The Big Chill Read online

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  Shona gave her the once over, looked hard. ‘I don’t either, but you’ve got some kind of hold over him.’

  Jenny pushed that to the back of her mind. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I told the police everything.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Shona chewed her lip, looked at the ground. ‘I woke up and he was gone.’

  ‘Where?’

  Shona shook her head.

  Jenny sighed. ‘Was he worth it?’

  ‘Fuck no.’ But something in her voice said she wasn’t so sure. She still had a thing for Craig, and Jenny wanted to shake it out of her.

  ‘I could’ve told you, saved you a lot of grief.’

  ‘I wish you had.’

  Jenny nodded at the door behind Shona. ‘Is he taking you back?’

  Shona looked at the door as if it was the saddest thing she’d ever seen. ‘It’s over. It’s been over for a while to be honest.’

  Jenny squared her feet, hardened her heart. ‘Are they charging you?’

  ‘I think so.’ She swallowed. ‘If I end up in prison, holy fuck.’

  ‘What were you thinking?’

  Shona waved her hands around, the fist still with the key between her fingers. ‘What do you want me to say? Clearly, I wasn’t thinking. My first bit of male attention in years and I lost my mind.’ She glanced up at a window. ‘The idea of running away from everything, I was drunk on that. Haven’t you ever wanted to run away?’

  Jenny didn’t want to think about that. ‘Please tell me something that’ll help find him.’

  Shona looked at the door of the tenement again then back at Jenny.

  ‘He’s still in the city,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where but he’s still here.’

  ‘Why?’

  Shona smiled. ‘Unfinished business.’

  Jenny shook her head.

  Shona pointed with the key-fist at her.

  ‘With you,’ she said.

  42

  DOROTHY

  Another day, another boring stakeout. Dorothy sat at the dining table in the flat on Albion Gardens, looking across at Neil Williams’ place. If it was his place. She still couldn’t understand what was going on here, and was frustrated at the dead ends with the landlord and the promo company. Something to do with the festival? But how did that tie in with Abi’s dad? Who was he and where the hell was he?

  She used the silence to think, hoping something would bubble to the surface. She was a little surprised she’d been able to get in here, the keys were still presumably missing from the Warners office, had they even noticed? Dorothy wondered if they would arrive unannounced to show a young couple around the place. She had no excuse for why she was sitting here with a pair of binoculars, sipping green tea and spying on people across the road.

  This was nothing like Rear Window. She loved that movie, Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly were so beautiful and classy. But they had murders to witness, killers to catch, nail-biting intrigue. She’d sat here for five hours and all she’d seen was a couple of couriers, an old man on a mobility scooter and two teenage lads sharing a joint. Not a glamorous murder in sight.

  She had the laptop open in front of her, sifting online for anything about Neil, but she’d drawn a blank. Really, she didn’t have a hope of finding anything, she didn’t know how to do this kind of stuff, she was old school, like James Stewart.

  She imagined sitting here with her own James and felt a pang of longing. The stabs of grief came at unpredictable times and her eyes grew wet as she remembered a day out on Salisbury Crags with him and Jenny, she must’ve been about ten. Dorothy could see the Crags now looming over the city, one of the few things that stayed the same no matter what changed. They’d walked along the cliff, a tremor of anxiety at the sheer drop, especially with Jenny there. Dorothy was more anxious than James, who trusted his daughter, she was a sensible kid who wouldn’t do anything stupid.

  Was Jenny still that kid? Do we inhabit the same personalities we grow up with? All our cells are replaced, but somehow our essence remains, or does it? Dorothy wondered if she knew Jenny these days. She thought about her shouting at Thomas, chasing Craig’s shadow across the city. But they were all chasing shadows. Jenny had found a name for Jimmy X, but no resolution. Hannah had no solution to Hugh’s death. And Dorothy had no answer for Abi, no reason why her father had disappeared. Maybe life is just chasing shadows, following leads, trying to find answers. Maybe if you found the answer, that was the end, no distance left to run.

