She shouldered the holdall, felt the weight against her muscles, the strap biting her skin. She patted Jenny’s shoulder then shooed her away, began checking the graves as she walked. The headstones here in the bottom part of the cemetery were less than ten years old, some very fresh, so she didn’t waste much time, just cursory glances as she passed. She walked up one row then down another. She did ten rows then moved up to the next regiment of graves, the death dates getting closer to Barbara Worth’s. As the graves got older there were fewer flowers propped against the stones. How quickly we forget. The cliché was that we live on as long as we’re remembered by those we leave behind. But that wasn’t long.

Dorothy tutted under her breath at every headstone that wasn’t Barbara Worth. She sensed movement above her head and saw bats flitting from tree to tree, frantic wings against the glow of the sky over towards the road. She heard an owl calling and another returning the call, and she thought about her and Jim, until death parted them.

Another row of dead ends, then another as she circled back to where she’d left Jenny. She could see Jenny’s torch in the distance, angled down, careful not to attract attention. Not that anyone could see, there were small copses of trees breaking the sightline, more trees along the burn behind them, high walls at the front, as well as to the left where the railway line ran, and to the right where the posh houses were. No one wanted to see a graveyard when they were on their decking sipping Prosecco.

She was beginning to lose her nerve. The bag ached on her back, the adrenaline being replaced by doubt and shame. Because what they had planned was shameful. But then she remembered how Jim lied and paid out thousands of pounds over the years, how Rebecca presumed it would last forever. How Simon disappeared, a mystery she had to solve for the sake of her sanity.

Her phone rang in her pocket and she jumped. The sound of it sliced through the darkness. She answered.

‘I’ve found her,’ Jenny said.251

Dorothy flashed her torch three times like they agreed, then she saw Jenny’s torch do the same. She walked in that direction, pulling the strap on her shoulder as she went.

She found Jenny standing with her back hunched, a hangdog expression on her face.

‘There.’

And there she was, Barbara Worth, 1940–2010. Something satisfying about the neatness of the dates, three score years and ten wasn’t so much these days but it was enough for Barbara. Beloved wife, mother and grandmother, the outline of a winged figure carved into the black granite. No flowers or tributes, just a clutch of dandelions sprouting from the grass.