Sorry, Hannah, I totally understand but I don’t actually have all the info myself, it’s sort of sensitive. Plus I think November really wants to meet you and explain in person. Understandably.
Hannah shuts her eyes, feeling a mix of frustration and annoyance, but there’s not much she can do short of refuse to meet this person, and there’s no denying it, she does want to find out about the autopsy results. If April really was pregnant, this could change everything. At last she opens her eyes again and presses reply, trying to quash her irritation. No point in antagonizing Geraint before she has even met this mysterious person.
Okay. It’s a bit tricky to get away, but I could come and meet you and November late morning. It would have to be fairly brief, though—I can’t leave my colleague alone in the shop for too long. Where would suit? Somewhere close to the bookshop if possible. Hannah.
There. If things unfold in a way that she doesn’t like, she has a cast-iron excuse for cutting and running. She will have to clear it with Robyn, but late morning is when she usually takes her lunch hour on Saturdays—the shop doesn’t get busy until around twelve, and they have a Saturday girl called Ailis who comes in at eleven and can handle the till.
The reply pings back almost before the email has left her outbox.
Great. 11.30 okay? November is staying at the Grand Caledonia Hotel just off the Royal Mile so perhaps we could meet there. They have a coffee shop in the foyer. Do you know it?
Hannah raises an eyebrow. She does indeed know the Grand Caledonia. It’s easily the most expensive hotel in Edinburgh. Not quite what she had imagined a journalist would choose for work. Geraint, for example, looks more like a Holiday Inn type of chap. Still, it’s only a ten-minute walk and the coffee is certain to be good.
Sure, she types back. I’ll see you there.
* * *
WHEN SHE ARRIVES AT THE shop Robyn is already there—she opens up on Saturdays, as it’s Hannah’s night to stay late—and when Hannah explains that she’d like to take an early lunch to have coffee with a friend, she nods, breezily unconcerned.
“Yeah, sure, no probs at all. Ailis will be in by then so we can easily hold the fort. Take your time.”
It’s raining hard, a miserable day in fact, so trade is slow and at 11:20 Hannah grabs her coat and her umbrella from the staff room and tells Robyn and Ailis she won’t be long. The rain increases as she hurries towards the Lawnmarket, and she arrives at the Grand Caledonia looking like a drowned rat.
Under the gilt-edged canopy she stands, shivering for a moment and shaking off her umbrella as the doorman holds the huge shiny black door open for her, and for an instant she has a sharp flashback to the night at the private members’ club in Oxford, the kindly old doorman offering to call her a taxi on April’s father’s dime. She shuts her eyes. She can’t think about this right now. She’s already regretting turning up for this without probing Geraint further. If she walks in with her head full of Oxford memories and grief…
“Can I take your umbrella, ma’am?” the doorman asks, and Hannah shakes her head, knowing she’ll end up leaving it.
“No, thank you, I’d rather hang on to it. Is that okay?”
“Of course.” He hands her a plastic sleeve and she slides the umbrella inside, reflecting that even if the umbrella doesn’t drip, she certainly will, and enters the hotel.
The foyer is vast and marble and gold, like a banking hall, with an enormous chandelier in the center. A huge staircase winds up to the right, and glancing up, Hannah sees that some kind of photo shoot is taking place—a giant gold umbrella is reflecting light up the stairs, where someone is clearly having their picture taken against the sweep of the staircase.
“That’s great,” she hears. “Now lean back against the banister. Tilt the chin?”
The coffee shop is tucked away behind the curve of the staircase, and she makes her way across the expanse of marble, painfully conscious of her dripping mac and rat’s-tail hair.
As she rounds the edge of the stairs, she sees Geraint sitting at a little bistro table, tapping at his phone. He stands, his face lighting up as he sees her.
“Hannah! Thanks for coming. Can I get you a coffee?”
Hannah pauses. Her instinct is to accept nothing from Geraint, but on the other hand, he’s the one who invited her here, and more importantly, if he pays, she won’t be held up waiting for the bill if she wants to make a quick getaway.
“Sure,” she says at last. “A—um… a decaf cappuccino and… maybe a biscotti if they have any.”