The door closed and Dorothy stood there until she heard the hoover start again. She walked away from the house, rubbing the bracelet between her fingers in her pocket and thinking about what it must be like to work in other people’s houses all day. The things you must see, the lives you spy on, the secrets you keep.

234

45

JENNY

She sat in the body van in Learmonth Gardens, looking at the Hooks’ home. It was a street of grey-brick terraced upstairs-downstairs, nothing fancy but still worth an arm and a leg this close to the city centre. She wondered how Liam and Orla afforded it, but then you never knew people’s circumstances, maybe they’d inherited money or won the lottery, maybe they were drug dealers on the side. A private investigator should really look into that kind of stuff. Across the road from the house was a strip of green space, silver birch and willow trees throwing shade over the grass in the low light. A young family with a kid on a trike, an elderly couple out for their evening constitutional, life carrying on.

Jenny dialled Orla’s number and listened to the ring.

‘Hi,’ Orla said.

Jenny imagined Orla inside the house looking smug.

‘Jenny Skelf here.’

‘You’ve got something.’ There was excitement in her voice that she wasn’t good at hiding. ‘Should we meet up again?’

Jenny looked at the house, one of fifty in the street, and wondered what all the other occupants were doing now. Making tea, kids doing homework, teenagers on phones or the PlayStation, mums changing nappies.

‘I think it’s quicker to do this over the phone.’

‘So you have evidence?’

‘I’m afraid I won’t be able to continue with this case.’

Silence for a moment. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve been carrying out surveillance on your husband for almost a week now and I’ve found no evidence that he’s cheating on you.’235

‘Then you haven’t been doing your job properly.’

Orla was angry. Jenny wondered what Darcy told her about the honeytrap. She must’ve lied to get paid, because Orla was clearly expecting Jenny to have some dirt.

‘I can assure you I’ve been doing my job properly,’ Jenny said. ‘Sometimes there’s nothing to find out.’

‘You’re useless.’

‘I’ll bill you for my time,’ Jenny said. ‘And I expect to be paid promptly.’

Orla laughed. ‘I’m not paying for this amateur crap. I should’ve known better than to get a fucking funeral director to look into him. You’re not even really that, are you?’

‘There’s no need to be like that.’

‘I know my husband is fucking some little tart behind my back, and I’m going to get someone who knows what he’s doing to help me.’