About the Author

A former journalist, Craig Robertson had a 20-year career with a Scottish Sunday newspaper before becoming a full-time author. He interviewed three Prime Ministers, reported on major stories including 9/11, Dunblane, the Omagh bombing and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. He was pilloried on breakfast television, beat Oprah Winfrey to a major scoop, spent time on Death Row in the USA and dispensed polio drops in the backstreets of India.

His first novel, Random, was shortlisted for the 2010 CWA New Blood Dagger, longlisted for the 2011 Crime Novel of the Year and was a Sunday Times bestseller. He has been both longlisted and shortlisted for writing prizes.

He now shares his time between Scotland and California and can usually be found on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic.

The Undiscovered Deaths of Grace McGill

C.S. Robertson

www.hodder.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK company

Copyright © C.S. Robertson 2022

The right of C.S. Robertson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

eBook ISBN 978 1 529 36766 9

Hardback ISBN 978 1 529 36764 5

Trade Paperback ISBN 978 1 529 36768 3

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

www.hodder.co.uk

To Ian, Lorraine, Paul and Rosaleen

Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings.

Bram Stoker

CONTENTS

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

I see the stranger’s reflection looming in the café’s window, large and uninvited against the rain streaks. Cringing inside, I hear the chair scrape back and the start of an unwanted conversation. I pretend I don’t hear her and continue looking through the window, concentrating on the jogger splashing along Dumbarton Road. It doesn’t work.

‘Horrible day, isn’t it?’ she repeats.

I’m forced to turn my head and look at her over the rim of my coffee cup, nodding with a half-smile. It probably seems a bit rude, but not as rude as sitting down at a table when there’s already someone there. She’s in her sixties I’d say, coat dripping onto the café’s linoleum as she wedges herself into the seat, her skin rosy and tight, glasses steamed up. Cheery. Friendly. Chatty. All the annoying attributes.

‘I’ve only been out for five minutes and I’m soaked. Suppose I could have stayed in, but I get fed up with my own company. Prefer a blether with a cup of tea rather than sitting in front of the telly. Never anything worth watching anyway. I hope you’ve not had to come far in this. I’m Annie, by the way.’

All I want is a coffee and five minutes to myself. I think I’m entitled to that. My head’s full of what lies ahead and none of it is pleasant. I’m trying not to think about it. Can’t stop thinking about it.

‘Not too far,’ I tell her.

Glasgow isn’t a good city to live in if you’re not the sociable type. People talk to people here. Whether the other people like it or not. They always want to know if you’re all right, they always want to know how it’s going.

I went to London once. You walk along the street and no one looks you in the eye, no one makes conversation with people they don’t know. On the Tube, at a bus stop, no one ever looks at anyone else, far less talks to them. It’s great.

It’s not that I don’t like people, it’s just that I shy away from talking to the ones I don’t know. Inside I’m fine. Inside I’m all witty answers and searching questions, inside I’m lovely and friendly and caring and cheerful and interested. It just doesn’t come across that way.

‘Is it your day off, love? What’s your name, anyway? I’m Annie.’ I know.

‘It’s Louise. And no, I’m just about to start work.’ I’m trying to get by with saying as little as I can and hoping she’ll take the hint. She isn’t taking the hint.

‘Oh right. What is it you do then?’ She looks at me and at her watch as if trying to make sense of it all. These clothes, this time of day, her mind working overtime.

‘I’m a hairdresser,’ I tell her.

‘Ah right,’ she smiles, as if her detective work was spot on. ‘Are you in the wee place on Dowanhill Street, Louise? I’ve heard they’re really good in there.’

‘No … I work for my myself. Not in a salon. I do home visits.’

‘Oh, that would be handy.’ She nods appreciatively at the idea, although at the same time I can see her looking at my hair and wondering why it’s such a mess. It’s confusing her, but she pushes past it. ‘Getting someone to come to mine to do my hair would be lovely.’

