She righted the bedframe and flopped the mattress on top, then slumped down with a sigh, lay down on Xander’s bag of Mel’s clothes that she’d dumped in here earlier, before all that nuts stuff with Jacob Glassman. She stared at the ceiling and wondered what Mel was thinking last time she was in this bed. Was she fucking Xander, lost in an orgasm, or thinking about Peter Longhorn? Or this third guy. Maybe she was worried that the third guy was dangerous. She was pregnant but hadn’t told anyone, so maybe that was preying on her mind. Maybe she wanted to tell the father, and she wondered how that would go. Did she want to keep it, get rid of it, give it up for adoption? You never got answers once someone was dead.
The bullshit of television dramas where everything gets wrapped up after six episodes was such a lie. We need that resolution, sure, because we don’t get it in real life. Real life is a mess, non sequiturs, inconsequential moments, no building tension to a satisfying climax. Real life didn’t need hooks before the advert breaks or cliffhangers at the end of an hour. Real life just left you bereft and lonely, grieving for people who would never come back, wishing you’d lived differently in some unspecified way. Real life was a bastard. And then you die.
She lifted a pillow off the floor. There was a long black hair on it, one of Mel’s, and she rubbed it between her fingertips, watching it spin. She’d read somewhere that hundreds of years ago they believed that the face of a murderer would be imprinted on the eyes of his victim. Then there was muscle memory, the way your body could do certain things when your mind couldn’t, like play a musical instrument or drive a car. And she remembered a silly show on television where someone got a heart transplant and started dressing differently, liking different food and music, their new tastes exactly matching those of the donor. Maybe this hair was the key, maybe if she absorbed the information locked in its proteins she would know who killed Mel. Maybe on a quantum level the quarks and leptons in her own atoms would mingle with Mel’s, creating an energy field that connected them. She could become Mel and live her life over and figure out what happened to her.
She placed the hair back on the pillow and lay there listening to her breath. Eventually she sat up and took in the room again. What would happen to Mel’s stuff? Who tidies up after the dead? What’s the point of keeping physics notes for a degree that no one is ever going to get? What about all the technical stuff, bank account, university enrolment, rent, voter register, national insurance number. There were a million incidental details that defined a life and they all had to be terminated after you die. How could anyone face that?
She thought about phoning Vic, see how he was doing, how his mum and dad were coping, but she couldn’t face that conversation. She was a coward. Maybe this private investigator stuff was a way to deflect herself from thinking about how she actually felt about her friend dying. She knew all about coping mechanisms from Indy working at Skelf’s, and from her gran and grandpa. And that was another piece of avoidance, Jim had died ten days ago and she’d scarcely given it a thought, filling her mind with second phones, mystery lovers, DNA matches and dead babies.
And maybe the biggest piece of avoidance now was Peter. It was her fault no matter how many times she told herself it wasn’t. He might have been fucking Mel but he wasn’t the father, and Hannah had exposed him to his wife. OK, the guilt was his, but Hannah drove him to a situation where he couldn’t see a way out, and that was just awful.
So there was guilt, grief and loss, what a pile of shit.
She wondered how Dorothy coped with this stuff every day. It was other people’s grief, but how the hell do you not take it on without becoming a heartless bitch?
She opened the bin bag and emptied the clothes onto the bed. She lifted a T-shirt, a vintage skinny-fit with Hong Kong Phooey on it, a cartoon character from the 1980s that looked like a terrible piece of cultural appropriation. Hannah had been with Mel when she bought it in Armstrong’s. Mel loved it because of the cultural thing and her parents were annoyed by it. So maybe Mel always had a mischievous side. It was easy to think of her as the good girl, but none of us are defined so easily, we all play different roles within different groups of people. That’s what helps us connect.
Hannah lifted the T-shirt and inhaled a mix of Mel’s perfume, maybe some sweat, that second-hand fustiness underneath. She lifted each piece of clothing in turn and smelled them, feeling queasy. Finally she got to the jacket, a sporty waterproof material, again retro like something worn by a B-girl breakdancer in Harlem at the birth of hip-hop. Hannah checked the pockets, empty, then as she threw it back on the bed she noticed a zipped pocket on the inside. She tugged at the zip, a little stiff, held the material around the zip for purchase, and opened it. She slid two fingers in and felt a piece of paper. She pulled it out, a receipt for two drinks, a dirty martini and a bottle of Birra Moretti. It was from the bar of Malmaison, a boutique hotel at Leith waterfront.
She turned the receipt over in her hands. The date was two weeks ago. Mel surely knew she was pregnant then but maybe one dirty martini didn’t make any difference.
She picked up her phone and called.
Eventually Xander picked up. ‘What?’
Hannah stood up. ‘Did you ever go to Malmaison with Mel?’
‘What?’
‘It’s a simple question, did you ever drink with her there?’
‘At their prices? I don’t think so.’
‘You’re sure.’
‘Do you have something?’
‘I have to go.’
She hung up and called again.
‘Hello, Hannah.’ Thomas’s voice, always calm.
