‘She’ll turn up,’ Dorothy said.

‘I’m not so sure,’ Indy said.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Just a feeling,’ Indy said. ‘I know Han laughs at things like intuition, for her it’s all black and white, logical and factual. But I have a bad feeling about Mel.’

‘We shouldn’t ignore intuition,’ Dorothy said. ‘It’s just a kind of knowledge we don’t fully understand yet.’

The phone rang out at reception and Indy left to deal with it.

Dorothy straightened one of Gina’s feet, which was pointing out a little, turned her leg slightly, then rested her hand on Gina’s hands. She stared at her for a long time then eventually turned away and pulled her phone out of her pocket. She pressed call and waited. She’d looked up ‘byde’ in her Scots dictionary when she came home from Craigentinny, as well as ‘live’ it meant ‘endure’. So Natalie’s school motto was ‘I endure it’. That seemed about right.

‘Hello, Royal Bank of Scotland, Hardeep speaking, how can I help?’

‘I want to cancel a direct debit from my business account,’ Dorothy said.

It was done in less than a minute and Dorothy hung up. So easy to sever a link to the past.74

Indy popped her head round the door. ‘There’s a Jacob Glassman on the phone, insisting on speaking to Jim about a case.’

Dorothy went to reception and picked up the phone.

‘Hello?’

‘To whom am I speaking?’

‘This is Dorothy Skelf.’

‘I want to speak to Mr Skelf.’

Dorothy swallowed. ‘Mr Skelf is no longer with us.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘Oh.’ His voice was posh Edinburgh with a tiny hint of Eastern Europe, and he sounded old.

‘Can I help?’ Dorothy said.

‘Mr Skelf had an appointment to visit me yesterday.’

Dorothy remembered something, Jacob Glassman’s name on the PI whiteboard upstairs, alongside another name she couldn’t remember.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m taking over all Jim’s cases, how can I help?’

‘It’s rather delicate,’ Jacob said, lowering his voice. ‘I can’t talk about it just now, she’s here.’

‘Who is?’

‘Susan, of course.’ This was a whisper.

The other name on the board, Susan Somebody.

She heard him clear his throat down the line. ‘Perhaps you could visit me later today?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Dorothy said.

‘Mr Skelf already cashed my first cheque as down payment.’

She hoped there was a file upstairs in the office with a few details written down.

He coughed again. ‘She’ll be out at 2 p.m., is that convenient?’

Dorothy touched her forehead, caught the scent of the chrysanthemums on the desk. ‘Remind me of your address?’

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JENNY