Red Bones (Shetland Quartet 3)

sink for washing up. Perez expected her to elaborate, but suddenly she turned back to Hattie. ‘Where’s Sophie? You should have brought her in for some tea. Sandy would have been pleased to see her again.’
    Perez watched Sandy turn pink. Even when you’d grown up mothers had the knack of embarrassing you. His own was just the same.
    ‘Sophie’s gone into Lerwick for the day.’ Hattie’s voice was bland but Perez thought he could hear a trace of disapproval. ‘Paul’s going south on the ferry tonight and he’s offered her a lift into town.’
    ‘He didn’t mention earlier that he was leaving Whalsay.’ Perez didn’t know why Berglund should, but it seemed a strange omission.
    ‘We weren’t expecting him to go yet either. He said something had turned up at home.’ Now that she wasn’t talking about her work Hattie had that closed-down look again and the shadows had come back.
    ‘Perhaps we should try to catch him before he leaves,’ Perez said. ‘Thanks for the tea and the breakfast, Evelyn.’ Sandy was already on his feet, anxious for an excuse to escape his mother.
    Though the fog was still as dense as before, Perez was glad to be out of the croft kitchen too. As they walked to the car he could hear Evelyn urging more food into Hattie. ‘Look at you, child. You’re all skin and bone.’
    The Pier House Hotel was a square stone building close to the ferry terminal. There was nobody behind the desk in reception and Perez wandered through to the bar, where a skinny middle-aged woman in a pink nylon overall was pushing a Hoover across the faded carpet. The room was panelled with brown, varnished wood and was shabby and depressing. In the evening, with a crowd in, a fire in the grate and artificial light, it might look welcoming. Now it was hard to imagine anyone wanting to spend time there.
    Perez yelled at the woman but she had her back to him and she couldn’t hear. He tapped her on the shoulder, could feel the sharpness of her bone through the sticky nylon. She switched off the machine.
    ‘I’m looking for one of your guests. Paul Berglund.’
    ‘Don’t ask me, hen. I only do the cleaning. And keep the show on the road.’ An incomer from Glasgow. She grinned to show that she was happy enough with her role there. ‘I’ll fetch Cedric for you.’ She disappeared into a back room and returned with an elderly man with a stoop.
    ‘Is Paul Berglund here?’ He couldn’t work out why he felt it so important to speak to Berglund again before he left Shetland. Perhaps it was the way Hattie had looked when she talked about him.
    The landlord was going to ask who Perez was, then he saw Sandy who’d wandered in from the car and realized he must be police. ‘He checked out earlier. He’s been back since to pick up his stuff. You’ve just missed him. That lassie from the dig was with him.’
    Outside they could see the ferry was already moored at the pier, a dark shape in the mist. From here Perez couldn’t tell if it was disembarking or being loaded with cars. He drove far too fast down to the jetty, but by the time they arrived the boat was sliding away towards the opposite shore.
    ‘What do you want to do?’ Sandy peered out into the mist.
    ‘Nothing.’ They’d be able to trace Berglund if they needed to speak to him. Besides, Perez was sure the death would go down as a terrible accident. Mima had been an old woman and there was nobody to make a fuss on her behalf. ‘I’m going back to the office and I’ll talk to the Fiscal. You’ll go and get some sleep. Take a couple of days’ compassionate leave. I’ll see you back at work after the weekend.’
    Suddenly Perez was eager to leave the island. He wasn’t sure he could make sense of the place while he was still there. He’d been aware for so long of the Whalsay myths: its wealth, its friendliness and its traditions. Now, surrounded by fog, he knew it was quite different from anywhere else in Shetland, certainly from the bustling town of Lerwick and the self-contained remoteness of Fair Isle. But he couldn’t define it. Perhaps it didn’t matter. If Mima Wilson’s death turned out to be an accident, what did it matter what Perez thought of the place where she’d spent her life? But Perez thought it did matter and that he needed to be away from Whalsay so he could think about it more clearly.

 
Chapter Eleven
     
    Perez had offered Sandy a lift back to Lerwick. ‘If you want to go back to town, that is. You’re too