A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, page 14
Pip knocked again, harder this time, hoping it would be heard over the droning murmur of a vacuum cleaner running inside.
The drone clicked off abruptly, leaving a slightly buzzy silence in its wake. Then sharp footsteps on a hard floor.
The door opened and a well-dressed woman with cherry-red lipstick stood before her.
‘Hi,’ Pip said. ‘I’m a friend of Max’s, is he in?’
‘Oh, hi,’ the woman smiled, revealing a smear of red on one of her top teeth. She stood back to let Pip through. ‘He certainly is, come in . . .’
‘Pippa,’ she smiled, stepping inside.
‘Pippa. Yes, he’s in the living room. Shouting at me for vacuuming while he’s playing some death match. Can’t pause it, apparently.’
Max’s mum walked Pip down the hall and through the open archway into the living room.
Max was spread out on the sofa, in tartan pyjama bottoms and a white T-shirt, his hands gripped round a controller as he furiously thumbed the X button.
His mum cleared her throat.
Max looked up.
‘Oh, hi, Pippa Funny-Surname,’ he said in his deep, refined voice, his eyes returning to his game. ‘What are you doing here?’
Pip almost grimaced in reflex, but she fought it with a fake smile. ‘Oh, nothing much.’ She shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Just here to ask you how well you really knew Andie Bell.’
The game was paused.
Max sat up, stared at Pip, then his mum, then back to Pip.
‘Um,’ his mum said, ‘would anyone like a cup of tea?’
‘No, we don’t.’ Max stood. ‘Upstairs, Pippa.’
He strode past them and up the grand stairs in the hallway, his bare feet thundering on the steps. Pip followed, flashing a polite wave back at his mother. At the top, Max held open his bedroom door and gestured her inside.
Pip hesitated, one foot suspended above the vacuum-tracked carpet. Should she really be alone with him?
Max jerked his head impatiently.
His mum was just downstairs; she should be safe. She planted the foot and strode into his room.
‘Thank you for that,’ he said, closing the door. ‘My mum didn’t need to know I’ve been talking about Andie and Sal again. The woman is a bloodhound, never lets anything go.’
‘Pit bull,’ Pip said. ‘It’s pit bulls that don’t let things go.’
Max sat back on his maroon bedspread. ‘Whatever. What do you want?’
‘I said. I want to know how well you really knew Andie.’
‘I already told you,’ he said, leaning back on his elbows and shooting a glance up past Pip’s shoulder. ‘I didn’t know her that well.’
‘Mmm.’ Pip leaned back against his door. ‘Just acquaintances, right? That’s what you said?’
‘Yeah, I did.’ He scratched his nose. ‘I’ll be honest, I’m starting to find your tone a tad annoying ’
‘Good,’ she said, following Max’s eyes as they looked over again to a noticeboard on the far wall, littered with posters and pinned-up notes and photographs. ‘And I’m starting to find your lies a tad intriguing.’
‘What lies?’ he said. ‘I didn’t know her well.’
‘Interesting,’ Pip said. ‘I’ve spoken to a witness who went to a calamity party that you and Andie attended in March 2012. Interesting because she said she saw you two alone several times that night, looking pretty comfortable with each other.’
‘Who said that?’ Another micro-glance over to the noticeboard.
‘I can’t reveal my sources.’
‘Oh my god.’ He laughed a deep throaty laugh. ‘You’re deluded. You know you’re not actually a police officer, right?’
‘You’re avoiding the question,’ she said. ‘Were you and Andie secretly seeing each other behind Sal’s back?’
Max laughed again. ‘He was my best friend.’
‘That’s not an answer.’ Pip folded her arms.
‘No. No, I wasn’t seeing Andie Bell. Like I said, I didn’t know her that well.’
‘So why did this source see you together? In a manner that made her think you were actually Andie’s boyfriend?’
While Max rolled his eyes at the question, Pip stole her own glance at the noticeboard. The scribbled notes and bits of paper were several layers deep in places, with hidden corners and curled edges. Glossy photos of Max skiing and surfing were pinned on top. A Reservoir Dogs poster took up most of the board.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Whoever it was, they were mistaken. Probably drunk. An unreliable source, you might say.’
‘OK.’ Pip shuffled away from the door. She took a few steps to the right, then paced back a couple, so Max wouldn’t realize as she moved herself incrementally towards the noticeboard. ‘So let’s get this straight.’ She paced again, positioning herself nearer and nearer. ‘You’re saying you never spoke one-on-one with Andie at a calamity party?’
‘I don’t know if never,’ Max said, ‘but it’s not like you’re implying.’
‘OK, OK.’ Pip looked up from the floor, just a couple of feet from the board now. ‘And why do you keep looking over here?’ She twisted on her heels and started flipping through the papers pinned to the board.