I make a face. It’s supposed to be apologetic but could look like anything.

‘I’m booked up. Sorry. For ages. And I do elderly people who can’t get out to a salon.’ She looks so disappointed. ‘You’re too young,’ I tell her and do my best to smile.

She takes that. ‘Who are you going to see? I probably know them.’

‘Are you local?’ I’m hoping that she isn’t.

‘Oh aye, all my days. Just live two streets away.’

I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But I’m curious. ‘I’m going to see Mr Agnew. Thomas Agnew. On Modder Street.’

She shrugs with her mouth, tasting the name but not recognising it. ‘Don’t think I know him. Nice that he’s still taking care of himself though.’

‘Anyway, I better get going. Don’t want to keep Mr Agnew waiting.’

I’m already on my feet, pulling my coat on and making for the door.

Almost none of what I told her is true. My name’s not Louise and I’m not a hairdresser. I’d no idea what I was going to say when I started to answer her, but I was never going to tell her what I really do.

I don’t like talking about me. So, sometimes, when I feel trapped, I think the only thing for it is to lie. It’s wrong, I know, but it’s easier that way. Safer too.

The only bit that is true is that I’m on my way to Mr Agnew’s, but I’m not in quite the rush that I made out. Mr Agnew isn’t going to give two fucks if I’m late. He’s already dead.

Chapter 2

I park in an empty bay, a few doors away from the address I’ve been given. The street is like a hundred other Glasgow streets, a faceless stretch of red sandstone on either side, four storeys high, straight as a die for two hundred yards, every building identical, not an inch to spare between them.

These tenements are in Partick, a few hundred yards back from Dumbarton Road, but they could be in so many parts of the city. They make me think of camouflage. Of claustrophobia. The kind of place where, these days, everyone knows everyone else and no one knows anyone at all. A good place to hide and a lonely place to die.

I grew up in a street much like this one, just a few miles north and thirty-odd years ago. Two bedrooms, a bathroom and a living room, a communal back green. All the rooms with sky-high ceilings but still pokey enough that three people who didn’t get on couldn’t easily avoid each other.

I’ve done my homework on Modder Street, same as I always do. I like to know who I’m dealing with, how it came to be that someone could go unmissed for so long. Most of the flats are rented, either from housing associations or private landlords; just a handful are owner-occupied. One hundred and twenty-one people – sixty men, sixty-one women. Just a handful of kids, just a handful over seventy-five. Seventy-four single people, five widowers. All but eighteen of the people are white, all but twenty-five of them were born in Scotland. Students outnumber workers, who outnumber the retired.

Those figures are out of date now. They include one old, white, widowed Scotsman who’d owned his home but is no longer with us.

Thomas Agnew had lived in 22/8, so top floor, right-hand side, and I strain my neck to look up. White roller blinds lowered to half height, bright sun stinging the glass, the man’s flat is as anonymous as any of its neighbours.

I’ve got keys for number 8, but they haven’t given me one to get past the communal front door. It’s locked and I’m going to need to buzz the door entry system and ask someone to let me in. I dread it. It’s almost as bad as speaking to someone on the phone. I need three attempts before I get a reply. The man’s voice is gruff, local, straight to the point.

‘Who is it?’

‘Hi, my name’s Grace McGill. Can you let me in, please? I’m going into Mr Agnew’s flat.’

‘Who?’

‘Mr Agnew, 22/8. The man that died.’

‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘Right.’

I think I hear a bit of embarrassment in the two words. Maybe some guilt. Or maybe I’m just hearing what I want to hear. Either way, the guy doesn’t want to ask any questions, doesn’t need to know who I am. There’s a short buzzing sound then a click. I pick up my two cases and put my shoulder to the door.

As I climb the stairwell, my nose is tickled by the perfume of a traditional Glasgow close. It’s not terrible, just the familiar aroma of stale air simmering in a lack of natural light, of something fousty. As I cross the second-floor landing, I hear a door squeak open behind me. 22/3.

