Jenny pointed at the table of paperwork. ‘So what exactly is the plan here?’

Dorothy fanned her face to cool down. ‘I’m looking at funerals we did around the time Simon disappeared. He has to be somewhere. If he died, why not get rid of him that way?’

‘Two bodies in a coffin? That wouldn’t work.’

‘Maybe, if the other person was small.’

‘The pallbearers would notice.’

‘They’d have nothing to compare the weight to. Or maybe…’

Jenny stared at her mother. ‘What?’

Dorothy’s eyes were wet again. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he placed bits of the body in lots of coffins.’

‘Come on,’ Jenny said.

Archie’s eyebrows were raised. ‘Dorothy, that’s crazy.’

‘I know.’

Silence at the table, just a scratching noise from Schrödinger.

Jenny picked up a piece of paper. ‘But what can you do with all this?’

Dorothy shrugged. ‘Trace the funerals we did at the time.’

‘Then what?’

‘I don’t know.’

Archie sipped his drink. ‘I’ve already asked her this.’

‘Some of them would’ve been cremations,’ Jenny said. ‘So there’s no evidence.’

‘The burials then,’ Dorothy said.

Jenny’s eyes were wide. ‘What about them? Are you going to ask the council or police to exhume graves on a hunch? That’s insane.’211

Dorothy was close to crying again. ‘I don’t know.’

Jenny stood up and put her hands on her hips. ‘I don’t think any good can come of this.’

‘We might find out the truth,’ Dorothy said, sticking out her chin.

‘But we could also ruin lots of people’s lives,’ Jenny said. ‘Is it worth it?’

Dorothy was crying again, almost a choke, struggling to breathe.

Jenny went to the sink and poured a glass of water, took it to Dorothy at the table, stood with her arms folded. She noticed that the piece of paper Archie had placed on the floor was no longer there and she frowned.

‘I have to know the truth,’ Dorothy said, and Jenny wondered if that was ever a good idea.

212

40

HANNAH

Hannah smelt Indy’s lamb jalfrezi even before she opened the door of the flat. Indy marinated the meat and mixed the spices herself, it was something else. Hannah hadn’t eaten all day and her stomach grumbled.

When she opened the door she was met by a woman dressed in forensic scrubs, face mask, hair net, blue plastic gloves and shoe covers. She was standing in the doorway of Mel’s room, two men dressed the same inside, going through the pile of Mel’s stuff on the floor.

The woman in the doorway turned.

‘You must be Hannah.’ Her voice was muffled through the mask. ‘You’re responsible for this mess.’

Hannah nodded.

‘Thanks,’ the woman said. ‘You’ve just made our job a whole lot harder.’

‘Hey, babes,’ Indy said, coming out of the kitchen with a glass of white wine.

‘Hey.’