  She spotted something across the road, picked up the binoculars. It took her a second to find the right flat.

  Then she saw him.

  Neil Williams.

  She swallowed, felt her heart thump against her ribs. Kept the binoculars on him for half a minute, then lowered them, checked she had the right place. She picked up her phone and found the picture Abi sent her. Soaked it in then looked across the road again.

  It was him. In a smart suit, standing and smiling at the window. He stepped out of view and she lowered the binoculars, stared at her phone screen, then back at the flat.

  She picked up her stuff and headed out the door. She emerged at the bottom of the stairwell moments later, pulling on her jacket, closing the door. She gazed at the window on Lochend Butterfly Way, nothing. Then the door to that block opened and there he was, fifty yards away. Coned-off roadworks stood between them, so she went the long way round, up a few steps. She lost him for a few seconds then saw him again, about to get into a car.

  ‘Neil,’ she shouted over a workman’s drill.

  He got a key out and the lights on one of the cars blipped.

  ‘Neil Williams,’ she said.

  He turned. He was more handsome than in the photograph. More confident, stronger presence, upright stance. He looked blankly at her.

  She walked towards him, putting on a smile. ‘Neil Williams.’

  He frowned, car key swinging on his finger.

  As Dorothy got closer she noticed his suit wasn’t as expensive as it first seemed.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said.

  She was ten yards away, the drill noise enveloping them, bringing them together.

  ‘My name is Dorothy Skelf. And you’re Neil Williams.’

  He shook his head but he’d lost confidence. ‘You’ve got the wrong person.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Dorothy said. ‘Your daughter Abi asked me to find you.’

  A flicker of panic at the mention of Abi. He bolted off the kerb to the driver’s side of a black car.

  ‘Hey,’ Dorothy said, following him onto the road.

  She reached for his sleeve but he shook her off.

  ‘You’ve got the wrong man,’ he said.

  ‘No I don’t.’

  He opened the door and tried to get in. Dorothy held the edge of the door and pulled it wide. He slapped her hand away, hard, a jolt of pain up her arm.

  ‘Your daughter is worried,’ Dorothy said. ‘Don’t you want to speak to her?’

  He squeezed past her and threw himself into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Her mother, Sandra,’ Dorothy said. ‘You have a kid together?’

  Neil tried to get his key in the ignition. ‘You’re confused.’

  Dorothy held the door open, pulled out her phone, got the picture and shoved it in his face. ‘Look.’

  The engine started and he tried to pull the door closed but Dorothy had wedged herself into the space.

  ‘Get out the way,’ he said.

  ‘Not until you tell the truth.’

  ‘I am telling the truth,’ he said, pushing her arm.

  ‘She ran away from home.’

  He hesitated then accidentally revved the engine as he leaned forward and pulled at the door again, which smacked Dorothy on the hip. She would have a big bruise tomorrow.

  ‘She ran away to find you, doesn’t that mean anything?’

  There was a moment of weakness in Neil’s face, then his look h
ardened. ‘I can’t help you.’

  He shoved at her hips and she staggered into the road, lost her balance and fell. Neil looked panicked. The workmen across the road had stopped to watch. Neil slammed the door and swerved out into the road. Dorothy breathed hard, her hip throbbing, fingers tingling. She watched the car disappear and realised it was a black Hyundai, the same car she’d seen here before, driven by someone else and owned by CTL.

  43

  HANNAH

  Hannah sat in Mel’s old room, the sun dappling through the oak trees outside. She looked across the Meadows, joggers and students, life going on under a cold, sharp sky. The forecast was for snow but skies were clear for now.

  She turned to the room. They’d eventually cleared Mel’s stuff into boxes and her brother Vic took them away. Her whole life packed and forgotten. Six months after her murder and Mel had begun fading in Hannah’s memory, the horror of that time receding. It was part of being human, a way to cope with trauma. Moving on and all that. But how can you move on when the past is still gnawing at your heart?

