‘Have you asked him about it?’ Jenny said.

Orla shook her head. ‘I want proof, that’s where you come in.’

Jenny swallowed and tugged at her collar. ‘I don’t know.’

Orla narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re a private investigator, aren’t you?’

Jenny didn’t answer straight away. Was she? She remembered grabbing Bradley at the uni campus, how she lost control of herself. She thought about her mum upstairs, ill with stress and grief. She thought about the money her dad paid out, the missing former employee. She thought about Mel, another vanished person. If they didn’t solve these mysteries, who would?

Orla was waiting for an answer. ‘Well?’

‘Yes, I’m a private investigator.’

‘So you’ll take the case?’

‘I’ll take it.’

94

19

HANNAH

Everything was too bright. The long strip lights overhead, their electric buzz rattling her brain, the spotlights on the whiteboard she was staring at, even the logo on Dr Longhorn’s MacBook seemed to throb with her headache. She never normally drank much and there was confusion mixed with the pain. After the wine with Dad she’d turned up at Skelf’s to help, but instead drank more wine in a little plastic cup before having to lie down. Her mum and Indy helped her upstairs and put her in Jenny’s old bedroom. That was late afternoon and she slept right through, waking this morning with Schrödinger licking her face in the morning light.

Mel’s disappearance was getting to her. She was aware of a black fog in the back of her mind, and knew what that could lead to. One of the reasons she didn’t drink much alcohol was the effect it had on her teenage brain a few years ago, bringing on anxiety then depression, her fifteen-year-old self trying combinations of medication, finally settling on something that didn’t make her feel like she was living in cotton wool. Then months of gradually reducing the dose plus meditation learned from Dorothy, the odd bit of yoga, and a brief obsession with running. The occasional glass of wine had been reintroduced, but yesterday was way over. Her dad wasn’t to blame, she’d kept the anxiety and depression from him, worried he would see her as a cause to be fixed.

So there was guilt to go with today’s hangover. Waking up in her mum’s old room didn’t help. She’d crept out before anyone was awake, then had to face Indy at the flat. But she didn’t judge, just a sympathetic hug and a worried look, which made the guilt worse.95

She’d arrived late at the lecture and sat at the back. She could see Xander and a couple of his mates over the other side, a nod of acknowledgement when she tried to slide in unnoticed.