136‘Holy crap,’ Indy said.

‘I know, right?’

They stood in the kitchenette of the flat, the smell of veggie lasagne coming from the oven. Indy held the photos in her hand, switching between them.

‘This is crazy,’ she said.

‘Yep.’

‘How did we not know?’

Hannah shook her head.

‘I mean, she was either here or with Xander or studying, right?’ Indy said.

‘Apparently not.’ Hannah took the photos from her.

‘He’s her lecturer.’

‘And mine.’

Indy touched Hannah’s arm. ‘So where do you think she is?’

‘I don’t know.’ Hannah felt bad that the naked picture was at the top, so she switched it for the selfie.

Indy pointed at the pictures. ‘This guy must know.’

‘I tried to find him but he wasn’t anywhere. He was supposed to have a first-year lecture this afternoon, never showed.’

‘You think he’s done a runner?’

‘He’s got a wife and baby.’

‘All the more reason to hide, if he has something to do with Mel going missing.’

‘He has to be behind it.’

‘So you need to go to the police.’

Hannah sighed. ‘I didn’t exactly get these legitimately.’

Indy rubbed her arm. ‘That doesn’t matter, it’s evidence.’

‘Not evidence they can use in court.’

‘They can use it to squeeze him.’

Hannah pursed her lips. ‘It’s only proof that he was seeing her, nothing more.’

‘Come on,’ Indy said.

‘That’s what he’ll say, what the police will say.’137

Indy leaned over and switched the oven off, reached for the oven gloves. She lifted the lasagne onto the worktop then dropped the gloves. It smelled beautiful but Hannah felt sick at the thought of eating.

Indy nodded at the pictures again.

‘So go to a friendly cop,’ she said. ‘Speak to Dorothy’s friend.’

138

26

JENNY

It was only four days ago they sat at this table drinking whisky for her dead dad, but it felt like weeks, months. A totally different life now, this was home. She’d had several angry phone messages from her ex-landlord in Portobello. She was living back at her childhood home, working as a funeral director and private investigator, how the hell had that happened? But she knew why, the reasons were in the room with her.

Hannah stood at the PI whiteboard, now covered in scribbles, lines, queries and pictures. She’d printed out pictures of Mel, Vic and Xander that she got from Mel’s phone, then mugshots of Bradley and Peter from the physics department website. The lines between Melanie’s photo at the top and the others below were marked with phrases like ‘dick pics’, ‘quantum club’, ‘second phone’. Hannah held the three Polaroid pictures in her fist, fanned out like playing cards.

‘It’s enough for the police to get involved.’ She looked at Dorothy.