  She thought about Wendy and Edward moving on past Hugh. She’d been rude to the pair of them, their reserved demeanours had raised her hackles, but it was really frustration over the chaos in her own life that she’d directed at them.

  She wondered if punishing her dad would make a difference to her behaviour. If Craig had gone to trial, if the dirt of his crimes was exposed, would Hannah feel any better? Nothing compensated for a friend being killed, her father would always be a murderer, a liar, the only dad she would ever have.

  The room was bare except for a few photos pinned to the noticeboard, Vic said it was fine to keep them. One of Mel, Hannah and Indy in the Pleasance beer garden at festival time, flyers for comedy shows strewn across the table, plastic pint glasses in hand. Another of Mel with Xander, dressed up for a ball. Hannah thought about Xander, how she’d suspected him. She’d gone mad when Mel’s body was found, and she’d never got back on an even keel since.

  Indy came into the room and leaned against the desk. ‘You OK?’

  They hadn’t spoken much since the embalming room.

  ‘I’m so sorry about the other day,’ Hannah said, chewing her lip.

  She glanced at Indy then turned her face to the floor, couldn’t stand what she saw there.

  ‘Are you?’ Indy said.

  ‘Of course.’

  Silence for a long time.

  ‘Of course,’ Indy said under her breath. ‘Of course you’re sorry, of course I’m worried about you, of course I’m always here asking if you’re OK because that’s what I do, right? I’m the one who has to be the rock for all your insanity.’

  Hannah’s cheeks flushed with shame, Indy was right, Hannah took her for granted.

  ‘What if I wasn’t here, Han?’ Indy said. ‘What if I left?’

  Hannah looked up. ‘You’re not serious.’

  Indy raised her chin. ‘Why the hell not? I love you, Han, but sometimes I don’t think you notice I’m even here except when it suits you.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  Hannah swallowed. It stung that Indy was right, that Hannah was so self-centred in all that was going on, so single-minded she never stopped to think about her girlfriend’s point of view.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I mean it.’

  Indy shook her head. ‘Your gran said something recently. We’re a family. We need to be here for each other, support one another. It can’t be one way. If things go on like this, I don’t know, honestly.’

  Hannah imagined Indy walking out the door, bag packed, off to find a girlfriend who appreciated her, who treated her right. She felt her throat close, tears behind her eyes. Her breath shook in her mouth.

  Indy shook her head. ‘Wake up, Han, that’s all I’m saying. Wake up to what you have in front of you.’

  Indy opened her arms and Hannah went to her, wrapped herself into a hug, buried her face in Indy’s hair. She let herself be held for a long time, felt Indy’s hesitant hands on her back and hip, tried to remember what it was like the first time they met, the electricity between them. But after a moment her mind flitted to an image of her being held by her dad as a kid. Then suddenly she was thinking of Craig kneeling on Bruntsfield Links that night, blood dripping onto the grass.

  Her phone went in her pocket.

  When she pulled away from Indy her eyes were wet, and she wiped them with the back of her hand. The call was from Wendy.

  ‘He’s been again,’ she said. ‘I planted your gizmo on him.’

  The throbbing dot on her phone screen moved up Clerk Street onto Nicolson Street at walking speed. Hannah jogged through the Meadows, past the tennis courts and play park. Wendy said she’d thrown the tracker in the guy’s hood as he walked away from her house. Hannah had a decision to make, head to Greenhill Gardens and get the van or follow on foot. But the dot was moving slowly, about ten minutes’ walk away, so she left Indy and here she was, heading to the corner of Buccleuch Street. The dot jerked left at the Mosque Kitchen on the corner of Nicolson Square then along the lane towards Potterrow. The same way she was headed, too easy.

  Hannah remembered watching Alien as a teenager with Mum, where the characters spent half the film tracking a dot on a screen, a dot that killed everyone except Sigourney Weaver. Jenny was trying to bond with her but Hannah was in a bout of depression, so the whole thing washed over her. She didn’t care about the deaths of fictional characters, just like she didn’t care about real people, including herself.

