He focused on her for a moment. He smiled and tried to raise a hand but it flopped at his side.

‘Me too,’ he said.

314

61

JENNY

Jenny looked around the chapel. All of Melanie’s friends and family were here, Cantonese music burbling in the background, a large buffet of homemade food on a long table, Mel’s body in an open coffin at the front, pictures of her and flower arrangements scattered around. Most of her family were in bright silky clothes, a lot of white, which Dorothy had explained was the Chinese colour of mourning. Jenny smiled at two small kids feeding each other dumplings from napkins in the corner.

She touched her bandages. It only hurt when she breathed. Seven days since the stabbing and surgery and it felt like a year. Partly from the pain, every movement making her stitched-up stomach muscles rage. But the time also dragged because she was chewing everything over, the ripples in the universe that would reverberate through their lives forever.

She still needed help to get dressed this morning, four days after her release from hospital. Surgery went well, no major organs touched by Craig’s knife so it was really just a patch-up. They implanted a wire mesh to help her muscles knit together then observed her for two days to make sure she avoided infection or complications.

Jenny managed to get her blouse on herself but Dorothy needed to pull on her tights and shoes for her. To have your mum dress you like she did forty years ago was a humbling experience. Dorothy said Jenny didn’t have to be here, but she wanted to do it for the Chengs. She had her doubts when Victor asked the Skelfs to do the funeral. After all, they were connected to Mel’s murderer. But the Skelfs also found out the truth about Mel and 315got Craig arrested. Jenny wanted to be here for Mel, for her parents and brother, for every young woman controlled and lied to by an older man. Even if she could hardly move and was worried her bandages were visible through the thin blouse.

Craig was still in hospital, his injuries more serious than Jenny’s. Dorothy really did a job on him. Surgery on his mouth had been long and complex, leaving him unable to speak. The chest wound punctured his lung and they were still draining it and fighting infection in his chest cavity. A police officer was stationed in the room and Craig was on suicide watch having tried to jump out of the window when he first came round. Jenny thought about that.