This was Dorothy standing in the workshop doorway. She had her phone in her hand and a look on her face that wasn’t good.

‘What?’ Hannah said.

Dorothy nodded at the phone. ‘It’s Thomas, the police have found Melanie. I mean they’ve found her body. I’m so sorry.’

174

34

HANNAH

The sun was bright and she hadn’t slept. The fact people were walking up and down Middle Meadow Walk as if nothing was wrong was an insult. How can everyone go about their business when the world has stopped? Hannah pinched the bridge of her nose and swallowed hard. She felt Indy rubbing her arm.

‘Babes,’ Indy said, voice full of hurt.

Hannah could smell the coffee on the table in front of them, and the almond pastries, and she caught a sniff of last night’s pizza and stale lager from the bin down the road from Söderberg.

‘I can’t get over it,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘I thought she would turn up, I thought this was all a game, like she was playing hide-and-seek or something. I never thought…’

They’d been round and round it between them into the early hours lying in bed together. But they had nothing, which was why they were here. Thomas had agreed to meet them for breakfast and fill them in on the case. Hannah had passed over Mel’s parents’ number, and she was selfishly relieved she didn’t have to make that call. She didn’t know how Indy or Gran ever got used to it with the funeral work, speaking to people in that moment of grief and shock. Dealing with death every day had to take its toll on your psyche, all that distress and emptiness and loss.

She saw Dorothy and Jenny walking from the park, sunglasses on, then she spotted Thomas appearing from between the uni buildings on George Square. She stood up and walked across the path without checking for cyclists.

‘Well?’175

Thomas waved her back towards the café table. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Never mind that,’ Hannah said. She was aware of Dorothy and Jenny arriving, Indy watching her with a cup in her hand. ‘I need to know details.’

‘Please sit,’ Thomas said, then indicated the other two. ‘All of you.’

They ordered tea and more things to eat, although Hannah wanted to slap the pastries off the table in disgust. The stench of them made her sick.

‘Where was she found?’

‘Hannah.’ This was Jenny, hungover.

‘I need to know,’ she said, turning on her mum.

‘I promised Dorothy I would tell you all I know and I will,’ Thomas said. ‘Melanie’s body was found at seven-forty p.m. last night in the thick undergrowth at Craigmillar Park Golf Course.’

Hannah sat up. ‘That’s next to the James Clerk Maxwell Building.’

Thomas nodded.

‘So it was probably Peter,’ Hannah said.

‘Hang on,’ Jenny said. ‘What about Bradley?’

‘And Xander,’ Indy said.