I turn and see a tousled grey head sticking through the gap between door and frame. The man is in his fifties, in jeans and T-shirt, with a week’s growth peppering the chin that he lifts to me by way of greeting. His voice is the voice from the door entry. And he’s looking me up and down.

I don’t like people looking at me.

Does anyone like people looking at them?

I’m a bit too tall and a bit too thin. My hair’s too long and my face always looks slightly less happy than I feel. My smile is sort of … wonky. It’s probably because I don’t use it much, not enough practice to get it right. The more I try, the worse it is, overstretched or up at one side and down at the other, or just plain weird. I’m better off not smiling at all.

I should really get my hair cut, but that would mean going to a hairdresser, a real one, and that would mean unnecessary conversation. I’m not going anywhere on holiday; I’m not doing anything nice at the weekend; and I’ve absolutely no views on reality TV, so it would just be an eternity of pain spent fobbing off attempts to make me talk. Anyway, I got out of the habit last year during lockdown and am done with it. So instead, I tie my hair back, I pile it up, or else I just don’t care and let it lie where it falls. It’s dark and wavy and there’s lots of it, a mane with a life of its own – which is more than can be said for me. I do like brushing it though. A couple of times a week I make sure I take a long bath then spend an age easing a brush slowly through it the way my mother used to. It feels good, easily the best hour or so I have.

I’ve always dressed the way I wanted to, which is to say without much thought as to what’s fashionable or flattering. I wear flat shoes, never heels. I’m five feet ten and that’s already tall enough to make men feel uncomfortable without making it any worse. I wear shirts and jeans, or hoodies and jeans. I own two dresses and haven’t worn either of them in three years.

I’ve been told I’m pretty, but that was mostly by my mother, or men who probably didn’t mean it. All I can see is my wonky smile and too much hair. And green eyes that are a little too big for my face.

So that’s me. Too much of this and not enough of that. Pretty to some, pretty average to others, and never happier than when wearing a mask.

I don’t know what the man from 22/3 thinks of what he sees but I know he wants to talk to me. And that’s something I could do without.

‘Mr Agnew,’ he starts. ‘That was the old boy on the top floor?’

‘Yes.’

He’s weighing that up. And taking his time about doing so. I’m forced to say something just to break the silence. ‘Did you know him?’

‘Not really. Saw him coming and going but not for a while. What happened to him?’

‘He died.’

I know I’m just winding the guy up by stating the obvious, but something tells me he deserves it.

‘Aye.’ He’s not pleased at my lip. ‘So I heard. But what was it?’

‘Natural causes. Old age.’

He sounds disappointed. ‘Right. I heard he’d lain there for a long time before he was found.’

I think, For someone so nosy you could have checked on him now and again.

I say, ‘Five months. Maybe six.’

His mouth drops. ‘Jesus. I’m sure I saw him just last …’ He thinks better of it. ‘That’s a sin, so it is. How could he be dead all that time and no one know? You’d think someone would have checked on him.’

I nod in agreement. ‘You’d think someone would have.’

He twists his mouth in sympathy then straightens it again as he takes my meaning. ‘I didn’t know the man. I’d say hello if I passed him, but didn’t know him to talk to. Didn’t even know his name.’

I think, Well, you should have.

I say, ‘We’ve all got busy lives.’

‘Right.’ It sounds defensive and so it should. ‘I’m working most of the time. You know how it is.’

I do.

‘Anyway …’ The man’s finally had enough of apologising for being himself and he’s sounding his retreat, ‘I hope he’s … Are you his daughter or something?’

‘No.’

‘Okay, well … okay.’ His grey head withdraws, and the door closes. Prick.

I climb to the top floor and take the flat’s key from my pocket, slip it in the lock, then put on my protective gear. I pause, like I always do, never quite knowing why. My version of taking a deep breath while I can. I quietly say one of my prayers, one of the Buddhist ones.

