A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder
- -
- 100%
- +
‘It’s so weird they still live there,’ Ant said, widening his eyes like Lauren’s. They fed off each other like that. ‘Eating dinner in the same room she died.’
‘People deal with what they have to deal with,’ said Cara. ‘Don’t think you can judge them by normal standards.’
That shut Ant-and-Lauren up.
There was an awkward silence that Connor tried to fill. Pip looked away, immediately recognizing the couple standing next to them. She smiled.
‘Oh hi, Charlie, Flora.’ Her new neighbours from four doors down: Charlie with his rusty coloured hair and well-trimmed beard, and Flora who Pip had only ever seen wearing florals. She was the new teaching assistant at her brother’s school, and Josh was more than a little bit obsessed with her. ‘Didn’t see you there.’
‘Hello,’ Charlie smiled, dipping his head. ‘You must be Ravi,’ he said, shaking Ravi’s hand which hadn’t yet found its way back to Pip. ‘We are both very sorry for your loss.’
‘It sounds like your brother was an amazing guy,’ Flora added.
‘Thank you. Yeah, he was,’ said Ravi.
‘Oh,’ Pip patted Zach’s shoulder to bring him into the conversation. ‘This is Zach Chen. He used to live in your house.’
‘Lovely to meet you, Zach,’ Flora said. ‘We love the house so much. Was yours the back bedroom?’
A hissing sound behind Pip distracted her for a moment. Connor’s brother Jamie had appeared beside him, talking to each other in hushed tones.
‘No, it’s not haunted,’ Charlie was saying as Pip tuned back into the conversation.
‘Flora?’ Zach turned to her. ‘Have you never heard the pipes groaning in the downstairs toilet? It sounds like a ghost saying ruuuuun, ruuuunn.’
Flora’s eyes widened suddenly, her face draining as she looked at her husband. She opened her mouth to reply but started to cough, excusing herself, stepping back from the circle.
‘Look what you’ve started.’ Charlie smiled. ‘She’ll be best friends with the toilet ghost by tomorrow.’
Ravi’s fingers walked down Pip’s forearm, sliding back into her hand as he gave her a look. Yes, they should probably move on and find his parents; it would start soon.
They said goodbye and carried on towards the front of the gathering. Looking back, Pip could have sworn the crowd had doubled since they’d arrived; there might be nearly a thousand people here now. Almost at the pavilion, Pip saw for the first time the blown-up photographs of Sal and Andie, resting against easels on opposite sides of the small building. Matching smiles etched into their forever-young faces. People had laid bouquets of flowers in orbiting circles underneath each portrait, and the candles flickered as the crowd shuffled on their feet.
‘There they are,’ Ravi said, pointing. His parents were at the front on the right, the side Sal looked out on. There was a group of people around them, and Pip’s family were close by.
They passed right behind Stanley Forbes taking photos of the scene, the flash of his camera lighting up his pale face and dancing across his dark brown hair.
‘Of course he’s here,’ Pip said out of earshot.
‘Oh, leave him alone, Sarge.’ Ravi smiled back at her.
Months ago, Stanley had sent the Singhs a four-page handwritten apology letter, telling them he was ashamed of the way he’d spoken about their son. He’d printed another public apology in the small-town newspaper he volunteered at, the Kilton Mail. And he’d also led the charge on fundraising to get a bench dedicated to Sal on the common, just up the path from Andie’s one. Ravi and his parents had accepted his apology, but Pip was sceptical.
‘At least he said sorry,’ Ravi continued. ‘Look at all of them.’ He indicated the group around his parents. ‘Their friends, neighbours. People who made their life hell. They’ve never apologized, just pretended like the last six years never even happened.’
Ravi cut off as Pip’s dad folded them both into a hug.
‘Doing OK?’ he asked Ravi, patting him on the back before he let go.
‘Doing OK,’ Ravi replied, tousling Josh’s hair in greeting and smiling at Pip’s mum.
Ravi’s dad, Mohan, came over. ‘I’m going in now to get a few things ready. I’ll see you after.’ He tapped Ravi affectionately under the chin with one finger. ‘Look after Mum.’ Mohan walked up the stairs of the pavilion and disappeared inside.
