‘Not particularly. There was one embarrassing encounter, then she left the dig. I never expected to see her again. Then I changed jobs and found myself supervising a colleague’s postgrad student while she was on maternity leave. Hattie.’

‘Did you recognize her?’

‘Of course, inspector. I don’t make a habit of sleeping with my volunteers. But she made no sign that she knew me, so I assumed that was how she wanted to play it.’

‘She never mentioned the previous relationship?’

‘It wasn’t a relationship, inspector. It was a one-night stand.’

‘Did you know she’d suffered with depression?’

‘No, but I’m not surprised. In our previous encounter and in her work there was a lack of proportion. She took herself too seriously. I can see that might have been a symptom of her illness.’

‘She had a spell in hospital after her encounter with you.’

There was another, longer pause. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

‘You and Hattie spent some time together on the afternoon before she disappeared. Was any of this mentioned then?’

‘Absolutely not, inspector. It was a professional conversation between colleagues. Just as I explained earlier.’

‘Is it significant, do you think, that she used your knife to kill herself?’ If that is what she did.

‘You think she still felt rejected by me? That the suicide was some sort of romantic gesture?’

Perez sat for a moment looking at the man on the other side of the table. Berglund seemed almost flattered by the notion and that made Perez feel ill. He thought Berglund had deceived him. He was missing something and he hadn’t been told the full story, but he wasn’t sure which questions to ask. He couldn’t face reading any more of Hattie’s letters just now. He went back to his room and phoned Fran. She asked about the inquiry but he refused to talk about it. He wanted her to tell him about Cassie and about everything they’d been doing. He wanted her to make him laugh.

Chapter Thirty