‘With infinite oceans of praise for you, and oceans of sound from the aspects of my voice, I sing the breath-taking excellence of buddhas, and celebrate all of you gone to bliss.’

A metallic creaking breaks the silence and my train of thought. I look back to see the letter box of the flat opposite open a couple of inches. I can’t see eyes in the darkness, but they must be there, looking directly at me.

Whoever is there says nothing. They just prop open the letter box and stare out at me. I must be quite a sight. An alien in a white spacesuit, my hood and mask covering my face, standing outside a dead man’s door. There’s nothing else for me to do but stare back into the void of the flat opposite. It seems I’m braver behind a mask. Ruder too. I just look and look.

The silence fills the space between us. We stare at each other for a full minute, but it seems longer. I’m just about to give up and enter Mr Agnew’s flat when the neighbour beats me to it. The metal flap falls closed with a clunk. As it shuts, a single muffled word escapes. I can’t quite make it out but think it’s weirdo.

I turn the key and push the door open, slowly.

The hallway is a sea of mail and fast food flyers. A narrow pathway has been cut through the middle of it by the feet and legs of police and paramedics, leaving knee-high mounds to either side. This is what you get when time stands still, when no one knows or cares that there’s no longer anyone at home. I’ve seen it too many times, letters continuing to be sent because direct debits continue to be paid, pizza offers and takeaway discounts that can’t tell the difference between life and death, and guilt-etched Christmas cards from people who can’t find the time to call or visit.

It was a water leak that brought people to the door. A student in number six noticed a small sag forming in his ceiling and called his landlord. Three visits to Mr Agnew’s flat brought no response so they’d little choice but to call the police, who put the door in and found the old man lying dead in bed.

That was two days ago. The cops have gone, what was left of Thomas Agnew has gone too, and only the smell remains. I’m suited up and wearing a respirator mask but there’s still no missing the odour. I got used to it ages ago, I’ve had to, but that doesn’t mean I’m unaware of it.

I know the science. The very second that life ends, decomposition begins. The gases and chemical compounds that get released from the body all have their own smell. Cadaverine and putrescine smell like rotting flesh. Skatole smells like shit. Indole is mustier, like mothballs. Hydrogen sulfide is rotten eggs, methanethiol is rotting cabbage, dimethyl disulfide and trisulfide are like the worst garlic you can imagine. They all smell bad, but together they smell like nothing other than death.

This one is bad. The boys in blue would have got it full blast when they put the door in. Some of them can’t handle it and you hear the odd tale of tough-guy cops throwing up, eyes streaming, stomachs heaving. If they’re lucky it might be so bad that the underwater unit gets called in with breathing apparatus to get the body into the shell.

I start, as always, with an appraisal of the property, doing an initial walk through and hazard assessment of the scene. Moving quietly through the flat, I head for the bedroom. Mr Agnew’s final resting place. His deathbed.

It’s where the dangers are; potential biological hazards like bloodborne pathogens, human body fluids and tissue. They could be hiding in grout, cement, wood flooring, sub flooring, you name it. The entire room has the potential to emanate death odours, so my first task is to use cross-contamination protocol to control it by securing and separating it from the rest of the flat. I seal it off, then set about making it safe.

It’s my job. I’m a lonely death cleaner.

To give it its Sunday name, I carry out bioremediation. I do the deep clean that’s needed after a body has lain decomposing for so long. It’s smelly, it’s sad, it’s messy, and it’s dangerous.

People almost always want the clean-up done quickly. It’s another thing out the way, something else they don’t have to worry about, and it helps their grieving process and their sense of guilt if they don’t have to think about their loved one lying alone in their own dirt.

From the door, I can see a chest of drawers topped with a ragged line of framed photographs, a large pine wardrobe with its doors half open. There are more unopened letters, discarded socks, and a small stack of yellowing newspapers.

