Текст книги "Red Bones"

Автор книги: Ann Cleeves

Соавторы: Ann Cleeves
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

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?’

The question was an afterthought. He seemed curious but hardly concerned. Am I the only person to be worried about the girl? Perez thought. Even Sandy had thought he was overreacting. But Sandy had his own concerns at the moment: a grief-stricken father and a funeral to prepare.

‘No. I thought I should check with her family in case she’s left the island. I don’t want to organize a full-scale search if she’s not here. Do you have a phone number?’

He expected Berglund to resist, but perhaps thought of the search, the publicity it would bring to the university, made him suddenly co-operative. ‘I’ll have it in a file on my laptop. Give me a few minutes and I’ll get it for you.’

Perez made the phone call from his room. Gwen James answered immediately. ‘Hello.’ A deep voice, rich, pleasant on the ears. Perez had a picture of a dark woman, full-breasted, singing jazz in a shadowy club. Ridiculous. She was probably skinny, fair and tone-deaf.

He introduced himself; found himself stuttering, trying to explain, to hit the right note. ‘There’s no real cause for concern at this point. But I wondered if you’d heard from Hattie.’

‘She called me this afternoon.’

He felt a brief moment of relief. ‘Did she tell you she planned to leave Whalsay?’

‘She didn’t tell me anything. I was in a meeting and my phone was switched off so she left a message. She just said she’d call back. She wanted to talk to me. Of course I tried to phone her when I was free but I couldn’t get through on her mobile. She often has no reception there. Perhaps she borrowed a phone to call me, or used a public box.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘I can’t help worrying about her, inspector. In the past she’s had mental-health problems. She’s not good when she’s under stress. I thought the island would be perfect for her. Safe, relaxing. And she did seem to have a great time last year. But on the phone she sounded quite ill and panicky again.’

It was as if she was blaming Shetland, as if the place had betrayed her trust.

‘Is it like her to take herself away if she’s feeling upset?’

‘Perhaps. Yes, you’re probably right. She preferred to be alone even as a child. Crowds always sent her into hysterics.’ She paused, then added quickly, ‘I don’t think I can come up. Not at short notice. I have to be in the House tomorrow. I’m not sure how I‘d explain my absence. The last thing Hattie needs if she’s unwell is a pack of reporters on her trail.’

She seemed completely in control. Perez remembered what Fran was like when she’d believed Cassie to be missing: so desperate that she could hardly speak. He wondered if this woman suspected where Hattie might be, if that was why she seemed so calm.

‘Hattie wouldn’t have gone to her father?’

‘I don’t think so, inspector. We divorced while Hattie was still a toddler and he’s never taken much interest in her welfare. He’s a journalist. The last time I heard he was in Sudan.’

‘Is there anyone else she might have contacted if she was feeling ill? A nurse or a doctor?’

‘I really don’t think so. It’s possible, I suppose, that she could have phoned the unit where she was treated as an in-patient. I’ll check. If they’ve heard from her I’ll get back to you.’ She paused again. ‘You will be discreet, won’t you, inspector?’

In the hotel he talked to Billy Watt, one of the regular workers on the ferry that ran from Whalsay to Shetland mainland. By now the bar was closed. Berglund had taken himself to bed without waiting to hear if there was news of Hattie and Billy had come along as a favour. He couldn’t get there earlier because his son wouldn’t settle. ‘He’s teething,’ Billy said, a great grin on his face. ‘Poor little man.’ They sat in Perez’s room, drinking coffee.

‘I think she might have left Whalsay on an afternoon ferry. Have you seen her about? Little, very dark. Would you recognize her if she went out with you?’

‘I don’t know her, but we don’t take that many foot passengers. I’d remember if she came out while I was working. There was no one like that on my shift.’

‘What time did you start?’

‘Four o’clock this afternoon. There were two ferries working today like there usually are. Just because I didn’t see her doesn’t mean she didn’t leave the island.’

Perez was wondering what could have scared the girl so much that she’d run away. I should have persuaded her to talk to me on the phone, he thought. I should have dropped everything and come to Whalsay immediately. She had three hours to wait between leaving Paul Berglund and seeing me. What happened that she couldn’t bear to wait three hours?

‘I’ll talk to the rest of the crew,’ Billy said. He sat on the windowsill of Perez’s room at the front of the hotel and looked out to the trawlers moored in the harbour. Further out to sea a buoy was flashing. ‘Will it wait till the morning now? I wouldn’t want to bother them if it’s not desperate. Some of them are working the early shift tomorrow.’

She’s an adult, Perez thought. Twenty-three. An intelligent young woman. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’ll wait until the morning.’

