Page 101 of Unalive On Air

I can’t explain that Angel can see and communicate with ghosts, so I form a different plan. “Josh?”

The fifteen-year-old looks up from his phone. “Yeah?”

“Can you look something up on Google for me?”

“What is it?”

“Can you search for the undertakers’ conference Glasgow ninety-five?”

Josh’s thumb flashes over the screen. “Do you mean The International Funeral Director’s Convention?”

“Probably.”

“Okay . . . Okay . . .” He frowns down at the screen, his neck bending over like a wilted flower stem. “Here it is. Yada yada yada, Glasgow, nineteen ninety-five. Saturday the nineteenth and Sunday the twentieth of August.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t prove he was actually there,” Stove says, and ordinarily I’d find his “devil’s advocate” stance irritating, but now it’s welcomed. I need every stone turned over and triple checked. I failed to ask for the evidence of his alibi yesterday and that’s on me.

“Can I see that, Josh?”

Josh hands his phone over, and I scroll through what minuscule information there is on the conference. Skim-reading the list of guest speakers and mentions of attendees, I don’t spot the name Cobbledick anywhere, and I’m starting to think maybe Stove had a point until I land on an old-school website gallery section.

Wow, okay, I know it was ninety-five, but honestly, some of these photos look like they belong in a museum. Was using the focus really such a crime back then? There’s a group photo of all attendees, but even when I pinch the screen and zoom in as far as I can, there are no recognisable faces. I flick through each picture one by one, knowing I’ll reach the end of the roll any moment now until . . .

“There he is!” I say, brandishing the phone like a trophy. For Jeanie’s sake, I’m so utterly relieved.

The photo shows a man in his mid to late thirties. He’s tall and broad and has a whole head of chestnut brown hair and a short, thick brown beard. He’s wearing an almost identical fisherman’s jumper to the one I saw him in yesterday. It’s Angel alright. The most unnecessarily handsome undertaker ever to have existed.

“Still doesn’t mean he didn’t kill Jeanie,” Stove says, and annoyingly, I find myself nodding along. “She could have gone for a walk or something, maybe got lost, passed out somewhere, and later Angel found her. Maybe he took her back to his palace of death, had his wicked way with her, then while she was face down in the pillow . . . SMACK! clobbered her over the head with whatever instrument it is he beats up dead bodies with.”

Jeanie sighs. Camille swears in French.

“What is it with you, Stove? Fuck’s sake. Why do you always take it to the gutter?” Pixie asks.

I don’t say anything because there’s a possibility, however remote, that’s actually how things had played out.

“Sorry,” Stove says, and I can’t tell for sure, but I think he genuinely means it. “Maybe somebody else kidnapped Jeanie and took her to Angel on his orders. This whole undertaker’s festival seems awfully convenient. We don’t actually know when Jeanie was killed, and he was a Peggy in the Middle stalker mega fan. He could have kept her as his prisoner in his body‑storage room, then brought her to the pet cemetery a few days later under the cover of darkness.”

“You have been listening to too much Unalive on Air,” Camille says.

“I hate to add fuel to the fire,” Trystan says, and both Jeanie and I glare at him. He shouldn’t be anywhere near me whilst I’m figuring all this stuff out. What if I accidentally solve the mystery while he’s around and finish his unfinished business? “But there’s a direct path from the back of Angel’s funeral home, right to the edge of the hotel. Gabe and I used to ride our bikes up and down it all the time when we were kids.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Jeanie whimpers from her foetal position on the settee.

“Wouldn’t he?” This comes from Pixie. I see the sadness in both of the women’s eyes.

One of two things is happening here. Either Angel killed the love of his life, buried her in the pet cemetery, and to this day continues to fuck her ghost.

Or . . . someone has it out for Angel.

A memory surfaces.

“Angel, the person who runs it is, well, they’ve got beef with me. With the hotel maybe. I don’t know. I don’t fully understand it. Do you ever just get the sense that somebody doesn’t like you, but you’ve never had any cross words with them?”

Helga said those exact words to me the day I met her. I wonder if that beef is mutual.

I take the note out of my pocket and stare at the names of deceased and missing for what must be the twelve millionth time. Why did you make this list, Helga? What’s the purpose of it?

I puff out a breath, and I’m just about to shove the damn thing back into my overalls when I spot it.