She pushed herself, trying to beat her best five K, legs pounding and aching, breath ragged, face flushed. It didn’t help that the Meadows were hoaching, unseasonal sunshine bringing everyone out to enjoy the last throes of summer.
She overtook two middle-aged men jogging at half her speed, and thought about Peter. He killed himself out of guilt over what he did to Mel, so fuck him. She understood Emilia being upset, but what about Mel and her family? It wasn’t Hannah’s fault, all she did was find the photographs, uncover the truth. If she hadn’t pursued it Peter would still be alive, but only because he hadn’t been caught. She refused to take the blame.
But then she thought about Emilia’s baby, scrabbling for her bottle of milk on the ground. She would grow up without a dad, and nobody deserved that. She thought about her own dad and how much she wanted him to be around when she was a teenager arguing with Mum.
Her feet thumped across the grass, she was a few seconds up on her PB, she could break twenty-two minutes for the first time. She had her phone out, checking how much she had to go, three hundred metres, two hundred, she passed another man in his thirties, thickening around the middle, now one hundred metres, she sucked in air and threw her legs forwards, imagined a finishing tape, then the automated voice told her she’d reached five kilometres and she pressed pause and her legs staggered to a stop and she almost fell over, stumbling until she slammed a hand against an oak tree and bent over, chest heaving, the voice telling her she’d done it in twenty-one minutes and fifty-seven seconds as black spots sparkled in her vision and she leaned against the tree and wished Mel and Peter were still alive, Grandpa too.
She straightened up and walked down Middle Meadow Walk to the flat, cyclists zipping past, more runners, an old punk drinking from a beer can, two girls in Capri trousers and pastel jumpers laughing loudly about a boy.
She was at the lights on Melville Terrace, waiting to cross.
‘Hey.’
She turned and there was her dad.
‘Hey.’
‘I was just coming to see you.’ He held a small bouquet of white roses. ‘I saw on the news about your friend.’
Hannah took the flowers and gave him a hug. She realised she was sweaty and smelly but didn’t care. She began crying into his chest and felt his hand on her back. She pulled herself into the embrace, hoping to burrow into the dark forever. She was aware of people passing by, probably wondering why she was crying in this man’s arms. Her breath synchronised with Craig’s, their chests moving as if their hearts were connected.
Eventually she pulled away and wiped her eyes. Craig pushed strands of hair away from her cheek.
‘Come on up,’ Hannah said, smelling the roses. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
She led him up the stairs into the flat, Indy at the breakfast bar on her laptop.
‘Hey,’ she said to Hannah, taking in Craig behind. She’d always got on with him, something Hannah was grateful for.
‘Dad gave me these,’ Hannah said, pulling out a pint glass and arranging the flowers in it.
‘I’m sorry to hear about Melanie,’ Craig said.
Hannah put the kettle on, kissed Indy in passing, saw the website on her laptop.
‘Any news?’ she said.
Indy shook her head. ‘Just what we heard last night. Anything from Thomas?’
‘I’ve tried a few times, left messages.’
‘Who’s Thomas?’ Craig said.
‘A cop friend of Dorothy’s,’ Indy said.
‘Dorothy is friends with a cop?’
‘He’s been great,’ Hannah said. ‘Really helped us out.’
‘That’s good,’ Craig said. ‘So this lecturer in the news.’
‘He was sleeping with Mel,’ Hannah said.
‘And you didn’t know about it?’
The kettle clicked off and Hannah got mugs from the rack, threw teabags in. ‘It turns out Mel was good at keeping secrets.’
Craig took a cup of tea from Hannah. ‘And this guy killed her, then himself?’
‘We think so,’ Hannah said. ‘The police are still working on it.’
‘Ms Sherlock Holmes here is quite the detective,’ Indy said, touching Hannah on the arm.
Hannah shook her head. ‘He mentioned something about emails but she didn’t send him any, so I checked his office and found pictures of them together. She also had a second phone, we presume Peter got rid of it. But we have the number and the police are getting a list of calls. Plus there’s forensics too, at the murder scene, but also Mel was pregnant. So we’re waiting for DNA to confirm Peter was the father.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily mean he killed her,’ Craig said.
