‘I haven’t seen Hattie since lunchtime.’ At last Sophie did step aside to let him past and they stood together in the sunshine.
‘Where was that?’
He thought she was going to question his right to put the question but after a pause she answered. ‘We were at Utra. Evelyn invited us for a meal. Paul was there too – his first chance to look at the Setter coins. Afterwards he wanted to talk to Hattie about her PhD. I suppose they were planning what should happen next, the focus of the next phase of the project.’
‘You weren’t involved in that discussion?’
‘No, I’m just the hired labour.’
He couldn’t tell what she made of that, whether it rankled. ‘Where did they have the meeting?’
‘I’m not sure. I left them at Utra.’
‘What were you doing this afternoon?’
‘I went back to the dig and carried on working for an hour. I expected Hattie to join me there.’
‘But she didn’t?’
‘No. I presumed Paul had taken her back to the Pier House for a celebratory drink. I thought, Sod them! and I packed up early. I’ve been visiting a couple of the fishing boys.’ She seemed edgy and out of sorts. Perez wanted to ask whose house she’d been in, but it probably wasn’t any of his business.
‘Hattie doesn’t strike me as someone who would enjoy an afternoon in the bar,’ he said, keeping his voice light, hoping it didn’t sound like an interrogation. The day before when they’d been there, Hattie had been jumpy, nervy even after a couple of drinks.
‘No, definitely not her scene. She doesn’t do pleasure. He should have asked me instead.’ Sophie grinned, but Perez thought she was finding it hard to keep things light. ‘But he’s her supervisor, isn’t he? Her boss. She wouldn’t have the guts to tell him it wasn’t her thing.’
‘Yes,’ Perez said. ‘He seems to me like a man who usually gets what he wants.’ But if he hoped this would encourage Sophie to give her own opinions of Berglund he was disappointed. She shrugged and said she’d had a hard day. All she wanted now was to sit in the sun with a nice cup of tea. Or maybe a can of lager.
‘So you have no idea where I could find Hattie now?’
‘Sorry, I haven’t a clue. And it’s no point me giving you her mobile number. Her phone doesn’t work anywhere on the islands.’
‘If she comes back tell her I’m looking for her.’
‘Sure,’ Sophie said. ‘Sure.’ But he thought she was a mischief maker and he didn’t know how much he could trust her.
He found Berglund sitting alone in the bar of the Pier House Hotel. There was a tray of coffee on the table in front of him and he was scribbling notes on an A4 pad. Perez saw that the writing was large and spidery and quite unintelligible. The place was empty apart from Berglund and Cedric Irvine, who was sitting behind the bar reading the Shetland Times.
‘What can I get you?’ The landlord recognized him from the day before, gave a knowing smile. Perez thought he would probably have as much information as anyone about what had been going on in the island. He wondered if Sandy had thought to talk to him about Mima.
‘Coffee,’ Perez said. ‘Strong and black.’ Cedric nodded and disappeared.
Berglund waved at him. ‘I thought you weren’t coming into Whalsay today.’
‘Something came up.’ He sat at the same table. ‘Did the Setter coins live up to expectation?’
‘Absolutely. They’re in fine condition too.’
‘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.’