It started at seven thirty-one exactly, Ravi standing between Pip and his mum, holding both of their hands. Pip circled her thumb in his palm as the district councillor who’d helped organize the memorial stepped up to the microphone at the top of the stairs to say ‘a few words’. Well, he said far more than a few, going on about family values in the town and the inevitability of truth, praising the Thames Valley Police for all their ‘tireless work on this case’. He wasn’t even trying to be sarcastic.
Next up to speak was Mrs Morgan, now headteacher at Little Kilton Grammar School. Her predecessor had been forced by the board to resign early, in the fallout from everything Mr Ward had done while working at the school. Mrs Morgan spoke about Andie and Sal in turn, about the lasting impact their stories would have on the whole town.
Then Andie’s best friends, Chloe Burch and Emma Hutton, walked out of the pavilion and up to the microphone. Clearly Jason and Dawn Bell had declined to speak at the vigil. Chloe and Emma did a joint reading, from Christina Rossetti’s poem, Goblin Market. When they were done, they re-joined the quietly murmuring crowd, Emma sniffing and dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve. Pip was watching her when someone behind bumped her elbow.
She turned. It was Jamie Reynolds, shuffling slowly through the crowd, a determined look in his eyes, the candles lighting up a sheen of sweat breaking across his face.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered distractedly, like he didn’t even recognize her.
‘It’s OK,’ Pip replied, following Jamie with her eyes until Mohan Singh walked out of the pavilion and cleared his throat at the microphone, silencing the common. Not a sound, except the wind in the trees. Ravi gripped tighter, his fingernails pressing half-moons into Pip’s skin.
Mohan looked down at the sheet of paper in his hand. He was shaking, the page fluttering in his grip.
‘What can I tell you about my son, Sal?’ he started, a crack halfway through his voice. ‘I could tell you he was a straight-A student with a bright future ahead of him, but you probably already know that. I could tell you he was a loyal and caring friend who never wanted anyone to feel alone or unwanted, but you probably already know that too. I could tell you he was an incredible big brother and an amazing son who made us proud every day. I could share memories of him, as a grinning toddler who wanted to climb everything, to a teenager who loved early mornings and late nights. But instead, I will tell you just one thing about Sal.’
Mohan paused, looked up to smile at Ravi and Nisha.
‘If Sal were here today, he’d never admit to this and would probably be thoroughly embarrassed, but his favourite movie of all time, from age three to eighteen, was Babe.’
There was a light and tense laugh from the crowd. Ravi too, eyes starting to glaze.
‘He loved that little pig. Another reason he loved the film was because it contained his favourite song. The one that could make him smile and cry, the one that made him want to dance. So I’m going to share a little of Sal and play that song for you now to celebrate his life, as we light and release the lanterns. But first, there’s something I want to tell my boy, something I’ve waited six years to say out loud.’ The page quivered against the microphone like paper wings as Mohan wiped his eyes. ‘Sal. I’m sorry. I love you. You will never be truly gone; I will carry you with me through every moment. The big moments and the small, every smile, every laugh, every up and every down. I promise.’ He paused, nodded at someone off to the right. ‘Take it away.’
And from the speakers set up on both sides, the super high-pitched voice of a mouse exclaimed: ‘And-a-one-and-a-two-and-a-three, hit it!’
The song started, a steady drum and the climbing melody sung by a squeaky mouse, until a whole chorus of other mice joined in.
Ravi was laughing now, and crying, and something in between the two. And somewhere, behind them, someone started clapping in time to the song.
Now a few more.
Pip watched over her shoulder as the clapping caught, passing up and down as it swelled through the swaying crowd. The sound was thunderous and happy.
People started singing along with the shrill mice, and – as they realized it was just the same few lyrics repeated – others joined in, struggling to hit those impossibly high notes.
Ravi turned to her, mouthing the words, and she mouthed them back.
Mohan walked down the steps, the page in his hand replaced with a Chinese lantern. The district councillor carried another down, passing it to Jason and Dawn Bell. Pip let Ravi go as he joined his mum and dad. Ravi was handed the small box of matches. The first one he struck was blown into a thin line of smoke by the wind. He tried again, sheltering the flame with his cupped hands, holding it under the lantern’s wick until it caught.
The Singhs waited a few seconds for the fire to grow, filling the lantern with hot air. They each had two hands on the wire rim at the bottom, and when they were ready, when they were finally ready, they straightened up, arms above their heads, and let go.
