No nonsense, something else Thomas had in common with Jim. But she had to stop thinking like that. He unfolded a piece of paper and flattened it on the table. He put on his reading glasses and blinked.

‘They go back around ten years,’ he said.

‘Always the same amount?’

Thomas nodded.

Jesus, that was over fifty grand.

Thomas shifted his weight. ‘Does the name Rebecca Lawrence mean anything to you?’

Dorothy thought for a moment. So many people had passed through her life, so many names. ‘I don’t think so.’35

‘She’s forty-five years old, lives in Craigentinny with her ten-year-old daughter Natasha.’

The same age as Jenny, that made Dorothy think. And with a daughter. ‘No, it doesn’t mean anything.’

Thomas ran a finger down the page as the waiter brought their order. He waited until the kid walked away.

‘She works as a receptionist at a doctor’s surgery. Has done for years.’

Dorothy shook her head.

‘One interesting fact,’ Thomas said, looking up. ‘She’s a widow. Kind of.’

The smell of their coffee and the sugar from the pastries made Dorothy feel momentarily dizzy. Three young women walked past talking loudly about their night out, laughing, touching each other with ease and confidence.

‘What do you mean, kind of?’ Dorothy said.

‘Her husband went missing,’ Thomas said. ‘Ten years ago. She filed an official missing-person report.’

‘And?’

Thomas shrugged and took a sip of espresso. ‘He never showed up. Three years ago she applied to the courts to get a declarator of death. That means he’s legally dead. You can do it once someone has been missing for seven years. It means she got a death certificate, would be entitled to his state pension and so on.’

Something niggled in the back of Dorothy’s mind. A middle-aged couple in tweed meandered past their table, overtaken by a scrum of teenage boys in sportswear.

‘So he went missing around the time these payments started?’ Dorothy said.

‘A couple of months before.’

‘That’s a coincidence.’

‘It is.’

Dorothy touched her temple.36

Thomas sighed and splayed his hands. ‘I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for this.’

‘That’s not the police officer talking. This stinks and you know it.’

‘Jim would never…’ He had the decency not to finish the sentence.

‘What’s the missing husband’s name?’

Thomas looked at Dorothy. ‘Simon Lawrence.’

Oh shit, she knew him.

37

8

HANNAH

At first she thought no one was on reception, but then her mum raised her head above the front edge of the desk as if she’d been sleeping there. Jenny blinked heavily. A strand of her red hair had come away from the loose pony at the back and was stuck to her lip. She pulled at it and coughed.

‘Hey,’ she said.