‘But it gives him a motive if she was going to tell his wife.’
Hannah lifted her phone from the worktop and dialled Thomas’s number again. She was ready to leave another message but he answered on the third ring.
‘Hi, Thomas, it’s Hannah.’
‘Sorry, things have been hectic around here.’
‘So where are we?’
Hannah saw Craig and Indy share a look of concern. She felt in limbo, she couldn’t relax until she knew what happened.
‘We got DNA back half an hour ago,’ Thomas said.
‘And?’
‘There’s no match. Peter Longhorn wasn’t the father of Melanie’s child.’
Drouthy’s was a scabby sports bar on the corner of West Preston Street and Summerhall Place. The Celtic-band logo and old-time font on their lettering had the air of a Scottish theme bar, but inside it was a standard football pub with cheap lager promos and pungent toilets. It was in the heart of the student neighbourhood and Hannah lived ten minutes away, but she’d never been in before.
She’d thought of this while she was in the shower after her run. Her dad had gone and she was chewing over the call from Thomas, that Peter wasn’t the father. That meant they had to follow their other leads. She called her mum while she dried herself, and they agreed to go back to speak to Xander and Bradley, respectively. Hannah had no joy tracking down Xander, he seemed to have gone to ground. She wondered about that. Then she remembered the flatmates’ names he gave her, she’d completely forgotten about the note on her phone, had never added them to the whiteboard at her gran’s house. Darren Grant and Faisal McNish. They were easy to find on social media, seemed to spend half their lives watching football in the pub, and Faisal had even posted a picture of a fresh pint of Stella on Instagram an hour ago, tagged Drouthy Neebors. So here she was.
She spotted them at the bar, their eyes on the screen above the door, watching Man City against Barcelona. Hannah studied them for a moment while they were oblivious. Darren was big and broad, a rugby player’s physique, shaven head and scrubby beard. He was studying agriculture, she found out online, and he looked like a farmer. Faisal was the same height but thinner, sculpted, wavy black hair and a smart shirt tucked into black jeans. He was doing law at Edinburgh Uni, a fast track to elitism if ever there was one. They were an unlikely couple, and Hannah swallowed as she approached.
‘Excuse me.’
Their eyes drifted from the screen to her, and they both obviously checked out her tits under her open jacket.
‘Hi, darling,’ Darren said. ‘Do you need in to the bar?’
Faisal put his pint down and leaned forwards. ‘Let me save you the bother, love, can I buy you a drink?’
Hannah shook her head. ‘I need to speak to you both about Melanie Cheng.’
Their faces went hard.
Darren’s chin went out. ‘Who’re you?’
Faisal smiled. ‘Oh, you must be the flatmate, Xander said you were playing detective.’
‘Can you tell me where Xander is?’
Darren narrowed his eyes. ‘Still at the cop shop, no thanks to you.’
Faisal frowned at his mate. ‘We don’t have to speak to her, Daz.’
‘You don’t have to, but it might help you.’
Faisal laughed. ‘How could talk
ing to you possibly help us?’
Over Hannah’s shoulder something happened in the football match, the dozen men in the place exhaled with frustration. Darren and Faisal briefly glanced up at the screen.
‘I missed that, fuck’s sake,’ Darren said.
‘A girl is dead,’ Hannah said. ‘Don’t you give a shit?’
‘It’s got nothing to do with us,’ Faisal said.
‘Have the police spoken to either of you?’
‘Why would they speak to us?’ Darren said.
‘You knew Mel.’
Faisal took a sip of his pint. ‘It sounds like a lot of people knew Mel.’
‘What do you mean?’
Darren raised his eyebrows. ‘She was a stupid slut.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘She was fucking that lecturer behind Xander’s back for a start,’ Darren said. ‘God knows who else she was shagging.’
Hannah looked from one to the other. ‘Were either of you sleeping with her?’