I pick my way carefully across the room until I’m standing by his bed. I can’t help but stare. When someone has lain in the same place for five months, you can still see where they’ve been, still see their shape, long after they’ve gone.

I don’t know how many people have taken the time to remember him, but the bed has. The bed holds his memory, his length, his width, his final outline. It holds hairs on the pillow and his depth in its contours. It also holds a dark soup of bodily fluids. Mopping them up is my next job.

The police are waiting on post-mortem results, but they’ve told me there are no suspicious circumstances, sure that Mr Agnew just passed away in his sleep. I kneel by the bed, the only sound the rustling of my protective suit. As I look closer, my breath catches in my throat and I’m aware of my skin tingling and my heart rate rising, but nothing else. The room, the house, the outside world, all shrink into black silence and the only thing I can see or think of is the tiny object on the corner of Mr Agnew’s pillow.

My hands are gloved in blue as I pick it up. A dried daisy. I hold it up to the light, turning it between two fingers. The petals used to be white but now they’re a murky grey. The yellow centre is dull and burned out. I stare at it for what could be seconds or minutes until the spell breaks and I bring it near to my mouth and kiss it through my face mask before dropping it gently into a clear plastic bag. Mementoes must be kept or else there’s nothing to trust but memories.

I’ve only been told three things about the man. His name, that he’d lived alone, and that he lay undiscovered for an estimated twenty weeks. The police are appealing for family members to get in touch as there are no known relatives.

I use a fogger to get rid of the insects, flies mainly, that have infested the room. I don’t mind them particularly, it’s maggots that I can’t stand. I can’t even allow myself to think about their feasting.

To do this job you have to be two things that seem at odds with each other; professional and compassionate. Sometimes I’m too much of the second one, and that’s my curse. I do what I do because I care.

That’s why I say a prayer for the dead, why I’ll sort through the man’s things and find mementoes as a permanent reminder of his life, something to pass on to those that come after him. It’s why I’ll light candles in the house and place flowers by the bed, why I’ll say another prayer before I leave. If I do it right, I’ll make order from the chaos, make right some of the wrongs that loneliness brought. I’ll make it the way I think he’d have wanted.

The bigger companies don’t have time for this and, often, neither do the owners of the properties that need to be cleaned. It costs me some jobs but gains me others. Those who care enough, or feel guilty enough, will pay a little extra or allow a little longer to have me do it my way.

I move the bed and begin ripping up carpeting, knowing it’s saturated with contaminants that no amount of cleaning will make safe. It has to go.

As I do so, I study the photographs on the dresser, six of them in all, three in black and white and three in colour. Snapshots of a long life that ended in solitude.

The first photograph is a young Mr Agnew, I’m sure. He has his arm around a girl, raven-haired and dark-eyed. They’re on a wide sweep of beach, not anywhere warm by the clothes they’re wearing.

The couple are married in the next frame. Him in a suit and dark tie, her in a white dress and veil, his arm tightly around her waist, their eyes glued to each other’s. They age slowly in the next three photographs, morphing into colour as they get fuller and, eventually, greyer. Dancing cheek to cheek in one, eating dinner in another, at their ruby wedding anniversary party in the third. A man and his wife growing old together as their images edge along the dresser’s top. The final photograph is Mrs Agnew on her own, slimmer, frailer, smiling at the camera.

No photographs of children, none of grandchildren. No friends on show. Just him and her. Then, just him. Old and alone.

Old people all look the same when you’re under forty. They tend to wear the same uniform; colourless clothes in too many layers, fashions of all decades and none, with the same grey faces. It’s too easy to think that’s how they’ve always been, that they were born old, that they lived frail and died frail. And, of course, it’s not true. Every single one of them has a back story.

They’ve all loved and lost, chased dreams, made mistakes, done good things and terrible things. They fought in wars, had affairs, stole and cheated, stood up to bullies, started businesses, saved lives, took lives, learned stuff, forgot stuff, and had plenty of sex. If they hadn’t, none of us would be here to underestimate them, patronise them, and ignore them.