‘Hey, stop.’
She heard the bed groan as Max got to his feet.
Pip’s eyes and fingers scanned over to-do lists, scribbled names of companies and grad schemes, leaflets and old photos of a young Max in a hospital bed.
Heavy bare-footed steps behind her.
‘That’s my private stuff!’
And then she saw a small white corner of paper, tucked underneath Reservoir Dogs . She pulled and ripped the paper out just as Max grabbed her arm. Pip spun towards him, his fingers digging into her wrist. And they both looked down at the piece of paper in her hand.
Pip’s mouth fell open.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’ Max let her arm go and ran his fingers through his untamed hair.
‘Just acquaintances?’ she said shakily.
‘Who do you think you are?’ Max said. ‘Going through my stuff.’
‘Just acquaintances?’ Pip said again, holding the printed photo up to Max’s face.
It was Andie.
A photo she’d taken of herself in a mirror. Standing on a red and white tiled floor, her right hand raised and clutched round the phone. Her mouth was pushed out in a pout and her eyes looked straight out of the page; she was wearing nothing but a pair of black pants.
‘Care to explain?’ Pip said.
‘No.’
‘Oh, so you want to explain it to the police first? I get it.’ Pip glared at him and feigned walking towards the door.
‘Don’t be dramatic,’ Max said, returning her glare with his glassy blue eyes. ‘It has nothing to do with what happened to her.’
‘I’ll let them decide that.’
‘No, Pippa.’ He blocked her way to the door. ‘Look, this is really not how it looks. Andie didn’t give me that picture. I found it.’
‘You found it? Where?’
‘It was just lying around at school. I found it and I kept it. Andie never knew about it.’ There was a hint of pleading in his voice.
‘You found a nude picture of Andie just lying around at school?’ She didn’t even try to hide her disbelief.
‘Yes. It was just hidden in the back of a classroom. I swear.’
‘And you didn’t tell Andie or anyone that you’d found it?’ said Pip.
‘No, I just kept it.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ his voice scrambled higher. ‘Because she’s hot and I wanted to. And then it seemed wrong to throw it away after . . . What? Don’t judge me. She took the photo; she clearly wanted it to be seen.’
‘You expect me to believe that you just found this naked picture of Andie, a girl you were seen getting close to at parties –’
Max cut her off. ‘Those are completely unrelated. I wasn’t talking to Andie because we were together and neither do I have that picture because we were together. We weren’t together. We never had been.’
‘So you were alone talking to Andie at that calamity party?’ Pip said triumphantly.
Max held his face in his hands for a moment, his fingertips pressing into his eyes.
‘Fine,’ he said quietly, ‘if I tell you, will you please just leave me alone? And no police.’
‘That depends.’
‘OK, fine. I knew Andie better than I said I did. A lot better. Since before she started with Sal. But I wasn’t seeing her. I was buying from her.’
Pip looked at him in confusion, her mind ticking back over his last words.
‘Buying . . . drugs?’ she asked softly.
Max nodded. ‘Nothing super hard, though. Just weed and a few pills.’
‘H-holy pepperoni. Hold on.’ Pip held up her finger to push the world back, give her brain space to think. ‘Andie Bell was dealing drugs?’
‘Well, yeah, but only at calamities and when we went out to clubs and stuff. Just to a few people. A handful at most. She wasn’t like a proper dealer.’ Max paused. ‘She was working with an actual dealer in town, got him an inside into the school crowd. It worked out for both of them.’
‘That’s why she always had so much cash,’ Pip said, the puzzle piece slotting in with an almost audible click in her head. ‘Did she use?’
‘Not really. Think she only did it for the money. Money and the power it gave her. I could tell she enjoyed that.’
‘And did Sal know she was selling drugs?’
Max laughed. ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘no, no, no. Sal always hated drugs, that wouldn’t have gone down well. Andie hid it from him; she was good at secrets. I think the only people who knew were those who bought from her. But I always thought Sal was a little naive. I’m surprised he never found out.’
‘How long had she been doing this?’ Pip said, feeling a crackle of sinister excitement spark through her.
‘A while.’ Max looked up at the ceiling, his eyes circling as though he were turning over his own memories. ‘Think the first time I bought weed off her was early 2011, when she was still sixteen. That was probably around when it started.’
‘And who was Andie’s dealer? Who did she get the drugs from?’
Max shrugged. ‘I dunno, I never knew the guy. I only ever bought through Andie and she never told me.’
Pip deflated. ‘You don’t know anything? You never bought drugs in Kilton after Andie was killed?’
‘Nope.’ He shrugged again. ‘I don’t know anything more.’