Faisal shook his head. ‘Bros before hoes. It’s the mates’ code. No way we’d do that.’
‘But she was pretty, right?’ Hannah said. ‘You probably flirted with her. Tried it on a little bit. Maybe when she knocked you back you got angry. Maybe you’ve been jealous of Xander all along.’
Faisal laughed and nudged Darren. ‘She thinks she’s a cop, Daz. It’s so cute. Xander was right, you are a sad twat.’
Darren scrutinised her more closely. ‘He never said how hot you were, though. Sure I can’t get you a glass of wine?’
Faisal shook his head. ‘Don’t bother, mate, she’s one of them, remember?’
Darren looked her over again. ‘Oh yeah. Shame.’
Their eyes drifted back to the screen behind Hannah. She looked at them for a second. There was something here, but she couldn’t work out if it was bog-standard misogyny and homophobia, or something else.
‘You two are a piece of work, you know that?’
Faisal glanced down and shrugged.
‘I’m going to make sure the police investigate you properly.’
Darren put his pint down on the bar. ‘Do what you like, bitch. Now fuck along, there’s a good girl, we’re trying to watch the football.’
Hannah imagined smashing the pint glass off the bar, pushing the jagged edge into Darren’s face, then Faisal’s. Boys her own age with the attitudes of fifty years ago. How was that possible?
She turned and left the bar as a penalty claim was denied on the screens.
‘Fucking men,’ she said under her breath.
47
JENNY
Jenny pulled the van into the driveway, the familiar crunch of gravel under the wheels comforting like an old blanket, and parked next to the hearse in the garage. She remembered a night when she was a teenager, some boy walking her home, God, she couldn’t even remember his name, Jason something. They’d been drinking in one of the hotel bars in Bruntsfield, it was a Best Western now but back then it was independent and a good place to drink underage. Nobody gave a shit about that in the eighties. Anyway, she let Jason kiss her at the front gate, then after a time she let him put his hand up her blouse. Eventually she pulled him along the driveway, his eyes widening, and into the garage. Climbed into the back of the hearse they had then and fucked him, her on top, seeing the amazement in his eyes, feeling the cold metal of the hearse on her knees as she moved up and down on him, fingers spread out on his chest.
It had been a long time since she’d touched a man’s bare chest. She thought about Orla fucking Karl, her Lithuanian toyboy, while Liam dabbed mauve onto the corner of a canvas. Human desire was a bitch. She remembered kissing Craig a couple of days ago and wondered what his chest was like under his shirt these days. She wondered about Liam’s chest, thought about his shy smile. He was getting fucked over by Orla, and Jenny had the evidence. She sat thinking about that.
She went inside still chewing it over. The ground floor was silent, Indy and Archie away home. Light dappled through the stained glass on the staircase as she went up, woodpigeons cooing in the trees outside. She’d resented all this quiet as a teenager but now she craved it. People change, their bodies change, their minds change, their selves change. Hannah once told her that all the atoms in your body are replaced by new ones every seven years. If every plank of a ship is gradually replaced, is it still the same ship? What had Liam said to her about his paintings, it wasn’t about the end product, it was about the process of making the work. We are a series of actions, we are our cumulative experience and that’s it.
Dorothy was sitting in the kitchen, Schrödinger in her lap, a piece of paper on the table in front of her. She looked like she’d been crying.
‘Mum?’
Dorothy shook her head, stroked the cat, who stretched his neck.
Jenny sat and placed a hand on her mum’s knee.
‘What is it?’
Dorothy looked out of the window. The skies were blood red bleaching burnt orange at the edges. ‘I need your help.’
Jenny squeezed Dorothy’s knee.
Dorothy took a deep breath and turned. ‘I need you to help me dig up a grave.’
Jenny took her hand away. She didn’t speak for a long time.
‘What do you mean?’ she said eventually.
Dorothy pointed to the piece of paper. ‘I think your dad got rid of Simon Lawrence’s body in someone else’s coffin.’ She tapped the paper lightly, as if she was scared it might attack her. ‘This one.’