The lantern sailed up above the pavilion, juddering in the breeze. Pip craned her neck to watch it go, its yellow-orange flicker setting the darkness around it on fire. A moment later, Andie’s lantern crossed into view too, mounting the night as it chased Sal across the endless sky.
Pip didn’t look away. Her neck strained, sending stabs of pain down her spine but she refused to look away. Not until those golden lanterns were little more than specks, nestling among the stars. And even beyond that.
SATURDAY
Four
Pip tried to fight them off, her sinking eyelids. She felt fuzzy around the edges, ill-defined, like sleep had already taken her, but no . . . she really should get up off the sofa and do some revision. Really.
She was lying on the red sofa in the living room, in Josh’s Place apparently, as he kept intermittently reminding her. He was on the rug, rearranging Lego while Toy Story played in the background. Her parents must still be out in the garden; her dad had enthusiastically told her this morning that they were painting the new garden shed today. Well, there wasn’t much her dad wasn’t enthusiastic about. But the only thing Pip could think of was the stalk of the solitary sunflower planted near there, over their dead dog’s grave. It hadn’t yet bloomed.
Pip checked her phone. It was 5:11 p.m. and there was a text waiting on the screen from Cara, and two missed calls from Connor twenty minutes ago; she must have actually fallen asleep for a bit. She swiped to open Cara’s message: Urgh, been throwing up literally all day and Grandma keeps tutting. NEVER AGAIN. Thank you so much for coming to get me xx
Cara’s previous text, when you scrolled up, had been sent at 00:04 last night: Polpp whertf ui i I traifng finds anfulpw ggind hekp me safd. Pip had called her immediately, whispering from her bed, but Cara was so drunk she couldn’t speak in full sentences, not even half sentences or quarter, broken up by cries or hiccups. It took some time to understand where she was: a calamity party. She must have gone there after the memorial. It took even longer to coax out whose house the party was at: ‘Stephen-Thompson’s-I-think.’ And where that was: ‘Hi-Highmoor somewhere . . .’
Pip knew Ant and Lauren were at that party too; they should have been looking out for Cara. But, of course, Ant and Lauren were probably too preoccupied with each other. And that wasn’t even what worried Pip most. ‘Did you pour your own drinks?’ she’d asked. ‘You didn’t accept a drink from someone, did you?’ So Pip had climbed out of bed and into her car, to ‘Highmoor somewhere’ to find Cara and take her home. She didn’t get back into bed until gone half one.
And today hadn’t even been quiet to make up for it. She’d taken Josh to football this morning, standing in a cold field to watch the game, then Ravi came over at lunch to record another update on the Max Hastings trial. Afterwards, Pip had edited and uploaded the mini episode, updated her website and replied to emails. So she’d sat down on the sofa for two minutes, in Josh’s Place, just to rest her eyes. But two had somehow become twenty-two, sneaking up on her.
She stretched out her neck and reached for her phone to text Connor, when the doorbell went.
‘For goodness sake,’ Pip said, getting up. One of her legs was still asleep and she stumbled over it, into the hallway. ‘How many bloody Amazon deliveries does one man need?’ Her dad had a serious next-day delivery addiction.
She undid the chain – a new rule in their house – and pulled open the door.
‘Pip!’
It wasn’t the Amazon delivery guy.
‘Oh, Connor, hey,’ she said, fully opening the door. ‘I was literally just texting you back. What’s up?’
It was only then that she noticed his eyes: the way they somehow looked both far-off yet urgent, too much white showing above and below the blue. And though Connor had a pink-cheeked, freckle-faced complexion, his face was flushed red, a line of sweat trickling down his temple.
‘Are you OK?’
He took a deep breath. ‘No, I’m not.’ His words cracked at the edges.
‘What’s wrong . . . do you want to come in?’ Pip stepped back to clear the threshold.
‘Th-thank you,’ Connor said, stepping past as Pip shut and locked the door. His T-shirt was sticking to his back, damp and bunched up.
‘Here.’ Pip led him into the kitchen and pointed him into one of the stools, her trainers discarded beneath it. ‘Do you want some water?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer, filling up one of the clean glasses on the draining board and placing it in front of him with a thud that made him flinch. ‘Did you run here?’
