Perez stood at the back of the hall, furthest from the speakers. All the chairs had been taken but Anna thought that was where he had chosen to be. He wanted to see everything going on in the hall. Sandy Wilson sat with Hattie’s mother near the front. There was no sign of Joseph and that surprised Anna. She’d have thought Evelyn would have dragged him along. Sandy was wearing a suit, the one he’d worn to their wedding, his face was red and he looked uncomfortable. Anna knew Ronald would have hated all this.
Jackie rushed in right at the last minute, just as Evelyn was about to start speaking. Although the weather was unusually calm, Jackie had a windswept, thrown together look that was quite unlike her. One of her nieces was a hairdresser and always came to do her hair before an evening out, but now it seemed she’d hardly had time to pull a brush through it.
Anna looked at Jackie across the hall and decided there must have been another crisis with Andrew. She reflected that she should be more considerate about her parents-in-law. She shouldn’t make such a fuss when Ronald went up to the big house to help out. She’d been rather a bitch about them.
All these thoughts were running at the back of her head while she was listening to the presentations. She sat with a fixed look of concentration on her face and nobody would have realized her mind was elsewhere.
Paul Berglund went first. Anna had never met him. She’d been out giving birth when the skull had been found and Evelyn had never introduced them. He gave a very short speech. Perhaps it was his accent but the words seemed ungracious, almost dismissive.
‘The university has always been delighted to support the Whalsay project, and of course it will continue to do so despite the tragic death of Hattie James.’
Anna had the impression that Evelyn had been expecting more, a promise of definite funding and more PhD students, an altogether grander project. She thought the most likely thing was that the dig would be forgotten, by the university at least.
Val Turner’s lecture was obviously more to Evelyn’s liking. There had been proper preparation, a PowerPoint presentation giving the background to the merchant’s house and an explanation of the importance of the Hanseatic League. The audience seemed to become more engaged when she described the discovery of the skull, the evidence of the shattered ribs, and when she showed off the small, dull coins in their plastic box, supported now by special polyurethane foam. ‘I have no doubt that this will be a major site in Shetland archaeology.’
Anna looked at her watch. She wondered if James had taken the bottle of expressed milk. She’d tried him with some a little earlier in the day and he’d seemed all right with it. More words running alongside all the others in her head:
Then Jimmy Perez walked to the front of the room. Val Turner introduced him. ‘Now Inspector Perez would like to speak to us about the tragic death of Hattie James.’
There was an excitement in the hall. Even the showing of the skull and the coins hadn’t generated this much interest. Looking at Gwen James’s sculpted, motionless face, Anna thought the woman had known this announcement was coming. She had been expecting it, waiting for it throughout the evening. The police must have warned her. Anna felt her pulse race. She too wanted to know what the police had to say.
Perez stood in front of the table, leaning against it. He pushed himself forward so he was standing upright, almost to attention, and started speaking: ‘I’m in a position now to inform you that we are treating Hattie James’s death as suspicious. She didn’t commit suicide. We believe there was a witness to the murder and we’re close to making an arrest. In the meantime we’d be grateful for continuing support and information from everyone in Whalsay.’ There was a moment of complete silence, then a muted hum of conversation. Anna couldn’t think what Perez’s words might mean. She thought the islanders were wishing Gwen James had stayed away despite her celebrity status. They would have preferred the freedom to gossip.
The evening was coming to an end. When the speeches were over the island women had moved behind the tables to pour tea from large metal pots. The clingfilm had been removed from the plates and now they were almost empty. Perez circulated around the room, talking to the locals. Or rather he was listening to the locals, Anna thought. Whenever she caught a glimpse of him he was silent, his gaze fixed on the speaker’s face.
Now Anna just wanted to get home. Gwen James looked suddenly lost and Sandy, more attentive than Anna had realized he could be, offered to drive her back to the Pier House. Just as he was finding her coat, a couple of men who’d been outside for a smoke came back in.
‘Just take care out there. The fog’s so thick you can hardly see your hand in front of your face. We don’t want you coming off the road.’ And when Sandy opened the door to show Gwen James out, Anna saw they were right. She could see nothing. No lights in the other houses, never mind Shetland mainland in the distance.
Chapter Forty-two
Sandy drove at walking pace down the island towards the Pier House Hotel. He was pleased that the evening in the hall had passed without mishap; everyone had said how well Evelyn had done to arrange it and she’d seemed calmer than he could remember for ages. He hoped she’d be able to stay that way. Now he just had to deliver Gwen James back to her room and perhaps he could relax. He sat bent forward, just concentrating on keeping the grass verge on each side of him and the car on the road. Gwen James was smoking. He’d been watching her throughout the evening, admiring her style, the way she held things together. He supposed she’d had the practice. A politician had to be some sort of actor. Even his mother, who was only a politician in a small way, could put on the act when it was needed. Over the years he’d seen Evelyn put on the smile, use those easy phrases that had no meaning, when she was talking about her Whalsay projects to the important folk from Lerwick. Even when she was tired or depressed, she didn’t lose the smile.
As soon as they’d left the hall, he saw how hard it had been for Gwen. She pulled a cigarette out of the packet with trembling hands and she’d been chain smoking ever since. They hit Symbister suddenly, almost before he realized. An orange streetlight above him and a wall on one side of the road and a pavement on the other. Then they were at the Pier House Hotel and he found himself shaking too. A release of tension after the drive.
He had expected Gwen James to go straight to her room. She’d already eaten and he thought she’d want to be on her own. But it seemed not: ‘God, I need a drink. You will join me, won’t you, Sandy?’
The weather had kept folk in their houses and the lounge was empty of customers. Cedric Irvine sat on a bar stool on the public side of the bar and Jean was standing behind it. Cedric winked at Sandy.
‘Well?’ Sandy asked.
‘All done,’ Cedric said.
Sandy wanted to ask for more details but Gwen James was standing right beside him and Jean had already come up to serve them.
‘A large vodka and tonic,’ the politician said. ‘Sandy?’
He asked for a beer, began to get his wallet out of his pocket.
‘Put it on my room bill, please.’ She took a seat and waited for him to bring the drinks. He wondered if she’d treated Hattie in this bossy kind of way: generous but used to getting what she wanted.
They were on to their second drink when Berglund arrived. He must have walked at least part of the way back from the hall, because there were fine drops of moisture in his hair and on his coat. Sandy thought Berglund would have preferred not to join them, but Gwen was on her feet as soon as she saw the professor walk into the hotel, shouting across to him, offering him a drink. He couldn’t refuse without appearing churlish.
There was an awkward silence after Jean had brought over his whisky.