He expected Billy to make an excuse and leave, but the man sat there drinking the last of the instant coffee made using the kettle in the room. When Perez offered him another one he accepted. Perez was glad of the company. At least with Billy here he could keep Hattie’s disappearance in some sort of perspective. When the crewman left, his imagination would run wild.

‘You know what I’d do if I wanted to leave the island without anyone seeing me?’ Billy set his mug on the floor beside him. ‘I’d get a lift in a car. Specially in the small ferry, most folk just stay in their cars on the way across. We don’t notice the passengers when we’re taking the money. You register there’s someone sitting there, but you never really look at them. There were a few of those today.’

‘Who might have given her a lift?’ Perez was talking almost to himself. ‘And where would she go once she got to Laxo?’

‘Depends what time she got there,’ Billy said. ‘Sometimes there’s a bus to Lerwick connects with the ferry.’

Perez thought perhaps he’d seen the bus when he was driving north out of town. Was it possible that their paths had crossed? Perhaps Hattie had been sitting in the bus, hunched in the seat, staring out of the window. If she didn’t turn up in the morning he’d have to talk to the bus driver. He wondered if someone in Whalsay had a photo of her. Either Sophie or Berglund would surely have a picture. He didn’t want to have to call Gwen James again. All this is an overreaction. Hattie might be an adult but she’s immature, overwrought. She’s upset because Sophie couldn’t face working with her any more. She’s like a kid in the playground, burying her head in her hands and hoping the bullies will go away.

He was reassured by the idea that she’d got a lift and left the island, that she was safe and well on the NorthLink ferry, going south to meet her mother. Sandy had been right. There was no need to make a fuss. He’d give Joseph a ring and tell him to hold off the search until he’d spoken to the ferry company in the morning.

Now Billy did stand to go. ‘Let’s hope the bairn is still asleep, eh?’ Perez was so obsessed with thoughts of Hattie that it took him a moment to realize he was talking about his son.

Chapter Twenty-three

Sandy woke very early to a beautiful morning. There was sunshine and very little wind. The house was quiet, not even his father was up. He got out of bed and decided this was the earliest he’d been awake for years, maybe since he was a bairn, unless he was called out to some emergency at work. It was all this healthy living, he thought. It was no good for a man. It was making a mess of his body clock. In the kitchen he made coffee and drank it outside. Through the open door he heard the sound of the cistern refilling upstairs. He didn’t want to talk to either of his parents, so he set his mug on the doorstep and walked away from the house.

Without thinking he found himself on the way to Setter. His head was full of the missing Hattie. He thought Perez was right and she’d just run away. There were times when Whalsay got to him like that. He just wanted to turn his back on the place and never come home. And Hattie was such a frail and nervy young woman. Pretty, with those big black eyes, and he could see that some men would find her attractive. Men who wanted a woman they could look after and protect. But Sandy thought life with Hattie would be kind of complicated and he liked to keep things simple.

When he got to his grandmother’s croft, he let the hens out before going into the house to have a piss and make another cup of coffee. There were signs that someone had been in the kitchen: a half-full bottle of Grouse and an unwashed glass, an ashtray full of cigarette butts. That would be his father. Sandy knew Joseph came to Setter to escape Evelyn and to remember Mima in peace. The kitchen had a squalid feel to it that made Sandy feel miserable. He hated to think of his father sitting alone here, smoking, drinking and grieving.

Outside the sun was still low. It glittered on the sea, a silver line at the horizon mirrored again on the loch at the end of the field. A twisted, woody lilac bush, bent by the wind, was coming into bloom close to the house. Over the water, a scattering of gulls was making a terrible racket and in the clear morning light they looked very white against the sky. He remembered Anna’s words: ‘You’re lucky to have been born here.’ He supposed on a day like this the place was kind of perfect.

He walked across the field towards the dig, his coffee mug still in his hand, and paused as he always would now at the spot where he’d found Mima’s body. Would it be such a terrible thing to give up his work in Lerwick and take over Setter? He was good with beasts and it would make his father awful happy. If he sold his flat he could bring some cash and some energy into the place, make a real go of it. But even as the thought came into his head, he knew it was impossible. He’d end up hating his family and the island. It was better to stay as he was and just come every now and again to visit.

By now he’d reached the practice trench where his mother had found the skull. He peered inside. What was he expecting? More bones, growing out of the ground, an elbow maybe, bent like a huge potato tuber? Or a row of toes? Of course there was nothing, except the earth scraped flat by his mother’s trowel.

