The Fiscal was wearing a soft suede jacket and a cashmere sweater in pale green. She’d put on wellingtons before coming on to the archaeological site, folding her trousers carefully into them so they wouldn’t be creased when she came to take off the boots. The three of them looked down at the girl in the trench. Perez could hardly think straight; ideas and pictures were dancing round his head. He struggled to hold himself together in front of the Fiscal. He’d had to notify her formally of another suspicious death, but he wished he’d had more time before she turned up. He hadn’t thought she’d be here on the first ferry.

‘Have we had a doctor to declare life extinct?’ the Fiscal asked. She carried a hardback notebook and a slim silver ballpoint. Throughout the discussion she was making notes.

‘Aye.’ Sandy got in first in his eagerness to gain her approval. ‘Brian Marshall came along earlier.’

‘Did he hazard an opinion as to cause of death?’

‘Everything consistent with suicide.’ Sandy again.

‘But he said there’d need to be a p-m. before we could come to a real decision.’ Perez almost felt that he was defending Hattie. This grotesque show, so tasteless and flamboyant, didn’t seem her style at all.

‘I don’t suppose he could tell us anything about the time of death?’

‘Nothing that helps,’ Perez said. ‘We know she was last seen at about four o’clock. I’d arranged to meet Hattie at six in the Bod and she didn’t turn up. That could mean she was already dead by then, but not necessarily. Sophie was working here until about four-thirty and claims not to have seen her.’

‘Where was she seen at four o’clock?’

‘On the footpath close to the shore.’ Perez was finding it easier to think straight now. If he could just focus on the facts he might see this through without making an idiot of himself. ‘I phoned round all the Lindby folk last night. Anna Clouston saw her making her way back towards the Bod. Hattie and her boss had been walking along the beach before that. He was congratulating her on making a significant find at the Setter dig, but he also told her that her assistant had resigned. She’d found Hattie difficult to work with and she’d decided to ditch archaeology anyway. I have the impression Sophie doesn’t need to work for a living and this wasn’t much more than a passing fad.’

‘So the assumption is that the woman killed herself after some sort of disagreement with her boss.’

‘I don’t think there was a disagreement. Berglund passed on the news of Sophie’s resignation. Hattie didn’t seem too unhappy about working the site alone.’

‘All the same . . .’ the Fiscal broke off and looked up from her notebook for a moment. ‘You say she had a history of mental illness?’