Profile: Suzanne Pilley: Life was looking up

SUZANNE Pilley was murdered after she ended her relationship with David Gilroy. She had met another man through an internet dating site and “seemed happy” when he last saw her on the morning she disappeared.

Mark Brooks, 41, from Edinburgh, said she cancelled a meeting with him a few days before and texted him to say Gilroy had appeared as she was leaving and they had got into an argument. The message read: “At least, if anything, I managed to drum through to David that it is over and to leave me alone.”

The pair met up the next day, Monday, 3 May, he cooked her a meal and she stayed over. He said he dropped her off near her flat on the Tuesday morning. “She waved and she seemed very happy. She was happy all weekend. That was the last time I saw her,” Mr Brooks said.

Ms Pilley, 38, was planning ahead before her life was ended. Colleagues said she was part of a relay team for the Edinburgh marathon to be held that month. She also wanted to go to see a film and the last text she sent was to her father asking to borrow his phone for a cinema discount code he had.

She had a pet cat, Mercury, and tropical fish, and it was out of character for her not to make arrangements for them to be cared for if she was going to be away.

On the morning of 4 May, her mother received a text message, saying: “I think Mark likes me. Take it slow.”

Ms Pilley carried out her routine journey to work and CCTV showed her arriving in the city centre. But she never turned up at her desk in the offices of Infrastructure Managers, where she had been a bookkeeper for two years.

For her parents, the torment of not knowing what happened to their daughter continues, despite the guilty verdict.