read it.
There was no other reference to Berglund in that letter. Perez thought if that was their only contact, the professor could be forgiven for not recognizing a student who’d helped as a volunteer. However, two weeks later he was mentioned again.
Perez’s attention was caught by the sound of a car outside his window. It was Ronald Clouston’s enormous four-wheel drive. He wondered if the funeral had been so difficult for him that he was coming into the bar to drown his sorrows. But Ronald didn’t get out of the car. Berglund and Sophie got out of the back seat, then Anna emerged from the front. Perez couldn’t hear the conversation. Anna got back in beside her husband and the car drove off. Berglund and Sophie came into the hotel.
Perez was eager to talk to Berglund. When he had asked him how long he’d known Hattie, why didn’t he mention meeting her as an undergraduate? But he didn’t want to ask him in front of Sophie. He went back to reading the letters.
Hattie didn’t mention Paul again and there was no other reference to her changing courses so she could work with him. Perhaps her stint as a volunteer was over, because again there was a gap in the letters to her mother. The next ones came from the hospital. He wondered what had changed so dramatically in her life to turn her from an excited young woman to a depressive who needed in-patient treatment.
When she returned to university she never regained the excitement of her time on the dig managed by Paul Berglund. The news was conveyed in a flat, unenthusiastic way and it was all about her academic work. The handwriting was tight and cramped. She didn’t talk about how she was feeling but Perez could sense her unhappiness. She might not be ill but she was very sad. He found the text hard to read. He imagined her in her small cell-like room in the university hall of residence, quite alone, writing to her mother every week because it was what she always did.
The street was very quiet outside, so Perez heard the door of the hotel and the footsteps walking away. He looked out of the window and saw Sophie hurrying off. Her back was towards him so he couldn’t see her face.
Berglund was in the bar. No one else was there, not even Jean, but she must have been there earlier to serve him because he was holding a large glass of red wine. Perez supposed that Sophie had joined him for a drink but the empty glasses had been cleared away.
‘Inspector, can I get you something?’ He was still wearing his suit, but he’d taken off his tie and undone the top button of his shirt.
Perez would have liked another coffee, but he didn’t want to call the barmaid in. This was a conversation he didn’t want anyone listening to. He shook his head and sat down.
‘The church was full,’ Berglund said. ‘Mima must have had a lot of friends.’
‘I wanted to talk about Hattie.’
‘Of course.’
‘Another funeral you’ll have to attend.’
Berglund seemed shocked. ‘I suppose I will. Someone will have to represent the university. That makes it seem horribly real. I presume her mother will deal with the details once the body is released. I’d planned to phone Mrs James tomorrow, to offer our condolences and see if we can help in any way.’
‘You gave me the impression that you hadn’t met Hattie before you started supervising this project.’
‘Did I?’ Berglund frowned. He didn’t have much of a neck and now he tucked his chin towards his chest so it disappeared altogether. It gave him the look of a cartoon bulldog.
Perez looked at him but said nothing, waiting for an explanation.
‘I met her when she was an undergraduate,’ Berglund said. ‘A few years ago. That hot summer. She was volunteering on a dig I was managing in the south of England.’ He stopped speaking, stubborn, challenging Perez to ask more detailed questions.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d met her previously?’ Perez kept his voice pleasant. If the man felt threatened he might stop talking altogether.
‘It slipped my mind. I’ve worked with a lot of undergraduates over the years. Then when I did remember I didn’t want to make too big a deal of it. I thought you might misinterpret the incident, take it out of context.’
‘You took her out to dinner,’ Perez said. ‘One evening in that hot summer, you asked her to go out with you. Just her, not any of the others. Tell me about it.’
Berglund hesitated. Perez thought he was deciding how much he would have to give away. At last he started talking and it was almost as if he was telling a story.
‘She was a pretty little thing. I suppose she was still attractive when she was working in Whalsay, but here she could be so earnest. Back then she seemed happier, funny, full of life. Yes, I invited her out to dinner. A couple of times, actually. A spur-of-the-moment decision that I went on to regret. I was married and I had a small child. But after a long day in the field I wanted someone to share a beautiful evening with. I like female company and my wife was two hundred miles away. That was all.’
‘Did she know you were married?’
‘I didn’t tell her but it certainly wasn’t a secret. The other volunteers would have known.’
‘What happened?’
‘The first time, nothing. We shared a meal and I dropped her back at the site. The next time was more intimate. We had a meal in the pub where I was staying. The windows were open and there was honeysuckle in the garden. I remember the smell of it. We shared a bottle of white wine. Then we went to bed together, inspector. Not a crime. I wasn’t even her teacher and she was a consenting adult.’
‘She was young and very naive.’ Not a judgement, a comment. Perez wished now he’d asked for a drink. His hands were on the table in front of him and he didn’t know what to do with them.
‘As you say she was young and naive. She read more into the encounter than I’d expected. Most students are more sexually experienced than I am. She was an exception.’ He paused. ‘She was nineteen, I was thirty-five. She fancied herself in love with me.’
‘Did she make life difficult for you?’
‘Not particularly. There was one embarrassing encounter, then she left the dig. I never expected to see her again. Then I changed jobs and found myself supervising a colleague’s postgrad student while she was on maternity leave. Hattie.’
‘Did you recognize her?’
‘Of course, inspector. I don’t make a habit of sleeping with my volunteers. But she made no sign that she knew me, so I assumed that was how she wanted to play it.’
