Alyssa Garfield’s funeral was full of late teens and early twenties in ill-fitting black dresses and suits, the girls pulling on their hems, boys stretching collars with their fingers. Jenny was at reception, guiding mourners into the small chapel in the front room, where Dorothy and Archie were taking care of the service. Alyssa had been a semi-pro skateboarder, decent amount of sponsorship and a heap of promise. She was biking home from the new Treverlen skatepark in Duddingston when a boy racer blindsided her at Jock’s Lodge, dead before the ambulance arrived. The driver didn’t stop but got picked up next morning when his plate was IDed on CCTV. Not that it mattered to Alyssa’s family or the skating community, sitting stunned in the chapel, De La Soul playing quietly in the background. Jenny remembered that music first time round, when Alyssa could only just have been born.
She pulled at her own collar, pointed two young women into the chapel and sighed. So much wasted life, it was unbearable. But there was something in the communal gathering of people like this, something that was bigger than those involved. She imagined a giant cloud of loss looming over the house, lightning crackling in the gloom, torrential rain pummelling the mourners, washing away everyone’s pain.
She glanced out of the window and the sun was beaming stupidly in the sky.
The front door opened and there was Francesco, backlit in the doorway like a visiting angel. He closed the door and smiled. He switched the smile off and reception seemed to get darker.
‘Ms Skelf,’ he said, ‘I was hoping you would be here.’
Jenny pointed at the chapel. ‘Did you know Alyssa?’
Francesco wore the same impeccable suit he’d worn to the funeral a week ago. He ran a hand through his hair. ‘No, I want to speak about Vanessa.’ He looked around the room. ‘In private?’
Jenny scoped the chapel. Most mourners were seated now, the humanist celebrant about to do what she could to explain all this bullshit to Alyssa’s loved ones.
‘OK,’ Jenny said. ‘Through here.’
She took Francesco to the viewing room, she knew there was no body in there just now. It was awkward, an empty plinth in the middle of the room, two chairs to the side with the obligatory box of tissues on the low table between.
‘Have a seat,’ Jenny said.
‘Thank you, no.’
That pulled Jenny up and she stared at him.
‘I am too … agitated, that’s the word?’
‘Maybe.’
Francesco tugged the hem of his suit jacket, cricked his neck.
‘I know why you visited Vanessa,’ he said. ‘Her horrible children think I am making Vanessa ill.’
Jenny stared at him for a long time. He shuffled on the spot and shook his head. ‘It is insulting that they say this. It is insulting you believe it.’
‘I never said I believed it.’
‘So you admit that’s what they say.’
She didn’t see any reason not to.
Francesco stuck his chin out. ‘You know they live together.’
‘Matthew and Maria?’
‘Yes.’
‘So?’
There was another staring contest now, Francesco getting his meaning across clearly.
Jenny shook her head and remembered the pampas grass in the garden. ‘I don’t think that’s what it is.’
‘It is not natural.’
‘It’s not natural for a brother and sister to live together?’
Francesco raised his eyebrows. ‘Not like that.’
‘You don’t know what they’re doing.’
‘You should be investigating them.’
Jenny laughed then covered her mouth. ‘They’re the ones paying me.’
‘To investigate me,’ Francesco said, his voice cracking.
Jenny felt bad. She hadn’t thought this through, had assumed this guy was uncaring just because he was young and hot. If his gender was different she would’ve been guilty of the dumb-bimbo thing. That shit was ingrained in her, but you have to find ways to change how you think, or you let the programming win.
‘I just want to find out what’s going on,’ she said eventually.
‘They are making Vanessa ill,’ Francesco said, regaining his composure.
Jenny thought about the cameras Hannah had installed. ‘How exactly?’
‘They call her,’ Francesco said. ‘Argue all the time.’
‘What about?’
Francesco shook his head. ‘It is not my place to listen.’
‘But you must overhear?’
‘I only hear Vanessa screaming at them. She gets very distressed. After every call she is worse, more ill. I think they call to make her worse.’
Jenny narrowed her eyes. ‘What exactly is wrong with her?’
Francesco shook his head. ‘How would I know?’
‘Come on, you take her to the doctor. You were there recently.’
Francesco pushed his chest out. ‘How do you know this?’
Jenny held her hands out. ‘I’m a private investigator. When you take her to the GP, she needs help into the surgery, into the doctor’s office. I’m sure you don’t just wait outside.’
Francesco looked her up and down and Jenny felt something weird, an old residual of wanting to be liked. Fucking stupid programming.
‘I do not understand much of what they say,’ he said eventually. ‘She has many, many tests. For her stomach, for her nerves. Lots of blood is sent away.’
Jenny shrugged. ‘If you can find out details, maybe I can do more. If you’re serious about wanting to help her.’
‘You are not a doctor.’
Jenny thought about Dorothy’s approach to all this, and about Hannah’s occasional physics rants about interconnectedness. ‘It’s a holistic approach.’
‘What is “holistic”?’
Good question, what was she on about? ‘I look at the big picture.’
Francesco looked at her like she’d grown an extra head.
‘The whole thing,’ Jenny said, waving her arms in the air, so that she swiped the petals of a carnation bouquet on a stand.
Francesco thought for a while then nodded, took a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. He unfolded it and handed it over.
‘These are Vanessa’s medicines,’ he said.
It was a repeat prescription from her GP, two sheets stapled together. Fourteen medications, none of which she recognised.
‘Jesus.’
‘She is very unwell.’
‘What is all this?’
Francesco shrugged. ‘Stomach pills, blood pills, mood pills, skin creams, breathing apparatus.’
Jenny looked at the list. This would be a lot of Googling. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘They don’t know. They are only treating the symptoms, is that the word?’
Jenny nodded. She wondered what the Italian for ‘symptoms’ was.
Francesco stabbed at the paper in Jenny’s hands. ‘It is the same as her mother.’
‘What?’
‘Elspeth.’
‘I thought she died of natural causes?’
Francesco waved around the room, as if to say the world was a piece of shit. ‘She was old, they didn’t check. Ask yourself who would do this.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Those bastards stand to inherit the money.’ Francesco was on a roll. ‘Elspeth had a very big house, lots of money. It all went to Vanessa. And it will go to those assholes if anything happens to her.’
He went into his pocket again, took out cash.
‘I will pay you to investigate them.’
Jenny stared at it. ‘Put your money away.’
Francesco waved it, and Jenny was reminded of a Harry Enfield character she loved back in her student days.
‘You want to find out the truth,’ he said, staring at her.
‘I do.’
He lifted the money. ‘Well?’
She stared him down. ‘Put it away.’
He did as he was told, frowning the whole time. ‘But you will find out the truth?’
Jenny nodded. ‘I will.’
‘Holistic?’ he said, rolling the word around in his mouth.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Holistic.’