‘Yeah.’ Connor picked up the glass with two hands and took a large gulp that spilled over his chin. ‘Sorry. I tried to call you and you didn’t answer and I didn’t know what to do other than just come here. And then I thought you might be at Ravi’s instead.’
‘That’s OK. I’m right here,’ Pip said, sliding up into the seat opposite him. His eyes still looked strange and Pip’s heart reacted, kicking around her chest. ‘What is it? What do you need to speak to me about?’ She gripped the edges of her stool. ‘Has . . . has something happened?’
‘Yes,’ Connor said, wiping his chin on his wrist. He parted his lips and his jaw hung open and close, chewing the air like he was practising the words before he said them.
‘Connor, what?’
‘It’s my brother,’ he said. ‘He . . . he’s missing.’
Five
Pip watched Connor’s fingers as they slipped down the glass.
‘Jamie’s missing?’ she said.
‘Yes.’ Connor stared at her.
‘When?’ she asked. ‘When did you last see him?’
‘At the memorial.’ Connor paused to take another sip of water. ‘I last saw him at the memorial, just before it started. He never came home.’
Pip’s breath caught. ‘I saw him there after that. Maybe around eight, eight fifteen. He was walking through the crowd.’ She pulled up the memory, unpicked it from everything else last night. Jamie knocking into her as he made his way to the other side, his hurried apology, the way his jaw was set, determined. She’d thought it was strange at the time, hadn’t she? And the look in his eyes, not unlike Connor’s were now: somehow both distant and sharp. They looked very similar, even for brothers. They hadn’t as kids, but Pip had watched it happen over the years, the gap closing. Jamie’s hair was just a couple of shades darker, closer to brown than blonde. And Connor was all angles where Jamie was heavier, softer. But even a stranger could tell they were brothers. ‘You’ve tried calling him?’
‘Yes, hundreds of times,’ said Connor. ‘It goes straight to voicemail like it’s off or . . . or it’s dead.’ He stumbled over that last word, his head hanging from his shoulders. ‘Me and Mum spent hours calling anyone who might know where he is: friends, family. No one has seen him or heard from him. No one.’
Pip felt something stirring, right in that pit in her stomach that never quite left her any more. ‘Have you called around all the local hospitals to see if –’
‘Yes, we called them all. Nothing.’
Pip awakened her phone to check the time. It was half five now, and if Jamie hadn’t been seen since around eight last night, seen by her, that meant he’d been missing for over twenty-one hours already.
‘OK,’ she said firmly, bringing Connor’s eyes back to hers, ‘your parents need to go to the police station and file a missing persons report. You’ll need –’
‘We already did,’ Connor said, a hint of impatience creeping into his voice. ‘Me and Mum went down to the station a few hours ago, filed the report, gave them a recent photograph, all that. It was Nat da Silva’s brother, Daniel, the officer who took the report.’
‘OK, good, so officers should be –’
Connor cut her off again. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No officers are doing anything. Daniel said that because Jamie is twenty-four, an adult, and has a history of leaving home without communicating with his family, that there is very little the police can do.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, he gave us a reference number and just told us to keep calling Jamie’s phone and anyone he’s been known to stay with before. Said that almost all missing people return within forty-eight hours, so we just have to wait.’
The stool creaked as Pip shifted. ‘They must think he’s low risk. When a missing persons report is filed,’ she explained, ‘the police determine a risk assessment based on factors like age, any medical issues, if the behaviour is out of character, things like that. Then the police response depends on whether they think the case is low, medium or high risk.’
‘I know how it might look to them,’ Connor said, his eyes a little less far-away now, ‘that Jamie’s disappeared a couple times before and he always comes back –’
‘The first time was after he dropped out of uni, wasn’t it?’ Pip said, scratching at the memory, how the air had been thick with tension in the Reynoldses’ house for weeks after.
Connor nodded. ‘Yeah, after he and my dad had a huge argument about it, he stayed with a friend for a week and wouldn’t answer any calls or texts. And it was two years ago when Mum actually filed a report because Jamie never returned from a night out in London. He’d lost his phone and wallet and couldn’t get home so just stayed on someone’s sofa for a couple of days. But . . .’ He sniffed, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. ‘But something feels different this time. I think he’s in trouble, Pip, I really do.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘He’s been acting strange the last few weeks. Distant, kind of jumpy. Short-tempered. And, you know Jamie, he’s normally really chilled out. Well, lazy, if you ask my dad. But recently, he’s seemed, at times, a little off.’
