‘I don’t know.’ Sophie’s attention seemed to be wandering now, or perhaps she was feeling the cold as much as he was. ‘Paul didn’t say anything about that to me.’

Did he warn Hattie off too? Perez thought. Or did he take more drastic action to stop her talking? As he’d said, he had a lot to lose.

‘Do you think Hattie killed herself?’ The question came out unplanned, but he found that he’d caught his breath while he waited for the answer.

‘Of course,’ she answered, looking at him as if he were a little mad. ‘What else could have happened? Though . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘I’d have thought she’d have left a note. She was always writing. It was the best way she communicated, how she made sense of things.’

He knew he should find Sandy and that the Fiscal would be waiting to hear from him, but despite the cold now he was reluctant to move. He thought Sophie had more to tell him, that he’d mishandled the situation. He hadn’t asked the right question. But Sophie had grown impatient. She got to her feet too and strode across the cropped grass of the hill back towards the car, past the loch where the clouds were reflected in the water and where soon the diver would build its nest. He was left to follow.

Chapter Thirty-four

When Sandy came back to the house after letting the hens out and collecting the eggs, Perez was waiting for him. The door was unlocked, but Perez was standing outside as if he had all the time in the world.

‘Your car’s still here,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think you’d be gone long.’

Sandy thought Mima would have enjoyed having these visitors to Setter. She’d have taken to Jimmy Perez, poured whisky for him and told him her stories. Today the inspector was the one with the stories to tell.

‘Let’s stay outside,’ Perez said. ‘Make the most of the weather.’ So they walked down past the site of the dig with its tape and its poles and its mound of earth, to the dyke that marked the end of Setter land. Perez wondered again what would happen to the site now. Would the trenches be filled in and the spoil heap flattened? Would the land then remain undisturbed for ever? He talked about Paul Berglund and Hattie James and what had happened when they worked together on another dig in Sussex.

‘Do you believe what the psychiatric nurse said?’ Sandy wasn’t sure what he thought of the incident. Rape to him was a city crime, a stranger attacking a woman after dark in some alley. Two people having sex in a hotel room was something different. But he knew Perez well enough not to say so.

‘Yes.’

‘It doesn’t really give Berglund a motive for killing Mima though, does it?’