She realised the time as the plates were cleared.
‘Shit, I’m supposed to be along the road, there’s a wake at the house. I said I would help Indy prep the room. There’s catering.’
‘Business as usual, eh?’
Hannah drank the last of her wine and placed the glass heavily on the table. ‘It’s the first funeral since Grandpa, we all have to muck in.’
Craig narrowed his eyes, taking her in. ‘I worry about you.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘It can’t be good for any of you, surrounded by death all the time.’
Hannah shrugged. ‘It’s other people’s grief, not ours.’
Craig shook his head and scratched at the tablecloth. ‘But it’s not, it’s your grief too. How can you do funerals when you’ve just lost someone?’
Hannah stared at her dad for a moment then pushed her chair back and stood up, a little unsteady. ‘What choice do we have?’
18
JENNY
She tugged at her collar, itchy at the neck. Jenny had borrowed one of Dorothy’s blouses because she didn’t have anything in her wardrobe suitable for a wake. She looked round the reception room. There were forty mourners milling about, looking as uncomfortable as she felt, nibbling on triangle sandwiches and sipping wine from small glasses. The décor was demure pastel shades, a mirror over the marble fireplace, abstract seascapes on the walls. The patio doors were open, a handful of people outside. The doors opened out to the back garden, and Jenny saw the blackened remains of her dad’s funeral pyre out there, like they’d been roasting a pig on a spit.
She remembered kicking a football out there with Dad, four decades ago. It had been strange having a funeral director for a dad, but not for the reason most people thought. There was no delineation between home and work because, for Jim, home was work. He was on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, always answering the phones and heading out at odd times to pick up a body or comfort a widow or brother. But that meant she got time with him at surprise moments when he wasn’t busy. She had memories of him dribbling the ball between the two oaks in his full undertaker get up, playing hide-and-seek amongst the second-floor cubbyholes, helping her to build a jewellery box as a school project in the workshop, amongst the coffins and the sweet smell of wood shavings. Jenny felt a wave of sadness make her heart flutter, and she breathed deeply.
‘It was a lovely service,’ an old woman said as she entered.
Jenny returned a flat smile. The flat smile was a staple for funeral workers, acknowledgement of what was said with a tinge of sadness. She didn’t have a role here, really, just keeping an eye on things while people hovered and swapped stories about the deceased. Given that Gina had hanged herself at home alone, there was an edge, a sense of life wasted, potential destroyed.
Jenny and Indy were holding the fort after Dorothy had come in ashen-faced and headed upstairs to lie down. Archie said she’d collapsed outside the crem but refused to see a doctor. Just stress, she told Jenny as she waved away a helping hand, clinging to the banister like a crutch.
Indy was so good at small talk with the bereaved. They were drawn to her, because of her bright hair, dark skin, beaming grin. No flat smile for her, she seemed full of life, but never in a disrespectful way, like she was in tune with the universe. Jenny couldn’t get a handle on it, the whole thing made her feel ill.
She saw the deceased’s sister approach Indy, start talking, but not platitudes or small talk. Indy indicated Jenny with a nod of her head and a surprised look. Her eyes widened in warning as the sister came towards Jenny.
‘Are you a Skelf?’
Jenny nodded. ‘I’m Jenny.’
‘I’m Orla, Gina’s sister. What happened to the old guy I arranged the funeral with, is he not here today? I expected him to handle everything.’
Jenny rubbed at her eyelid, blinked heavily. ‘That was my dad. He died.’
‘Shit, I’m sorry.’
Jenny shook her head, it felt awkward talking about her dad’s death at someone else’s funeral, like she was muscling in on their grief.
‘So,’ Orla said. ‘You work for the family company?’
Jenny thought about Dorothy upstairs. ‘Yes.’
‘I need to speak to you about something.’ She looked at the room full of people. ‘Do you have somewhere private?’
Jenny led her across the hall to one of the empty viewing rooms, the table set up in the middle. She offered Orla one of the leather armchairs but the woman shook her head.
‘I like to stand.’
Jenny waited.
‘This is a bit weird,’ Orla said eventually.
‘It’s a hard time,’ Jenny said.
Orla shook her head. Jenny caught a whiff of acidic perfume.
‘I don’t mean that,’ Orla said, waving at the wake beyond the closed door. She rubbed at her brow, looked round the room for inspiration. ‘So you work for the family business?’
She was repeating herself, stalling.
‘Yes.’
‘Both parts?’
‘How do you mean?’
Orla pointed at the closed door again. ‘It said on the side entrance that you’re a private investigator’s as well as a funeral director’s.’
‘Yes.’
Orla looked at Jenny. ‘And you do that, the investigating, like?’
Jenny paused for a moment. ‘Sure.’
‘Then I have a case for you.’
‘What?’
‘That’s what you call it, a case? I have a job for a private investigator.’ She laughed, a self-mocking sound. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to sit down?’
‘At a funeral,’ Orla said. ‘I mean, it’s disrespectful, isn’t it? But I don’t know if I’ll have the guts to come back another time.’