They might look the same to people my age, but they’re not. They might look like they’ve never done anything interesting, but that’s bullshit. If they look so tired, it’s because they’ve done so much.

They’ve all got stories to tell, but most of us are too busy fucking up our own lives to listen.

I kneel and take a closer look at the pile of newspapers. There are six of them, neatly stacked, all corners matching, all copies of the same newspaper, the Scottish Standard.

Leafing through them, I find each copy is from the same day in different years. July 23, 2004 and then every July 23 from 2016 to 2020. His birthday or his wife’s? The anniversary of the day they met, or their wedding? Maybe. I don’t know, but I know it meant something to Mr Agnew. I’ll make sure these are kept, just as he’d kept them.

Once I’m certain that I’ve removed every stain, every drop of fluid, every ounce of the soup that was once Thomas Agnew, it’s time to clean, disinfect, and deodorise all the affected surfaces. That requires an expensive assortment of special disinfectants, degreasers, brushes and squeegees. People don’t realise how much some of this shit costs. I have a special vacuum cleaner that set me back over a grand just because it has a filter that stops bacteria being pushed out into the air. A regular vacuum cleaner throws out some of the particles and when you’re dealing with corpse dust, that’s not a particularly good idea.

This part of the process is time-consuming, expensive, monotonous, and life saving. It tips over from one day into the next, defying all haste, and sees me grafting at the clean again the next morning, the rooms secured in my absence.

With it done at last, I move around the room with an eye for anywhere else that might harbour danger or bugs or something personal that should be retained. Most houses have all three, a dead person’s home has them in spades.

It feels intrusive, poking around among his things, even though he’s long gone, but I know I’m doing it for the right reasons. I work my way through the chest of drawers, but it’s full of socks and underpants, vests, and a lot of woollens, V-necks, crew necks and tank tops. The second drawer from the bottom has a surprise though. There’s something wrapped in what looks like old newspaper, black type on off-white paper, a part of an advert for a car showroom facing up at me. It’s rectangular, like a book but thinner, wrapped like a last-minute birthday present.

I peel back a layer of newsprint and reach inside, immediately regretting it as something stabs me through my glove, pain flashing into my thumb like a needle. I instinctively drop the wrapped object and it falls back into the drawer, nestling on a striped V-neck jumper. I’m bleeding.

I pull the glove off and suck on my thumb, drawing out the excess blood until the skin is translucent with the ruby red glowing beneath. It stings, but I’ll be fine. I reach for the wrapped item again, more carefully this time, and turn back the newspaper. Inside is a photograph in a frame, its glass smashed, broken slivers screaming out in violent, jagged lines from the centre.

It’s a plain wooden frame, a black-and-white photo inside. A group picture of five young men, late teens or early twenties, arms over each other’s shoulders as they stand in a cheery, sunburned line, the sea behind them. I recognise the place, I’m sure it’s the pier at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. Going by the other photos, Thomas Agnew is the one in the middle, tall and skinny with sticky-out ears and a huge grin on his face.

The newspaper is the Scottish Standard, the same as those stacked in a neat pile on the floor. This one is dated Friday, August 28, 1964. The advert is for Callanders in Kelvinside, a sketch of a car for sale, something called an Auto Union 1000. There’s a story about Glasgow City Council announcing that all men with Beatles haircuts would have to wear bathing caps in swimming pools after a committee said their hair was clogging up filters. That, and a report saying the new M8 motorway linking Glasgow and Edinburgh would open that November, and little else of note. I rewrap the photo frame and place it on top of the chest of drawers.

The wardrobe is a tall, dark wood affair, a serious piece of furniture. I open the doors and immediately take a step back in surprise. Inside are newspapers. Hundreds of them. Three tall, fading stacks of them.

