Hannah looked at the Polish guy, the other young men working in the shop. ‘How many burner phones do you sell here every week? What if the police had a look at your CCTV and cross-referenced it with sales for the last fortnight?’

Kyle stared at the screen for a long time then turned it to show Hannah. She plugged the number into her phone and pressed ‘call’. Waited a few seconds then heard a dead tone. She redialled, the same, then a third time. Dead.

Kyle moved the screen back and looked around at the customers. ‘I need to get back to work.’

Hannah tried one more time as she left the shop and emerged 199into the sunshine, buses rumbling along the street, the chatter of shoppers around her. The dead tone in her ear again. At least now she had a number to give Thomas to trace calls.

She put her phone away and crossed the road, dodging a tram, thinking about who Mel was calling.

200

38

DOROTHY

She stood with the SD cards in her fist as she stared at the view out of the kitchen window. It always amazed her how much green space there was in Edinburgh, and the Braid Hills sprawled south for miles, woodland and gorse, golf courses hidden in there somewhere, the burn down below.

She heard the toilet flush, then a while later Jacob appeared in the doorway.

‘Sorry about that, when I have to go, I have to go.’ He eased himself onto a kitchen chair.

Dorothy thought about the footage of him going to the toilet over and over again.

‘When the body fails,’ Jacob said, ‘it’s a real bastard.’

‘You do pretty well.’

‘You mean considering I’m ninety-four.’

‘You look younger.’

‘You’re very kind,’ Jacob said. ‘But I feel much older. Every morning when I wake up, it’s with a mixture of relief and disappointment, if I’m honest.’

Dorothy joined him at the kitchen table. ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘I’m serious. I never wanted to end my life, even when I had to leave my parents in Germany, knowing I would probably never see them again. Even when Kristina died.’

Dorothy presumed Kristina was the wife.

‘But I do now,’ Jacob said. ‘I don’t have the balls to end it, but I wish I did. And now this.’

He waved his hand around, presumably indicating having hired a private investigator to catch a thief in his home.201

Dorothy placed the SD cards on the table, wondered what info they held.

‘We haven’t found anything so far.’

‘You will.’

‘I’ve checked the last two days for when Susan was here. There was nothing unusual.’

‘Maybe she suspects,’ Jacob said. ‘I left some bank notes on the worktop here yesterday during the day, but they were still there when she left.’

Dorothy shook her head. ‘That’s far too obvious. She probably realises you’re trying to trap her.’