Jenny resisted the urge to tug at her blouse collar again, but she could feel the skin on her neck was raw. She thought of Gina’s neck, the marks from the belt that Archie covered up.
Orla touched her hair. ‘It’s such a fucking cliché.’ She rubbed at her elbow and breathed deeply. ‘I think my husband is cheating on me. Liam Hook. He’s through there right now, being all caring and sensitive, a shoulder to cry on. But he’s having an affair. I want you to get some evidence and when you do I’m going to divorce the bastard.’
‘What makes you think he’s cheating on you?’
Orla threw a stare at Jenny, eyes on fire. ‘You’re not wearing a ring, are you married?’
‘Divorced.’ Even after all this time the word felt shameful, an admission of defeat.
‘Why did you get divorced?’
‘He met someone else.’
Orla nodded. ‘So you know what I’m talking about. Did you realise he was cheating on you?’
How had this become about Jenny? ‘I had no clue.’
Orla’s eyebrows went up. ‘Wow, OK. He must be a fucking good liar.’
Jenny shrugged, looked away.
‘Liam is not a good liar,’ Orla said. ‘Says he’s working late, if you can believe it. But when I call the office he doesn’t pick up. On his mobile it doesn’t sound the same as the office, the acoustics are different.’
‘Have you asked him about it?’ Jenny said.
Orla shook her head. ‘I want proof, that’s where you come in.’
Jenny swallowed and tugged at her collar. ‘I don’t know.’
Orla narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re a private investigator, aren’t you?’
Jenny didn’t answer straight away. Was she? She remembered grabbing Bradley at the uni campus, how she lost control of herself. She thought about her mum upstairs, ill with stress and grief. She thought about the money her dad paid out, the missing former employee. She thought about Mel, another vanished person. If they didn’t solve these mysteries, who would?
Orla was waiting for an answer. ‘Well?’
‘Yes, I’m a private investigator.’
/> ‘So you’ll take the case?’
‘I’ll take it.’
19
HANNAH
Everything was too bright. The long strip lights overhead, their electric buzz rattling her brain, the spotlights on the whiteboard she was staring at, even the logo on Dr Longhorn’s MacBook seemed to throb with her headache. She never normally drank much and there was confusion mixed with the pain. After the wine with Dad she’d turned up at Skelf’s to help, but instead drank more wine in a little plastic cup before having to lie down. Her mum and Indy helped her upstairs and put her in Jenny’s old bedroom. That was late afternoon and she slept right through, waking this morning with Schrödinger licking her face in the morning light.
Mel’s disappearance was getting to her. She was aware of a black fog in the back of her mind, and knew what that could lead to. One of the reasons she didn’t drink much alcohol was the effect it had on her teenage brain a few years ago, bringing on anxiety then depression, her fifteen-year-old self trying combinations of medication, finally settling on something that didn’t make her feel like she was living in cotton wool. Then months of gradually reducing the dose plus meditation learned from Dorothy, the odd bit of yoga, and a brief obsession with running. The occasional glass of wine had been reintroduced, but yesterday was way over. Her dad wasn’t to blame, she’d kept the anxiety and depression from him, worried he would see her as a cause to be fixed.
So there was guilt to go with today’s hangover. Waking up in her mum’s old room didn’t help. She’d crept out before anyone was awake, then had to face Indy at the flat. But she didn’t judge, just a sympathetic hug and a worried look, which made the guilt worse.
She’d arrived late at the lecture and sat at the back. She could see Xander and a couple of his mates over the other side, a nod of acknowledgement when she tried to slide in unnoticed.
Peter Longhorn was talking about quantum entanglement but she couldn’t take it in. Her body vibrated with the buzz from the lights and it made her feel exposed, as if her hangover had worn away her skin, dissolved the border between her and the universe so that she might float apart any second and join the great mess of chemical existence.
Entanglement was the kind of mindfuck she usually loved in physics, that entangled pairs of subatomic particles were intrinsically linked by their quantum state even when separated. Measurement of one particle’s state collapsed the function and gave information on the other’s state instantaneously, breaking the rule that limited transfer of information to the speed of light. And that was just the start. Digging into the maths there were caveats and inconsistencies, violations and arguments about what rival theories meant, even the idea that time could be a side-effect of entanglement. It was all about perspective, where you viewed the universe from, how you observed it and interacted with it, how cause and effect played out on every level, from quarks to galaxies.
Right now, her perspective was that if she didn’t get some Irn Bru soon she might pass out.
She watched Longhorn with narrow eyes. He was tall with an air of authority, but without being a dick about it. He had a navy shirt tucked into dark jeans, pointy leather shoes, a cut above the sartorial elegance of other staff who wore mostly Star Trek T-shirts and trainers. He was mid-thirties, short blond hair and clean-shaven. And he was Mel’s Director of Studies, a token role in her case, since the DoS only got involved if a student was skipping classes or failing.
The class ended and everyone shuffled out, Xander nodding again at Hannah. He was about to come over and speak to her but seemed to have second thoughts, turning away through the doors.
Dr Longhorn shuffled papers together and closed his laptop as she approached. Her head was thumping and her eyes were heavy.
