Red Bones - Ann Cleeves [80]
He found Berglund still in the Pier House Hotel. He seemed to have taken up residence at the table by the window, turning the place into his office, filling it with his laptop computer and his piles of paper.
‘You’ll have heard about Hattie?’ Perez said.
‘Yes, what a waste! She was such a talented girl. I’ve never been able to understand suicide.’ There was an academic interest in his voice but no real regret.
‘Your knife was found by her body.’
‘Really?’ He looked up sharply from the computer screen. ‘I hadn’t even realized it was lost.’ He gave a shiver of distaste.
‘We’ll need to keep it for forensic examination.’
‘Oh, I don’t want it back. I’d never feel able to use it again.’
‘When did you last see it?’
‘I can’t remember. I certainly had it yesterday morning on site. I suppose I must have left it there. Or I could have dropped it while I was walking with Hattie.’
‘Did you see her pick it up?’
‘Of course not, inspector. I’d have expected her to give it back to me, wouldn’t I?’ He gave a little laugh, as if he could hardly believe the detective’s stupidity.
Perez drove from Symbister to Lindby and the big Clouston house. Jackie was outside, cleaning the windows of the lounge, polishing them with a dry cloth, so vigorously that you’d think she’d make a hole in the glass. She turned round, suddenly aware that she was being watched.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘One storm and they’ll be covered again with salt. But it’s good to get the view, at least for a while. Everyone said Andrew was daft to rebuild his house here, where it’s so exposed, but we wouldn’t like to be lower down. We like the sea all around us and a bit of a view.’
‘I don’t want to disturb you.’
‘You’re not. I was just looking for something to do. A distraction, you know. Another death on the island . . . It’s hard to take in. I didn’t really know the lassie working in Setter but it’s a shock all the same. Come away inside.’
He expected to see Andrew in his usual chair in the kitchen but it was empty. Jackie saw that he was wondering about her husband. ‘Ronald’s taken him out for a peerie drive. Up to the golf club so he can have a bit of company with his friends, then they might call in at the sailing club or have a drink at the Pier House. He’s not been well the last few days. It gets Andrew down, not being able to get out with the boys on the boat. He was the one who made all the decisions. Now he feels kind of powerless. It’s not a physical thing so much; he just gets frustrated. Anna wanted Ronald to make a start on her garden today, but I said to him, “That can wait. Your father’s more important than planting a few beans and tatties.”’
Perez wondered what Anna had made of that. But he just nodded. ‘Can we go through into the other room? Enjoy the view now the windows are so clean?’
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Why not? I usually sit in the kitchen, but you go through and I’ll bring the coffee in to you.’
It was a big square room the width of half the house. There was a marble fireplace and the furniture was large and shiny: two sofas covered in grey satin, a highly polished sideboard and a couple of gleaming occasional tables, a gilt-framed mirror on the mantelpiece. The photographs were posed and covered in glass. There was one of Jackie and Andrew’s wedding, Andrew looking very grand in a morning suit, a giant standing next to his little wife. There was a shot of the house when it was first built, Ronald’s official school photos. The room seemed cold and impersonal. Perez wondered how often it was used. He sat on a chair looking out through the long window. He could see the whole of the southern point of the island, from the new bungalow where Anna and Ronald lived, along the boulder beach to Setter where Hattie’s body had been found.
Jackie bustled in with a tray: the best china, milk in a jug and real coffee in a pot, a plate with homemade biscuits. What else did she do besides baking and housework? He thought she must get bored here in the giant show-house. Did looking after her