And wasn’t that how he seemed last night when he knocked into her? That strange focus, like he could see nothing else, not even her. And why was he moving through the crowd right then, anyway? Wasn’t that a little off?
‘And,’ Connor continued, ‘I don’t think he’d run off again, not after how upset Mum got last time. Jamie wouldn’t do that to her again.’
‘I . . .’ Pip began. But she didn’t really know what to say to him.
‘So me and Mum were talking,’ Connor said, shoulders contracting like he was shrinking in on himself. ‘If the police won’t investigate, won’t contact the media or anything, then what can we do ourselves, to find Jamie? That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Pip.’
She knew what was coming but Connor didn’t pause long enough for her to cut in.
‘You know how to do this; everything you did last year where the police failed. You solved a murder. Two of them. And your podcast,’ he swallowed, ‘hundreds of thousands of followers; that’s probably more effective than any media connections the police have. If we want to find Jamie, spread the word that he’s missing so people can come forward with any information they have, or sightings, you are our best hope of that.’
‘Connor –’
‘If you investigate and release it on your show, I know we’ll find him. We’ll find him in time. We have to.’
Connor tailed off. The silence that followed was teeming; Pip could feel it crawling around her. She knew what he’d been going to ask. How could it have been anything else? She breathed out, and that thing that lived inside her twisted in her gut. But her answer was inevitable.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I can’t do it, Connor.’
Connor’s eyes widened, and he grew back out of his shoulders. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask but –’
‘It’s too much to ask,’ she said, glancing at the window, checking her parents were still busy in the garden. ‘I don’t do that any more.’
‘I know, but –’
‘Last time I almost lost everything: ended up in the hospital, got my dog killed, put my family in danger, blew up my best friend’s life. It’s too much to ask. I promised myself. I . . . I can’t do it any more.’ The pit in her stomach ripped wider still; soon it might even outgrow her. ‘I can’t do it. It’s not who I am.’
‘Pip, please . . .’ He was pleading now, words catching on their way up his throat. ‘Last time you didn’t even really know them, they were already gone. This is Jamie, Pip. Jamie. What if he’s hurt? What if he doesn’t make it? I don’t know what to do.’ His voice finally cracked as the tears broke the surface of his eyes.
‘I’m sorry, Connor, I am,’ Pip said, though the words hurt her to say. ‘But I have to say no.’
‘You aren’t going to help?’ He sniffed. ‘At all?’
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t.
‘I didn’t say that.’ Pip jumped down from her stool to hand Connor a tissue. ‘As you can probably guess, I have a certain relationship with the local police now. I mean, I don’t think I’m their favourite person, but I probably have more sway in matters like this.’ She scooped up her car keys from the side by the microwave. ‘I’ll go talk to DI Hawkins right now, tell him about Jamie and why you’re worried, see if I can get them to rethink their risk assessment so they actually investigate.’
Connor slid from his stool. ‘Really? You’ll do that?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I can’t promise anything, but Hawkins is a good guy really. Hopefully he sees sense.’
‘Thank you,’ Connor said, wrapping his awkward and angular arms around her quickly. His voice lowered. ‘I’m scared, Pip. ’
‘It’s going to be OK.’ She attempted a smile. ‘I’ll give you a lift home on my way. Come on.’
Stepping out into the early evening, the front door got caught in a cross-breeze and slammed loudly behind them. Pip carried the sound with her, inside her, echoing around that hollow growing in her gut.
Six
The russet-brick building was just starting to lose its edges to the grey evening sky as Pip climbed out of her squat car. The white sign on the wall read: Thames Valley Police, Amersham Police Station. The policing team for Little Kilton was stationed here, at a larger town ten minutes away.
Pip walked through the main door into the blue-painted reception. There was just one man waiting inside, asleep on one of the hard metal chairs against the back wall. Pip strode up to the help desk and knocked on the glass, to get someone’s attention from the attached office. The sleeping man snorted and shuffled into a new position.
‘Hello?’ The voice emerged before its owner: the detention officer Pip had met a couple of times. The officer strolled out, slapping some papers down and then finally looking at Pip. ‘Oh, you’re not who I was expecting.’