He sauntered on to the deeper trench where the medieval house had stood, where the silver coins had lain hidden for hundreds of years. He knew he was putting off his return to Utra. He couldn’t face the stoic good cheer of his father or his mother’s restless energy. He had a hazy recollection of television documentaries. What if he found a whole heap of coins, gold and silver, jewellery maybe? He had a picture of a pile of rubies and emeralds glinting in the morning sunshine. Wo uldn’t that be considered treasure trove? Wouldn’t it make enough money so his parents could take a holiday, so they wouldn’t have to work quite so hard to keep up with the Cloustons and the other fishing families? He checked himself: he was making up fairy tales in his head again. As a child he’d been told stories of the trows who hoarded shiny, glittering objects, but it would never happen in real life.

But as he approached the rectangular hole in the ground, for a moment it seemed as if the childish fantasy was being played out in real life. The sunlight was reflected from an object within it, a dull gleam that might be buried treasure.

He looked down, excited although he knew how foolish he was being, and saw Hattie James lying at the base of the trench. She was on her back and she stared up at him. Her face was marble white in the shadow. She was dressed in black and the image had the washed-out look of a photographic negative. Even the blood looked black – and there was a lot of blood. It had spurted into wave-shaped patterns on the bank of the trench and seeped into the soil. It was on her hands and her sleeves and on the big brutal knife with which, it seemed to Sandy, she’d slit her wrists. The cuts weren’t made across the wrists, but were deep, lengthways slashes, almost up to her inner elbow. The sunlight continued to reflect from the knife blade and made a mockery of the earlier image he’d formed in his head.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her face, the sight and shape of it were swimming in front of him. He realized he was about to faint and leaned forward, forcing himself to stay conscious. He turned away, then had to look back to check it wasn’t some awful nightmare. He couldn’t phone Perez until he was certain. Then he went back to the house to call the inspector’s mobile.

Perez answered immediately, but when Sandy explained in a stuttering sort of way what he’d found, there was a complete silence.

‘Jimmy, are you there?’ Sandy felt the panic taking over. He couldn’t deal with this on his own.

And when Perez did reply his voice was so strange that Sandy could hardly recognize it.

‘I was at Setter last night,’ Perez said. ‘I looked across the site, but not in the trenches. I should have found her.’

‘There would be nothing you could do.’

‘I persuaded myself that she’d gone out on the ferry,’ Perez said. ‘I should have been more careful, brought people out to do a proper search. She shouldn’t have had to be there on her own all night.’

‘She would have been dead by then,’ Sandy said, and again: ‘There would be nothing you could do.’ It seemed odd to him that he had to reassure his boss. Usually Perez knew what to do in every situation; he was the calm one in the office, never flustered and never emotional. ‘Will you come over? Or is there someone I should call?’

‘You’ll need to get a doctor to pronounce her dead.’

‘Oh, she’s dead,’ Sandy said. ‘I’m quite sure of that.’

‘All the same,’ Perez said. ‘We need it official. You know how it works.’

‘I’ll get Brian Marshall. He’ll be discreet.’

‘I’m on my way then.’ Just from the way the inspector spoke those words Sandy knew Perez was blaming himself for Hattie’s death and he always would. He wished Perez didn’t have to see the white face in the shadow of the trench, the long, deep cuts to the white inner arms, the blood that looked like tar. He would like to protect his boss from that sight.

While they waited for the doctor to arrive, they stood by the edge of the pit that Sandy now thought of as Hattie’s grave. Perez was in control again, quite professional.

‘I recognize the knife,’ he said.

‘Does it belong to the girl?’ Sandy had assumed that it did. Surely if you were going to kill yourself you would use an implement familiar to you. You wouldn’t drag a stranger into your suicide by using someone else’s knife.

‘No, it’s Berglund’s.’

‘He must have left it here on the site,’ Sandy said. ‘They put all the equipment in the shed close to the house overnight.’

‘For the time being we treat this as a suspicious death,’ Perez said. ‘Keep everyone out. And I want the knife fingerprinted.’

‘But she killed herself.’ Sandy thought that was obvious: the posed position, the slit wrists. This was an overwrought lassie with a vivid imagination and a taste for the dramatic.

‘We treat it as suspicious death.’ This time Perez’s voice was loud and firm. Sandy thought it was the guilt getting to him. Hattie had asked the inspector for help and now he felt he’d let her down. Sandy couldn’t think of anything to say to make things better.

Perez looked up at him. ‘How would she know to cut herself in that particular way? Most suicides fail because they make tentative slashes across the wrists.’

‘I don’t know,’ Sandy said, almost losing his patience. ‘She was a bright lass. She’d look it up. There are probably sites on the internet.’

There was a moment of silence then Perez turned away from the trench. ‘Your father was here last night,’ he said. ‘He was at Setter. That was one of the reasons I didn’t stick around. He looked upset.’

Sandy didn’t answer that either. He knew his father would never hurt anyone and that Perez was feeling so bad about the girl’s suicide that he was looking for someone else to blame.