Ann Cleeves - Red Bones

‘What do you think of Paul Berglund?’ Perez asked.

He pulled apart a crusty roll and cut a piece of cheese off the block of Orkney cheddar with his penknife, handed the makeshift sandwich to her.

‘I’ve always found Paul OK,’ she said. ‘He’s been all right to me.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. You could have a worse boss. He can be a good laugh.’

‘What about Hattie?’ He broke off a piece of chocolate and put it in his mouth. He thought she sounded defensive. ‘Was he all right to her?’

Sophie didn’t reply. A gull swooped down, scavenging for bits of food. A curlew shouted in the distance.

He went on. ‘Did Hattie tell you about Paul? Maybe warn you about him? Did she think the two of you were getting close and want you to know how he’d treated her?’

She stared out to the islands on the horizon. ‘Paul hasn’t done anything wrong,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t have.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Something made Hattie kill herself,’ Perez said. ‘If that’s what happened, she used his knife to do it.’

She turned away from him. ‘I hate it here,’ she said. ‘Everyone knowing each other’s business. At first it was OK. Different from anywhere else I’ve ever lived. The boys from the boats were good fun, they know how to party. Now I can’t stand it. Once the fog rolls in you feel as if the world outside doesn’t matter at all. People here lose any sense of proportion. Tiny incidents that happened years ago fester and take over their lives.’

‘What incidents?’

She shook her head in frustration that he didn’t immediately understand.

‘There’s nothing specific. Just a feeling that the islanders can never break free from their history. That they have no free will. Or that they won’t allow themselves any.’

‘Go home then,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to stop you. Just leave me your address.’

She’d pulled out a piece of heather and was tearing the tiny dead flowers off the stalk one by one. Perez thought it might take more than a night of clubbing and drinking to make her feel happy again.

‘Did Hattie talk to you before she died?’ he asked.

She turned, startled. ‘Of course she talked to me.’

‘So you got on OK?’

A brief hesitation. ‘Boarding school’s great practice for this sort of work,’ she said. ‘You have to muck in together.’

He wasn’t sure that was a real answer. I went to boarding school , he thought. If you can call the hostel at the Anderson High School a boarding school. I’m not sure it taught me much.

‘Did she talk about Paul Berglund?’ he asked. ‘About what happened when they worked together before?’

‘Paul says it’s all rubbish. She just had a teenage crush.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Was it true then, all that stuff about Paul?’ Sophie looked at him; her eyes seemed huge. ‘You could never tell with Hattie. Sometimes I thought she was mad. She came up with such odd ideas.’

‘Like what?’

Sophie shook her head, unwilling to be specific. ‘I don’t know. She just let her imagination run away with her.’

‘But she did talk to you about Paul?’

‘Yes, she thought he was hitting on me. She was warning me off. I told her I was a big girl and I could look after myself.’

‘I think she was telling the truth about Paul,’ Perez said. ‘But there’s no evidence and he’ll never be charged, if that’s what’s concerning you. I just need to hear what she told you.’

Sophie finished the beer and crushed the can with her fist. She told her story looking out to sea in a flat, unemotional voice. Throughout, there was no eye contact.

‘It was at the end of her first year at university. She’d already had some sort of stress-related illness after A levels. I guess she was that sort of person. An obsessive. Then in the summer vacation she worked as a volunteer on a dig in the south.’

She paused but Perez said nothing. He knew all this, but Sophie had to tell the tale in her own words.

She continued: ‘That was where Hattie met Paul. She fell for him. I mean absolutely head over heels. She admitted that to me. He was married but when’s that ever stopped anyone?’

Now Perez did interject. ‘Did she know he was married?’

‘Maybe not. She was so naïve, it probably never occurred to her. He must have been flattered. She was young, bright, quirky. He took her out a couple of times. Enjoyed her company but wanted more. Men do always want more…’ She paused again and continued to stare into the distance. Perez wished he knew what she was thinking about. ‘One evening, they both got drunk. He invited her into his room for coffee. She went, expecting coffee, maybe a kiss and a cuddle. Like I said, she was very naïve. Paul expected more than that.’

‘He raped her,’ Perez said.

‘No!’ she said and now she did turn towards him, shocked. ‘Not rape. That sounds horrible.’

‘Rape is horrible.’

‘They were both drunk. He misread the signals. She never actually told him to stop. Not really. Not so he understood.’

And perhaps that was true, Perez thought. Hattie had so little confidence. After a while perhaps she had just given in and let the man do what he wanted, too scared to shout and make a fuss. And afterwards she’d blamed herself instead of him. And the anger had eaten away at her and made her ill. Had it turned to paranoia here in Whalsay? Had she been scared it would happen again? Did she imagine him watching her, waiting for his moment? But everyone said she’d been happy until Mima’s death. It didn’t quite make sense.

He didn’t want Sophie to think he was blaming her. He looked out at the water too, at the reflected sunlight shifting with the movement of the waves and the windblown shadows.

‘Are you having a relationship with Berglund?’

‘No!’

Perez had an image of the two archaeologists as he’d seen them the day before, standing together outside the Pier House after Mima’s funeral, both dressed in black. Berglund had put his arm around Sophie’s shoulders, but she’d resisted and walked away. He thought she was telling the truth. He stood up, starting to feel cold. Despite the brightness of the light there was still a chill in the rock where they sat.

‘Have you discussed her allegations with Paul?’

‘I couldn’t help it. It was while we were in the kirk before Mima’s funeral. We got there early. Everything was so solemn and dreary. I couldn’t just sit there in silence. We were the first people there. There was nobody to overhear. And I had to know what he had to say for himself.’

‘What did he have to say?’

‘He laughed it off, said she was a screwed-up kid with a serious crush on him and she didn’t know what she wanted.’ She hesitated. ‘Then he warned me off: “Don’t go spreading rumours about me, Sophie. I’ve got a lot to lose.”’

‘Do you think Hattie discussed it with him when they had their meeting?’

‘I don’t know.’ Sophie’s attention seemed to be wandering now, or perhaps she was feeling the cold as much as he was. ‘Paul didn’t say anything about that to me.’

Did he warn Hattie off too? Perez thought. Or did he take more drastic action to stop her talking? As he’d said, he had a lot to lose.

‘Do you think Hattie killed herself?’ The question came out unplanned, but he found that he’d caught his breath while he waited for the answer.

‘Of course,’ she answered, looking at him as if he were a little mad. ‘What else could have happened? Though…’

‘Yes?’

‘I’d have thought she’d have left a note. She was always writing. It was the best way she communicated, how she made sense of things.’