He tasted of bonfires and dirt. All that was left of fifty years together. She breathed deeply and looked at the embalming table alongside, bottles of chemicals and pumps lined up on the far workstation, razors, scissors, creams and sprays, the collapsible gurney they brought the bodies in on. Collecting bodies was a two-person job, Jim and Archie for years. Now someone else would have to step in, maybe her. She’d done the funeral arranging together with Jim for years but she hadn’t got as involved with the body side of the business. She was good at logistics, good with people, had worked for the company part-time on and off her whole life, while raising Jenny at the same time. Indy could step up, she was training to be a funeral director anyway, she was small but strong, tough in a way none of the Skelfs were. Dorothy saw it in her the moment they met, same with Archie. All part of their extended surrogate family. A family that had now lost its heart.

She left the room, switching the light out on her husband, the ashen taste of him still on her tongue, his sharp bone with her blood on it nestled in her pocket.21

She sat at the desk in the small office and frowned, paperwork scattered in front of her. She took a sip of whisky and sucked her teeth. She’d been drinking too much all week, since she found Jim on the bathroom floor, eyes open, pyjama trousers at his ankles.

She picked up the bank statement again, adjusted her glasses, and compared it to another piece of paper. She needed more light in here, or better glasses. She thought about Jim’s eyeballs, evaporated into nothing. She looked at an open book of accounts and squinted as she ran her finger down the page. Something didn’t add up.

Jim always handled the business side of things, Dorothy was hopeless with numbers. Hannah got her love of maths from him. Maybe Dorothy was misunderstanding it, but there seemed to be money missing. Not a big lump sum gone wandering, but a steady amount leaving the business account for months. No, years. Into a sort code and account number she didn’t recognise, with no reference name. She shuffled papers, looked again, took another hit of Highland Park. The whisky wasn’t helping.

She sighed. Maybe she was overlooking something simple, something that would explain the five hundred pounds coming out of their account every month for years. She must know about this, Jim would’ve told her. Because if he didn’t tell her, that meant it was a secret, and she couldn’t cope with that. She needed to speak to someone but the person she always spoke to when something was wrong was Jim.