Hannah opened more files, not closing down the previous ones, so that umpteen windows cluttered her laptop screen. There was nothing on the dining-room one. The kitchen one showed the woman coming back in to fill up her wine glass, take a sip while standing at the window, then leave again. She was picked up by the living-room camera, this time on her phone, scrolling through with her thumb.

Hannah checked the final camera, the upstairs hall, and she froze.267

The first bit of footage showed a hatch in the ceiling gently opening from above, then a ladder from the attic unfolding down to the floorboards. When the ladder was fully extended, the young woman came down it, checking that the coast was clear. She had bare feet on the ladder rungs, and Hannah could see more clearly now that her clothes were nightwear.

‘Holy shit,’ Hannah said. ‘She’s living in the attic.’

268

51

DOROTHY

She was glad Arthur Ford was being cremated, she couldn’t stand the sight of an open grave today. She stood outside Mortonhall Crematorium watching the mourners trickle inside, a few stragglers smoking last-minute cigarettes before paying their final respects.

The crem building was a modernist concrete construction like giant garden slabs piled up at random angles, but it did the job of hiding the industrial chimney of the incinerator. The place had been spruced up in the recent renovation, after it almost burned down three years back. That accident had at least drawn attention away from the baby ashes scandal before that. That had knocked the city and Dorothy was still fielding questions about it from customers, even though it was the council and nothing to do with Skelf’s. She pictured herself standing in the grave last night, and wondered about the scandal of that.

There were three funeral cars pulled in behind the hearse. Six frail old men in threadbare suits lifted the coffin out of the hearse as Dorothy watched, her brain wired from lack of sleep, haunted by visions of a skull staring at her from the mulch of a grave.

She led the way, the six men with the weight of the world on their shoulders behind, then Archie bringing up the rear. She walked into the building, felt her shoulders relax when she heard the hubbub die and the rumble of a hundred people rise to their feet. There was safety in familiarity now, something to grasp hold of.

Once the coffin was on the plinth, she stood back and let the minister do his thing, try to bring some meaning to Arthur Ford’s 269death. Dorothy lingered at the door and Archie joined her. She tensed up, couldn’t help herself. A tremor ran through her body and she felt so tired suddenly that she thought she might throw up.