Chapter Twenty-nine
Perez wasn’t there for Mima’s funeral. He’d explained his decision to Sandy the day before. ‘It’s not a lack of respect. Please tell Evelyn that. I’ll be thinking about you all. But it’ll be a distraction to have the police there.’
And Sandy had nodded, understanding how it would be. There’d be gossip enough over the means of Mima’s dying. Perez’s presence would just give the congregation something else to talk about.
Instead Perez sat in his room in the Pier House and read Hattie’s letters to her mother. Without any real decision having been made, it seemed he’d taken up residence in the hotel. He’d come back there the evening before after his meeting with the Fiscal. In the morning when he came down to breakfast Jean, the skinny Glaswegian, grinned at him. ‘Still here then?’ Now she knew what he liked: a big pot of very strong coffee, scrambled eggs, brown toast. She’d say, ‘Do you no’ fancy something more substantial this morning?’ But teasing him, not expecting a different order.
Before starting to read the letters, Perez went into the kitchen to find her and asked if she’d be kind enough to make him some coffee to take into his room. She was on her own; Cedric Irvine would be at the funeral. He could tell the woman would have liked him to stay and chat to her, but he was eager to get back to the letters. She had only been on the island a short time and he didn’t think she could have much to tell him. It occurred to him again that he should talk to Cedric about Mima, but because he’d be at the funeral it would have to wait.
The letters were kept in chronological order, though Perez didn’t read them that way. Sandy had told him that Gwen James treasured them, that she’d missed Hattie when she went off to college and would have found it easier to keep her daughter at home, protected. Perhaps Perez had misjudged the woman. His parents had thought it was in his best interests to send him away to school in Lerwick at the age of eleven. But really, he thought, they’d had no choice.
He dipped into the letters in a disorganized, irrational way. He’d read them in order later, but now he wanted a flavour of what Hattie had to say. The first few he came to had been written from a psychiatric hospital. They were short, rather incoherent, written on cheap lined paper, and the handwriting was quite different from the rest of the scripts – sprawling, the words slanting away from the lines. At first it was clear Hattie resented being there.
Please, please let me come home. I really don’t need this. I can’t stand it. I want it all to end.
Was this the reference Sandy had mentioned to her wishing she were dead? Later in her stay as an in-patient they became more chatty.
We all went to the swimming pool in town today. I haven’t been swimming in ages and enjoyed it a lot. The minibus broke down on the way back to the unit. We had to walk back and Mark led us like a bunch of schoolkids along the main road. I almost expected him to tell us to get into pairs and hold hands.
As her mood improved her handwriting changed, became tidier, more controlled.
There was a gap of two weeks. Perez assumed that she’d moved home before her return to university and there was no need to write to her mother then. He wondered how they’d got on. He wished he’d had the opportunity to meet Gwen James, so he could picture the household more clearly. Had there been long meaningful talks every evening? Or had both women found it easier to pretend that nothing much had happened in Hattie’s life, that the girl’s absence from home had been perfectly normal, like a holiday job or a trip away? Had Gwen continued to lose herself in her work?
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.
I’m loving every minute of the experience. This is definitely what I want to do with my life. Paul Berglund, who’s in charge of the dig, came on to the site today and seems delighted with the way things are going. He took us all out to the pub after we’d finished for the day. Had a bit of a hangover the next morning!
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.
Paul took me out to dinner to thank me for my help on the project. He’s such a nice man and the best in his field in the country. I’m even thinking of changing my course so I can work in his department. I don’t want to lose touch after he’s given me so much help.
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 naïve.’ 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 naïve. 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.’
‘She never mentioned the previous relationship?’
‘It wasn’t a relationship, inspector. It was a one-night stand.’
‘Did you know she’d suffered with depression?’
‘No, but I’m not surprised. In our previous encounter and in her work there was a lack of proportion. She took herself too seriously. I can see that might have been a symptom of her illness.’
‘She had a spell in hospital after her encounter with you.’
There was another, longer pause. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
‘You and Hattie spent some time together on the afternoon before she disappeared. Was any of this mentioned then?’
‘Absolutely not, inspector. It was a professional conversation between colleagues. Just as I explained earlier.’
‘Is it significant, do you think, that she used your knife to kill herself?’
If that is what she did.
‘You think she still felt rejected by me? That the suicide was some sort of romantic gesture?’
Perez sat for a moment looking at the man on the other side of the table. Berglund seemed almost flattered by the notion and that made Perez feel ill. He thought Berglund had deceived him. He was missing something and he hadn’t been told the full story, but he wasn’t sure which questions to ask. He couldn’t face reading any more of Hattie’s letters just now. He went back to his room and phoned Fran. She asked about the inquiry but he refused to talk about it. He wanted her to tell him about Cassie and about everything they’d been doing. He wanted her to make him laugh.