‘Dr Longhorn,’ she said, swinging her rucksack onto her shoulder.
‘Peter, please.’
She nodded even though it made her cringe. ‘I was wondering if you’d seen Melanie Cheng recently?’
‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘Really?’
‘She had an appointment to see me the other day, never showed up.’
Hannah noticed his wedding ring, how long and thin his fingers were.
‘What was the appointment about, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘I have no idea. She emailed to set it up but didn’t say why.’
‘She emailed you?’
‘Is something the matter?’
Hannah tried to quell her stomach, she felt hungry and sick at the same time. ‘She’s gone missing.’
Peter stopped tidying. ‘What do you mean?’
‘No one has seen her for three days.’
‘Did she go back home?’
‘When I say no one, I mean no one.’
He took something from her tone. ‘Have you contacted the police?’
‘They’re not interested, there’s no law against going missing.’
Peter began putting his belongings into his leather briefcase. ‘I’m sure she’ll turn up.’
‘You don’t seem that bothered.’
‘If I had a pound for every student who didn’t turn up to classes for a few days.’
‘This is more than that,’ Hannah said. ‘She made an appointment with you, maybe she was worried about something?’
‘Maybe,’ Peter said. ‘But her grades and lab work are fine, she’s a model student.’
‘Exactly,’ Hannah said. ‘So where is she?’
‘I’m sorry I can’t be more help,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘I have a faculty meeting I’m already late for.’
Students were filing in for the next lecture, backpacks and water bottles, T-shirts and jeans, young men and women all present and correct, not missing from their lives. Hannah rubbed at her temple, tried to ease the pain. But throbbing behind it was something she was sure about. She’d checked Mel’s emails a hundred times, there was nothing in them asking Peter Longhorn for a meeting.
‘This is my granddaughter, Hannah.’
Hannah shook hands with the old man in the doorway, the skin on his hands rough and gnarly.
‘Hi, there.’
They were at one of the swanky houses on Hermitage Drive, round the corner from the allotments.
‘Jacob,’ the old man said, and waved them inside.
Dorothy and Hannah followed him through to the living room. Hannah had a small, black canvas bag full of camera equipment over her shoulder. Her hangover was clearing nicely, but she was still chewing over what Longhorn had said about an email. It didn’t make sense.
She’d been on her way home after classes when she got a call from Gran, asking her to come over and help explain how the spy cameras worked. She was glad of the distraction, to be honest, and she got to see Indy at Greenhill Gardens too. The cameras were pretty simple, small black cubes that could take snaps or record video when activated by motion in their field of view. But they were pretty old, didn’t have cloud backup, just SD cards that had to be removed and viewed on a laptop.
‘Hannah is our tech expert,’ Dorothy said, as Jacob hovered over a hard seat then lowered himself carefully.
Hannah guessed that it would be too much effort to get in and out of a sofa without some help, and Jacob didn’t seem like the kind of person to ask for assistance.
She unzipped the bag and took out one of the cameras. It looked innocuous, which was kind of the point. She explained how they worked to Jacob, talked about the best place to set them up. An hour ago she hadn’t known any of this shit, had just Googled it before they came round. She talked about image resolution, battery power. How often they’d have to replace batteries and SD cards depended on how much activity there was during the day.
He smiled. ‘You’re talking to me like an adult.’
‘You are an adult.’ Hannah stood up. ‘So we have five cameras, where shall I put them? Is it just downstairs, or do you want some of upstairs covered too?’
He thought about it for a moment. ‘Most
ly downstairs. One in here somewhere, one in the kitchen and one in the study through there.’ He waved a hand behind him.
Dorothy held her hands out. ‘Of course, the more cameras we use, the longer it will take us to go through the footage from them all.’
‘I want her caught,’ Jacob said, with a firmness that surprised Hannah.
‘Of course,’ Dorothy said.
‘So, the other two cameras?’ Hannah said.
Jacob nodded to himself. ‘I have some things in my bedroom that I think she’s been going through, so one in there. It’s straight ahead of you at the top of the stairs. But there’s nothing much in the other bedrooms now, so maybe just put the last one in the upstairs hall? Susan shouldn’t really be up there at all, so if it picks up anything, I can speak to her.’
Hannah began looking around the living room for a place to hide the camera. It had a 150-degree angle spread, so anywhere would do, really, the main thing was to keep it hidden.
Dorothy spoke to Jacob about Susan’s schedule, and he wrote down with a shaky hand when she was due over the next few days. This would help them to decide when to come and replace the SD cards and batteries, and also give them a better idea of which time stamps to look at on the footage. That way they could eliminate the footage of Jacob on his own moving around the house, although looking at him, he probably wasn’t doing handsprings across the Persian rug.
The décor in the living room hadn’t been updated in decades, a lot of orange and browns, swirling patterns on the heavy curtains and rugs. But it was dust-free, which made Hannah think.
‘Does Susan clean the place too?’
‘No, I have a cleaner,’ Jacob said. ‘A young girl, very efficient.’
A Dark Matter Page 9