When Jenny thought of Cramond she pictured the tidal island, the boat club, waterside properties, summer walks with ice cream. But Cramond Vale was none of that. Jenny drove the van down the street of blocky sixties houses and stubby brown tenements with poky windows. She parked outside number twenty-three, went up and rang the bell.
Sophia answered with a rice cake in her fist. Her blonde hair was tied back in a tight pony, giving her an air of primness. Jenny tried to remember how old Hannah’s half-sister was now, eight? She wore a burgundy polo shirt with a school logo on the chest, an ancient sailing boat.
‘Hi, do you remember me?’ Jenny said.
Jenny spent some time with Fiona a year ago when it kicked off with their mutual ex. That was in Fiona and Craig’s old place, an expensive Stockbridge townhouse. Now Fiona and Sophia were living with Fiona’s mum, Sophia bounced out of private school.
Sophia nodded and chewed her rice cake. ‘You made Mum cry.’
‘That’s not strictly true.’ Jenny wanted to say that Sophia’s dad made her mum cry. ‘Is she in?’
Sophia nodded behind her. ‘Through the back.’
The girl disappeared into a side room and picked up her phone. Did eight-year-olds have phones now? Jenny went to the kitchen where Fiona was sitting at a small folding table with a laptop and a glass of Rioja, half-empty bottle alongside. She was smaller than Jenny in every dimension, slim, short, compact, like a pocket-sized version. They were the same age but Fiona had always looked after herself more, but it was a year since they met face to face and there was something ragged about Fiona’s edges, like she’d never recovered. Fiona had the same high pony, sharp features, smart outfit, but there was an air of tension, or maybe Jenny was just projecting.
Jenny tapped a knuckle on the open door. ‘Hi.’
Fiona looked up, nodded to a vacant chair, resignation on her face. ‘So he’s resurfaced.’
Jenny had spoken to her on the phone, talked through Hannah’s thing at the flat. She sat down as Fiona took another wine glass from a cupboard, filled it and slid it over. The table was cheap seventies wood covered in ring marks.
‘We think so,’ Jenny said.
Fiona cleared her throat and took a drink. ‘What do the police think?’
‘They haven’t really looked into it yet,’ Jenny said. ‘They checked over the house, but they don’t have the manpower for more.’
Fiona nodded, looked around the kitchen. ‘This place got broken into a few years ago. Mum was asleep upstairs. They took all the electronics, cash, car key. Broke the glass in the back door.’ Fiona looked at the door to the small garden. ‘The police did fuck all. The crime-prevention officer told her to get an alarm and security light, build a higher fence, make the place less of a target than next door.’
Jenny nodded and sipped wine. Fiona looked around as if imagining a burglar creeping through the house, helping himself.
‘You’re sure it was Craig?’
‘Who else would break into Hannah’s place on graduation day and put up a congratulations banner?’
Fiona shrugged. ‘An obsessed student or lecturer?’
Jenny bit her lip. ‘Hannah couldn’t think of anyone.’
‘But it could be.’
‘It’s possible. But you know Craig, it was him.’
Fiona took a drink. ‘Yeah, it was fucking him.’ She shook her head. ‘I stupidly thought he might leave us alone. Might just disappear, live a quiet life somewhere.’
‘That’s not really his style.’
‘No.’
They both had daughters by the man, both knew him too well. They’d been taken in by his charm, his confidence, his way of making you feel like the most important woman in the world.
Fiona pointed at her laptop. ‘This was so obvious, I can’t believe I never thought of it.’
Jenny shook her head. ‘We didn’t know for sure he was still around, did we? He could’ve gone to Thailand or Venezuela.’
‘He’s still here.’ Fiona looked out of the window again at the seven-foot fence at the bottom of the garden, vertical wooden slats, razor wire across the top.
‘He has this address,’ Fiona said, waving a hand around. ‘He knows where you live too.’
Jenny thought of the Skelf house, a beacon on the edge of Bruntsfield Links. Come and get me, it said, come find the Skelfs and fuck us up.
‘Exactly.’
Fiona tapped the laptop screen. ‘So you think one of our former clients is helping him?’
Jenny shrugged. ‘We know he’s been living in or close to Edinburgh for a year undetected. How is that possible? I routinely check hostels and homeless shelters, nothing. His credit cards haven’t been used and his bank balance is untouched. He has to be getting help from someone. He must be able to get food and stay warm. How can he do that?’
Fiona sucked some more Rioja down. She’d always been a daytime drinker but this seemed more than that. Sophia came in, took a packet of rice cakes from a cupboard and left.
‘How’s she coping?’ Jenny said.
‘They’re so resilient. She missed her pals at the academy to begin with, but she’s made new friends at Cramond. I still haven’t told her the truth about him. But I did tell her he was never coming back, and it looks like he’s made a fucking liar of me again.’
‘We’re not to blame here.’
Fiona waved her hands in the air. ‘I know, it’s him, not us, blah, blah, blah, but fucking hell it feels shit.’
‘It does.’
Silence in the kitchen, sparrows chirping in a tree outside, sunshine lancing through the branches onto the grass.
Fiona swivelled the laptop to face Jenny, and she saw a spreadsheet full of names and numbers.
‘I’ve got a few candidates,’ Fiona said. ‘Three of our former clients who liked Craig a lot, who might be arsehole enough to help him out despite everything. They each have the resources to help him stay invisible.’
She finished her wine with a flourish, clunked the glass on the table and stabbed a finger at the laptop screen. ‘Let’s go ask them.’