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Tom nodded, but I suspected I’d irritated him with mylack of enthusiasm.

“You okay?” I asked.

He shrugged. “You need to read this stuff. I get why it seems like a stretch, but the more I see, the more it fits—”

“I know. I trust you. I just… need a bit more. If she killed him in Edinburgh, she must have known he was travelling. Maybe even waited until he was.” I hesitated, but our next move seemed obvious to me. “I’ll have to find Solace. She’ll know something.”

Sheffield was a big city. But there was always one person I could rely on to know who came in and out – and who died here. Unfortunately, it wasn’t someone I wanted to owe a favour to. And if they could get me the information I needed on this Izzie Misery, I’d owe more than a favour.

Tom stopped to level a look over the top of his laptop screen. “You want to go back, after last time?”

“You know I don’t. But if anyone would know…” I let the thought trail off. I was still wearing my apron and quickly unknotted it, hanging it up.

He pulled the screen half-closed, and I knew what he was planning to say before he said it.

“I’m not going to the morgue,” I cut across him before he even opened his mouth. “I can’t. Not this time.” That wasn’t the way I wanted to remember Jon. I swallowed, blinking away the tears that threatened.

“We might have to,” Tom said, voice low. “But you don’t have to, you know,look. Just go through his stuff. There could be something there that the police missed.”

I swallowed again, gazing at the sky-blue walls of the tiny room.Suck it up, Erin.

“Maybe.”

Our options were fairly limited at this stage. Dodgy dealers or the morgue. When had my life started to look like a TV drama?

Tom broke the silence. “Jon’s uncle is coming over for dinner tomorrow evening, so it’ll have to wait, anyway. He wants to discuss the funeral plans.” His eyes fixed avidly on the screen once more.

“Oh.”

“We spoke this afternoon; he called your house. I meant to mention it.” He hesitated. “He sort of… took care of everything.”

I froze, glancing sharply at Tom. “What do you mean? I thought—”

“I know. He wasn’t supposed to, but he did. Honestly, from what he said I don’t think we’d have done much differently. Jon might even like it.” He pulled a face. “You know, if it wasn’t his funeral.”

I shook my head, but if I was honest, I was grateful we could avoid going over it all. It was too much, way too soon.

“I gave him Jon’s requests: the envelope. I checked it first, obviously, in case he’d said something weird.” He leaned back. “I told him we’d choose the music, though. You know how he was about his tunes.”

I ran another hand through my hair. It must have been sticking up on end. “Are you okay to do that?”

A look of surprise flitted across his face. “If you want me to.”

I did and I didn’t. Music was everything to Jon. You name it, he knew it. Play a track from the last seventy-odd years, and he could probably share at least a titbit about it. The three of us had spent many a night in my living room, listening to records while he analysed every note and lyric in a song like it was some undiscovered new Shakespeare.

I nodded at Tom and wandered into the shop to get my coat. No, I couldn’t help with the music. It was too final. Tom would have to do it.

I knew he was grieving as much as I was. It could be that he was dealing with it better than me, but so far, I hated every fucking minute. We’d just gone along with our lives like Jon hadn’t been basically decapitated a few days ago. I should’ve been crippled, struggling to function. Unable to eat or breathe or brush my damn hair. Instead, things had carried on as normal.

Jon would have told me to keep fighting. He’d have been right, as he often was. But the weight in my chest felt right, too. I would hold on to it for as long as possible. It was all I had left of my best friend.

???

Jon’s uncle was a shock. Tom answered the door in a frilly novelty apron – he’d been concocting something in the kitchen for over an hour, though I had no idea what – and he stood there, staring. I came downstairs to see a silhouette in the doorway, and my heart leapt. But it wasn’t Jon, despite the resemblance.

Jim, as he insisted we call him, was an easygoing sort, muchlike his estranged nephew. Though I started out on edge in my tea dress and tights, I soon relaxed as he chattered away. Tom’s fresh pasta went down a treat, and I was proud that my mask never faltered. But it was hard not to wonder, seeing this man in his sixties – he was almost an older version of my friend. One I’d never get to meet.

“I’ll admit, it surprised me to hear Jonathan planned to visit Edinburgh,” Jim said, as Tom cleared our plates away. His Edinburgh accent was almost non-existent, clearly educated out of him.