Dorothy’s phone started ringing as Archie turned the van into Duddingston Low Road. The two of them had been silent since they filled in the grave.

She looked at her phone: Hannah. She looked at the clock on the dashboard, quarter past three. The purple tracers of dawn laced the sky behind them as they drove west.

She answered.

‘It’s Dad,’ Hannah said. She was out of breath, her voice shaky. Dorothy felt the connection to her granddaughter through the phone pressed to her ear, a thread linking them.

‘What?’

‘He was sleeping with Mel.’

Dorothy removed the phone from her ear and stared at the screen, the timer counting the seconds they’d been connected, Hannah’s name on the screen. She stared at Archie, who glanced across then back at the road.

‘Are you sure?’ she said.

‘I can’t handle this,’ Hannah said.

‘Have you spoken to your mum?’

Hannah sniffed down the line, a rumble and rattle in the background. ‘I’ve left a million messages, she’s not answering.’

The van swung round Arthur’s Seat, past the Commie Pool, heading into Newington. Zero traffic this time of night, all the lights going their way. It felt like they were drifting through deep space.

‘Where are you?’

‘In a taxi to yours.’307

‘We’re heading there now.’

‘Where have you been?’ Hannah said.

Dorothy looked at Archie then out at Grange Road as they drove along it.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Have you told the police?’

‘I woke Thomas up. He’s sending two officers to Dad’s house…’

She broke off, crying.

‘Hannah, listen,’ Dorothy said.

‘I keep telling myself there’s a mistake. This can’t be it.’

‘How do you know about them?’

‘A receipt. The hotel barman saw them together. They had a room booked. Gran, I feel sick.’

Dorothy breathed as Archie frowned at her. The car went across Whitehouse Loan, another green light like they were blessed.

‘You need to stay calm,’ Dorothy said.

‘I can’t breathe.’

‘Where are you now?’

A pause as the thrum of the taxi leaked down the line. ‘Just coming to the Meadows, not far.’

‘OK, we’re almost home,’ Dorothy said. ‘We can sit down and talk about it.’

‘Gran, I’m so scared. If he…’

Archie drove the last part of Greenhill Gardens then pulled into the drive and switched the engine off.

‘It’s going to be all right,’ Dorothy said.

She knew it wasn’t going to be all right.

She looked up at the house and saw the kitchen light left on.

Hannah hung up and Dorothy opened the van door. The movement made her shoulder burn with pain, she was aching from her earlier exertions, needed time to recover. Time to digest what Archie told her and think about what to do. And now here was this awful new thing landing in their laps.