Red Bones - Ann Cleeves [61]
‘Anything else?’
‘She was going on about Evelyn again. By that time I’d had two whiskies and in the warmth of the kitchen I was finding it hard not to drop off. She said something like, “That woman’s gone too far this time. I’ll have to sort it out. Make sure I arrange things so Joseph doesn’t get hurt.”’
‘Do you know what she was talking about?’
‘Not really. Like I said, I wasn’t exactly giving the conversation my full attention. I assumed it was about island politics of some sort. I don’t know Evelyn well but she seems to build alliances then fall out with people. That sort of thing happens in the university too. I try not to have too much to do with that either.’
Perez still found it hard to think of Berglund as someone who worked in a university. His speech was too blunt and he was too big. University professors should be skinny and use long words.
‘This discovery Hattie made—’
‘Wonderful,’ Berglund interrupted enthusiastically. ‘It’s just what she needs at the beginning of her career. And fascinating. Nobody had any idea there was a house of such proportions on Whalsay. Hattie seems to have an instinct for domestic archaeology. I’m still not sure how she got it so right.’
Perez supposed the fact that Mima was shot just days before the coins were found by the students was a coincidence. He disliked coincidence, but he couldn’t see how the two events could be related. Not if things had happened that way round. Then there was the skull. Could the discovery of an ancient body have triggered these events in the present? Of course not, but he wished he knew more about it.
‘There’s no possibility that Hattie could have found coins on an earlier visit?’ He kept his voice tentative. The last thing he wanted to do was question the student’s integrity without good reason. But if Mima, or any of the other islanders, had known there was something of value on her land it would bring a new perspective to her death. It seemed to Perez a more natural order of events.
‘Why wouldn’t she tell anyone? Hattie and Sophie always work on the site together. There are all sorts of health and safety constraints that prevent solo work. Besides, she’s not a thief, inspector. She’s passionate about the project. There’s no way she’d remove objects from the merchant’s house at Setter without recording them properly.’
‘Of course,’ Perez said. ‘It was a foolish idea.’
But he was wondering if anyone else had been rooting around on the site, if any other objects of value had been found there. He imagined the misty, rainy night. Perhaps Mima heard something from her house or went out unexpectedly late to shut up the hens. Of course if the intruder came from Lindby she would recognize them, even from the faint light seeping out of the back of her house. She’d grown up there. Everyone was familiar to her. Islanders had been encouraged to take an interest in the dig, but Mima wouldn’t expect anyone there once the students had left. Had she challenged the person? Shocked them into violence?
He realized Berglund was staring at him. The archaeologist wasn’t a man for quiet contemplation.
‘Is that it?’ Berglund asked. ‘Can I get back to Whalsay now? I’m interested to see the coins for myself.’
‘Of course.’ Perez though was lost in thought. Would Hattie have noticed if someone had been visiting the site when she wasn’t there? And what might the intruder have already found? He remembered the conversation between Sandy and Hattie in the Pier House Hotel, Sandy’s questions about the value of the coins. Perhaps other people would believe them worth stealing. He should find out if there was a black market in objects like this.
Later, in his office, he tried to call Val Turner, the Shetland archaeologist. He thought she would know if the coins had any sort of value. She’d put the Whalsay dig into context for him and because she could have had nothing to do with Mima’s death it would be possible to talk to her more freely than to Paul Berglund. But she wasn’t in and he had to leave a message on her answering machine.
He