‘Mel was drinking in Malmaison with someone two weeks ago and it wasn’t Xander.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I have a receipt, found it in her jacket that was at Xander’s flat.’
‘It could’ve been Peter Longhorn.’
‘But it might not have been,’ Hannah said, pacing the room.
‘If you bring the receipt in, I’ll send an officer there to ask.’
Hannah thought about that. The police hadn’t even asked for Mel’s stuff from Xander’s place. She could deal with this quicker, she was a private investigator after all.
‘Hannah?’ Thomas said. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes,’ she said, putting the receipt into her pocket. ‘I’ll bring it round to the station.’
She hung up, threw on Mel’s jacket and headed out the door to Leith.
55
JENNY
She looked round The Pear Tree beer garden and tried not to feel sick. It was partly down to the gin, partly guilt about Liam. He seemed like one of the good guys and she’d destroyed his marriage. Then there was her dad’s death, the loss but also the revelations. Standing in a grave that she and her mum had dug out together, the shame of that. And Mel, with more men than sense and pregnant too, all of it making a mess of Jenny’s head and heart.
And there was Craig too, sitting across from her with the smile she knew so well. Yet he’d betrayed her too. And now he’d betrayed his wife. Jenny felt guilty about that, and guilty for calling him when she left The King’s Wark, crying on the phone, feeling embarrassed and stupid but she didn’t care, and when Craig offered to meet her, part of her was mortified but another part wanted to feel that old familiarity and said yes.
‘You’re too hard on yourself,’ Craig said, resting his hand on hers. God, she still missed that touch.
It was dark in the beer garden, fairy lights along the wall making everything fuzzy round the edges, or maybe that was the gin. A group of freezing Italians sat at the next table, scarves and winter jackets despite the evening warmth. Their own table was wet from the sweat of their glasses, a flyer there for a student club night on Cowgate. She remembered clubbing in Sneaky’s, then that dreadful place on King Stables Road, then Studio 24 down from The Venue, and she wondered if any of these places were still there, if kids still drank snakebite and took speed, if they stayed up all night smok
ing weed to come down and yammering about nothing and everything, instead of helping their mums dig graves and ruining marriages.
‘Maybe I need someone to be hard on me,’ she said.
She hadn’t intended the double entendre but Craig made a face and they both laughed. It was pathetically gratifying to have someone still consider you a sexual being, and she hated that she felt that way. Hated what she was thinking about Craig and his stupid wife who’d stolen him from her. Hated that she realised there was no going back, but fuck it, she was drunk and upset and he was here with his hand on hers.
‘It sounds like you did this guy a favour,’ Craig said, his fingers stroking the back of her hand. That skin on her hand had been elastic and tight when they first met, when they were young and naïve and full of energy. And now it was slack along with the rest of her body, driven south by age and gravity, as if she was melting into the floor unnoticed by the world. But not unnoticed by Craig.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, sipping her drink, feeling the burn.
‘Come on,’ Craig said. ‘It’s one thing to have an affair—’
Her raised eyebrows made him put his hands out in defence. ‘I know, I know.’ He bowed his head in mock deference. ‘I can never make up for what I did, I get that.’
She chewed her lip, a mix of thinking and signalling.
‘But this woman isn’t just sleeping around, she set him up for a fall. That’s another level of devious bastardry.’
‘And you would know about devious bastardry.’
‘I’m just saying.’
They both took a drink, Jenny looking around, Craig watching her.
‘Did you fancy him?’ Craig said eventually.
‘This isn’t the playground.’
‘Just asking.’
She smiled. ‘He is cute.’
Craig raised his eyebrows.
‘And he clearly works out,’ Jenny said.
Craig made a show of his guns and she laughed despite herself.
‘I’ve always been secure about my masculinity,’ he said.
He was right, that was one of the things she liked about him, he wasn’t threatened by the idea of other men.
Silence for a moment, not uncomfortable.
‘How’s everything else?’ Craig said. ‘Is Hannah OK?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘She’s taken this thing with Mel really hard.’
‘Understandable.’
‘She thinks the police aren’t doing enough so she’s driving herself insane chasing shadows.’
The Italians at the next table finally had enough of the chilly air and trooped inside, leaving Jenny and Craig alone in the beer garden. It was near closing time but Jenny didn’t want this to end. She sipped the last of her drink and scudded the glass on the table. Maybe she was drunker than she realised.
‘There’s just so much death around,’ she said, waving her hands.
Craig spluttered into his pint. ‘You live in a funeral director’s.’
‘Good point.’ Jenny closed one eye and pointed like Columbo.
Craig finished his lager and looked at her glass. ‘One for the road?’
‘I’d better head home.’
‘I’ll walk you.’
She smiled and stood. She remembered kissing him against the wall last time. She was in control then and she was in control now. She could nip this in the bud anytime she liked. She could, but she wasn’t going to.
56
DOROTHY
Piershill Cemetery was easy to break into. She walked with Archie down Fishwives’ Causeway, a dark lane that ran off Moira Terrace towards Portobello. The lane ran round the back of people’s houses and split in two, the narrower part heading over the railway, the gloomy metal bridge covered in graffiti, then running between Craigentinny rail depot and the graveyard. The back of the cemetery was just a low wall, easy to clamber over. In fact it was much harder to get into the railway sidings, spiky railings, CCTV cameras, trespassing signs. Nobody cared if you trespassed on the dead.