  But that was in the past, she was more together these days, at least she had been until recently. The counselling wasn’t helping, or maybe it was just too raw. The counsellor mentioned displacement theory, she was compensating for lack of control with her dad, trying to impose control on Hugh’s suicide. That’s why she was here, striding past Appleton Tower as a squall of icy rain hit her in the face.

  The dot on the screen throbbed into Bristo Square then stopped. Hannah kept walking, glancing up. She was only a few minutes away. She looked at the screen. The dot jerked, maybe just the GPS catching up, and she sped past Teviot House into Bristo Square, three hardy skateboarders rattling around the space as the rain got heavier and the wind stung her cheeks.

  She strode through the skaters, closing in on the dot, which had stopped again. She looked up at the skaters then went to the north end of the square, buses grinding past on Lothian Street. Her phone said she was right on it. She looked around, no one nearby, two benches on the edge of the square, a couple of trees that had survived recent renovations. She went to the benches, looked around, shielding her face from the rain, the wind snagging her hair, the skaters moving like fish in a stream, bus engines rattling and chugging.

  It was here somewhere. She went to the nearest tree and spotted something at the roots. The tracker, sitting in a patch of exposed dirt. It wasn’t clear if it’d been placed there or just fallen from the guy’s hoodie.

  She looked around the square, up at the black clouds, over to McEwan Hall. This was the heart of student territory, did that mean anything? One of Hugh’s students?

  She remembered the camera she’d set up at Wendy’s front door.

  She sighed, picked up the tracker and trudged away in the rain.

  44

  DOROTHY

  Craighouse School for Boys was more like a stately home than a place to send your kids. The long sweeping driveway from Glenlockhart Road cut a swathe through manicured lawns and groomed woods, cricket and rugby pitches in the distance. Two packs of teens were huffing in a scrum over there, steam rising from them like something primal, as a bitter wind cut across the space, stinging Dorothy’s face.

  She reached the front entrance, tasteful topiary shuddering in the wind, Greek columns flanking oak doors. This was all designed to impress the right kind of people and intimidate the rest. Dorothy felt intimidated. There was a superior British feel to the place, though Lord knows the Ivy Leagu
e could give this bullcrap a run for its money.

  Dorothy went to reception, guarded by an impeccable middle-aged woman with glasses on a silver chain around her neck. She gave her name and waited, watching as uniformed boys loped past, energy outstripping their self-awareness, plenty of confidence. This place cost thousands, having that money to burn was bound to instil confidence.

  ‘Mr Grisham will see you now.’

  Deborah behind reception gestured at a large door and Dorothy stood, straightened her dress, knocked and went in.

  More oak panelling, a Greek bust on the desk, views of the playing fields and woods. Dorothy could see the remains of a castle, vines and bushes sprawling amongst the tumbledown stonework. They had an actual ruined castle on their grounds.

  Daniel Grisham was more like middle management than old-school headmaster, doughy around the middle, bland smile, perfect side parting.

  He stood up and held out a hand.

  ‘Mrs Skelf, please sit.’

  ‘Dorothy.’

  He nodded, but didn’t offer his own first name.

  He made a cathedral of his fingertips. ‘How can I help?’

  Straight to the point, that’s how you ended up in charge of a place like this.

  ‘As I explained to your secretary,’ Dorothy said, ‘I’m a private investigator, trying to find someone’s identity.’

  That raised his eyebrows. Dorothy wondered how she came across, a seventy-year-old woman, traces of an American accent, simple dress and comfy shoes. Not exactly gumshoe material.

  ‘Really,’ Grisham said.

  She pulled the picture from her pocket and placed it on the desk. He didn’t pick it up.

  ‘I believe he went to this school.’

  Grisham nodded but still didn’t pick up the photograph.

  ‘His first name is James, but I don’t have a surname. Early to mid-twenties, so he would’ve been here six or seven years ago.’

  Grisham touched the edges of the picture like it was fragile and lifted it. He folded his lips in and out of his mouth then ran his tongue around his gums. It made his face seem fat.