I’ve long since stopped being shocked by people and what they do, particularly in the privacy of their own homes. One thing I know is that they collect stuff. With some, it’s teapots or watches, others it’s carrier bags or stamps, beer mats or postcards. I cleaned a house once where the old lady who’d died had an enormous collection of used train tickets. There were bags and bags of them strewn around the house. It seemed she’d kept every ticket she’d ever bought. Automatic barriers had probably been the death of her.

Poor Mr Agnew clearly collected newspapers. The stacks are just too big to simply have been something not thrown out yet. He was either a collector or a hoarder. Some people are one and tell themselves they’re the other.

I look through stacks of papers, flipping up front pages and seeing the dates. There’s not just the Standard, but the Daily Record, the Express, the Sunday Mail, and the Herald. They’re not in any order, but almost all the copies are from different dates in July, with some from days in early August. As I delve into the piles, I find copies from 2014, 2018, 2012, 2019 and more; a jumbled selection of summer days from every year since 2011.

Whereas the six copies in the room were piled with precision, these have been thrown in haphazardly, copy onto copy, edges all off kilter. They’ve not been cared for or considered important, but he kept them. These newspapers are screaming at me, hundreds of different screeching voices drowning each other out, all unintelligible. I close the wardrobe doors and the noise stops immediately. I can’t deal with whatever it is they’re about. I’m going to leave them locked away to be disposed of.

Instead, I’ll take the copies that meant something to him, whatever it was. Fetching clear plastic bags from my case, I carefully, respectfully, slide the six newspapers inside in the order they’re stacked. I’ll take these and the cross on the wall, the daisy that was by the pillow, the photographs from the dresser and the smashed framed photo from the drawer, the neat, blue-and-red striped tie that was hanging in the wardrobe, plus another couple of items, and fill a box with them. They were his things and, as best as I can tell, they represent his living if not his life.

I’m nearly done. I’ve installed air purifiers, I’ve disinfected, I’ve double bagged and removed contaminated items for disposal. Finally, I’ve tested for ATP. Adenosine triphosphate is an enzyme that’s present in all organic matter, so blood, saliva, bacteria. The luminometer tells me it’s clear and I’m good to go. So do my body and mind. A clean, done properly, is exhausting physically, mentally and emotionally.

I put down my cleaning cases and the box of mementoes, and take a moment, much the same as I did before I came in. I turn and face into the room, close my eyes and pay my respects.

‘God bless.’

The thing is, I don’t believe. Not any more. I stopped that nonsense a long time ago. Too many lies and broken promises, Gods and Jesuses who hadn’t come for me when I’d prayed for them to. It was okay, that was done and dusted. I don’t hold grudges, I just don’t believe.

So, praying is a bit odd, I know, but it’s just me and the shape where the old man had been, no one to judge me other than the god I don’t believe in, so nothing lost. Mr Agnew had believed, so it’s the least I can do. Do good or do nothing, that’s how I see it.

I close the front door behind me and turn to see a woman standing in the doorway of the flat opposite, arms crossed over her chest, appraising me over a cigarette. The letter-box peeper, no doubt. The woman is looking at me as if trying to work out what I am.

She’s in her thirties, roughly my age I’d say. Dirty blonde hair pulled back on her head, and laughter lines that don’t look like they’ve been caused by laughter.

‘You the one that’s cleaning Mr Agnew’s place?’

‘That’s right.’

I get a judgemental shake of the head in return as the woman makes a disgusted face. ‘Don’t know how you can do that.’

I think, And I don’t know how you can live next door to someone for five months without knowing they’re dead. Takes all sorts, doesn’t it?

The neighbour’s mouth opens and closes, opens again, then closes for the final time. Her front door slams shut with a bang. Wait, did I say that out loud?

Oh well. Never mind.

I gaze back at Mr Agnew’s flat, my head turning to follow my train of thought, and I have to wonder just how disgusted the neighbour would be if she’d seen what I’d seen.