Dorothy felt her legs and arms ache as she slid onto the manicured grass. Archie dropped the holdall he’d been carrying and followed her. Dorothy took out her phone and checked, no calls. She’d been trying to get hold of Jenny for hours, since before the business with Jacob Glassman’s postwoman. But Jenny wasn’t answering. Maybe she’d had enough of digging up dead people. Understandable. Dorothy was still reeling from the woman in the attic, was struggling to get her head around it. So easy to fall through the cracks, that’s what Amy said. And so easy to just occupy someone else’s space. She thought about the loft in the Skelf house, how she would feel if she discovered someone up there. Thomas had taken Amy down to the station to make a statement and charge her, though he wasn’t exactly sure what to charge her with. He called later in the evening to say that she’d be spending the night in the cells until she could see a duty solicitor in the morning, but he’d found a place in a Women’s Aid shelter for her after that. It was only temporary, but she could speak to social services, try to sort out something more permanent.
Dorothy thought about living nocturnally, sneaking about like a rodent, reducing your life to mere existence. But did any of us really do anything so different to that? Were any of us really much more connected?
She took a torch from her pocket and switched it on, they needed it here away from the streetlights. There were houses overlooking the cemetery to their left but they were far away, a long stretch of grass between. There was something about untouched land in a graveyard, waiting to be filled up by the deceased, which tugged at Dorothy.
‘OK?’ she said to Archie as he straightened up, holding his back.
‘Not really,’ Archie said.
He lifted the holdall and they began walking along the rows of gravestones. There were some large chestnut trees further up the hill giving them cover from the main road where night buses still ran.
They didn’t split up like Dorothy and Jenny had last night. Dorothy needed someone by her side, now that she knew what was coming.
The graves were laid out chronologically and they found Ailsa Montgomery after just a few minutes. She was a beloved sister, mother and grandmother, three generations out there still missing her after a decade, getting on with the white noise of life but now and then feeling a blip of grief, a bump of loss that threw them off balance. Dorothy wondered if she would ever get to the stage with Jim where she mostly didn’t think about him. She didn’t know if she would live long enough to take his death for granted and maybe that was just as well.
‘Don’t go through with this,’ Archie said.
Dorothy thought about his condition, the death fixation, the medication, the therapy. None of this could do him any good.
‘Let’s go home,’ he said.
She thought about Archie hiding that piece of paper in the coffin. ‘You could just tell me.’
He looked around at the other graves then back to Ailsa. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’
Dorothy swallowed and nodded. ‘Then we dig.’
She took shovels out of the holdall and handed one over. She propped her torch against the gravestone and paused with the blade of the spade on the ground. The grass was better tended here than last night, no moss or dandelions, evenly cut. It would be more obvious that this grave had been disturbed.
Archie looked at her and waited. She nodded to him and he reluctantly placed his shovel blade against the grass. She pushed down on her own shovel, which sank into the soil. Archie watched her for a long moment, then joined in.
It was easier this time, psychologically. It’s true that people can get used to anything if it becomes normalised. Maybe Dorothy would be digging up corpses for the rest of her life.
Once the turf was placed aside she pushed up her sleeves and set about scooping shovelfuls of dirt into a pile by the grave. Her mind ran blank after a while, the repetitive lifting and dumping, over and over, worms glistening as they wriggled in the torchlight, stones like al
ien eggs half buried in the earth pile.
After two hours they were close to the depth they needed to be. Another forty minutes and she expected the clunk any moment, so when it came it felt preordained, as if she was always meant to be here doing this monstrous thing.
She exchanged a look with Archie and redoubled her efforts, spurred on by the knowledge she was close. Archie kept digging with reluctant movements. She was scooping and clearing, soil lifting into the air behind her as their breath billowed from their mouths like lost souls.
Finally the coffin was mostly clear of dirt, just a smear left. This was a cheaper coffin, light pine, but it had held together well. Dorothy began unlocking the bolts at the corners and Archie eventually did likewise, then when they were all done Archie helped Dorothy out of the hole then climbed out himself. She wedged the shovel blade between the lid and coffin and they creaked apart like something from a horror movie.
She turned to Archie. ‘This is it.’
Archie lowered his head.
Dorothy breathed in the smell of damp dirt and sweat, blinked heavily as she lifted the lid and balanced it against the wall of the hole.
Crumbs of dirt fell into the open coffin as Dorothy lifted her torch from the headstone and pointed it.
Two bodies.
Her heart hammered against her ribs and spots flashed across her vision. She breathed, tried to be mindful, closed her eyes and opened them again.
There were some remains of clothes, strips of cloth, an emaciated leather belt, then at the top end of the coffin were two skulls, one higher than the other. Below that were two tattered ribcages like shipwrecks emerging at low tide. From the size of the remains it looked like a man and a woman. One was Ailsa.
Dorothy turned to Archie who was staring into the coffin.
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