‘How do you know?’
Dorothy put her fingertips to her forehead. ‘I know how his mind works. There were no cremations for a week after Simon went missing. He wouldn’t want the body in the fridge that long, so I think he buried him.’
‘Mum, you realise what you’re asking.’
Dorothy’s eyes were wet. ‘I do.’
‘I think you’re—’
Dorothy snapped around and Schrödinger slid off her lap, slinking across the room. ‘You think I’m mad?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t have to.’ Dorothy tapped the paper again. ‘Say you’ll help me.’
Jenny put her hand on top of Dorothy’s. ‘Give this to Thomas.’
‘He’ll think I’m mad.’
Jenny made a face.
Dorothy gripped her hand tight. ‘I have to know. I have to find out what he did. He was lying to me the whole time. Everything I believed in was built on sand.’
Jenny thought about Craig’s affair with Fiona. She thought about Orla fucking Karl behind Liam’s back. She thought about Peter Longhorn and Melanie Cheng. The lies, the deceit, the betrayals.
‘It’s illegal,’ Jenny said.
‘I know.’
‘It’s immoral.’
‘I know that too.’
‘It’s hard work,’ Jenny said. ‘Digging is hard work.’
‘I know.’
‘You’re seventy years old.’
‘Thanks for reminding me.’ Dorothy leaned forwards so that their faces were inches apart. She held Jenny’s hand, gripping tight. ‘I’m a strong woman. You’re strong too.’
She wasn’t talking about physical strength.
Her grip was tighter, Jenny feeling it in her knuckles, across her wrist.
Dorothy was whispering now, they were so close. ‘I need my daughter to be strong. I need to do this.’
Jenny stared at her mother’s face and swallowed.
She didn’t have a choice.
She found her way through King’s Buildings more easily this time, even though it was getting dark. She strode into the James Clerk Maxwell Building and up the stairs, still a surprising number of people around. Maybe being a student or academic was like any other profession now, working longer and longer hours for less money, fuelled by the fear of dropping behind.
She stopped at room 4.16 and stared at that Quantum Club poster. No one had really properly explained to her what they did in that club, and she wonder
ed if Hannah had overlooked something there, if there was anything more sinister to it.
She knocked. A long pause. She didn’t know he was here, but it was all she had to go on. She was about to knock again when she heard a noise inside, maybe the squeak of a chair.
She pushed the door open and there was Bradley on his own in the office. She half expected him to have a woman in here, or his trousers round his ankles and his cock out wanking over porn on his laptop. But he was just sitting looking annoyed at the sight of her in the doorway.
‘Go away,’ he said, sounding tired.
‘Why didn’t you answer the door?’ Jenny said.
‘Because I didn’t want to speak to you.’
‘How did you know it was me?’
‘I didn’t,’ Bradley said. ‘I don’t want to speak to anyone.’
Jenny looked around the office. Same cramped set-up as before, nothing seemed out of place or different. It smelled of nervous sweat.
‘Please leave,’ Bradley said.
‘Did the police interview you?’
‘Fuck off, will you?’
‘That’s a yes.’ Jenny took a step into the room and Bradley stood up. It was dark outside the window, making the office seem more intimate, claustrophobic. Jenny felt the energy shift when he stood up, looming over her. He seemed to feel it too.
‘You don’t seem very upset about Mel turning up dead.’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’m feeling.’
‘Says the dick-pic guy.’
‘That was a mistake.’
‘Only because it got you into trouble.’
He took a step forwards. ‘No, you got me into trouble.’
‘You did it to yourself.’
He swallowed hard. ‘I have nothing to feel guilty about.’
‘Is that what you told the police?’
‘I told them that you assaulted me on the roof,’ Bradley said, moving towards her. They were close now, she could see the tiredness in his eyes.
‘I bet they laughed you out of the station,’ Jenny said.
‘They took it seriously.’
‘This is the age of Me Too, you don’t get to be a victim.’
A Dark Matter Page 22