‘But were other people at calamities still using drugs? Where did they get them?’
‘I don’t know, Pippa,’ Max over-enunciated. ‘I told you what you wanted to hear. Now I want you to leave.’
He stepped forward and whipped the photo out of Pip’s hands. His thumb closed over Andie’s face, the picture crumpling in his tight and shaking grip. A crease split down the middle of Andie’s body as he folded her away.
Seventeen
Pip tuned out of the others’ conversation and into the background soundtrack of the cafeteria. A bass of scraping chairs and guffaws from a group of teenage boys whose voices fluctuated at will from deep tenor into squeaky soprano. The tuneful scrape of lunch trays sliding along the bench, picking up salad packs or bowls of soup, harmonized by the rustle of crisp packets and weekend gossip.
Pip spotted him before the others and waved him over to their table. Ant waddled over, two packaged sandwiches cradled in his arms.
‘Hey, guys,’ he said, sliding on to the bench beside Cara, already tearing into sandwich number one.
‘How was practice?’ Pip asked.
Ant looked up at her warily, his mouth slightly open, revealing the churned produce of his chewing. ‘Fine,’ he swallowed. ‘Why are you being nice to me? What do you want?’
‘Nothing,’ Pip laughed. ‘I’m just asking how football was.’
‘No,’ Zach butted in, ‘that’s far too friendly for you. Something’s up.’
‘Nothing’s up.’ She shrugged. ‘Only the national debt and global sea levels.’
‘Probably hormones,’ Ant said.
Pip wound the invisible crank by her hand, jerkily raising her middle finger up at him.
They were on to her already. She waited a full five minutes for the group to have a conversation about the latest episode of that zombie programme they all watched, Connor stuffing his ears and humming loudly and tunelessly because he was yet to watch it.
‘So, Ant,’ Pip tried again, ‘you know your friend George from football?’
‘Yes, I think I know my friend George from football,’ he said, clearly finding himself rather too amusing.
‘He’s in the crowd that still do calamity parties, isn’t he?’
Ant nodded. ‘Yeah. Actually I think the next party is at his house. His parents are abroad for an anniversary or something.’
‘This weekend?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you . . .’ Pip sat forward, resting her elbows on the table. ‘Do you think you could get us all invited?’
Every single one of her friends turned to gawp at her.
‘Who are you and what have you done with Pippa Fitz-Amobi?’ Cara said.
‘What?’ She felt herself getting defensive, about four useless facts simmering to the surface, ready to fire. ‘It’s our last year at school. I thought it would be fun for us all to go. This is the opportune time, before coursework deadlines and mock-exams creep up.’
‘Still sounds Pip-ish to me,’ Connor smiled.
‘You want to go to a house party?’ Ant said pointedly.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Everyone will be smashed, people getting off, throwing up, passing out. A lot of mess on the floor,’ Ant said. ‘It’s not really your scene, Pip.’
‘Sounds . . . cultural,’ she said. ‘I still want to go.’
‘OK, fine.’ Ant clapped his hands together. ‘We’ll go.’
Pip stopped by Ravi’s on her way home from school. He set a black tea down in front of her, informing her there was no need to wait a jiffy for it to cool because he’d thought ahead and poured in some cold water.
‘OK,’ he finally said, his head bouncing in a part-shaking part-nodding movement as he tried to process the image of Andie Bell – cute, button-faced blonde – as a drug dealer. ‘OK, so you’re thinking the man who supplied her could be a suspect?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘If you have the depravity to peddle drugs to kids, I definitely think you could be the sort inclined to murder.’
‘Yeah, I see the logic,’ he nodded. ‘But how are we going to find this drug dealer, though?’
She plonked down her mug and sharpened her eyes on his. ‘I’m going undercover,’ she said.
Eighteen
‘It’s a house party, not a pantomime,’ Pip said, trying to wrestle her face out of Cara’s grip. But Cara held on tight: facial hijack.
‘Yeah, but you’re lucky – you have a face that can pull off eyeshadow. Stop wriggling, I’m almost done.’
Pip sighed and went limp, submitting to the forced preening. She was still sulking that her friends had made her change out of her dungarees and into a dress of Lauren’s that was short enough to be mistaken for a T-shirt. They’d laughed a lot when she’d said that.
‘Girls,’ Pip’s mum called up the stairs, ‘you’d better hurry up. Victor’s started showing Lauren his dance moves down here.’
‘Oh jeez,’ Pip said. ‘Am I done? We need to go and rescue her.’
Cara leaned forward and blew on her face. ‘Yep.’
‘Cracking,’ said Pip, grabbing her shoulder bag and checking, once again, that her phone was at full charge. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Hello, pickle!’ her dad said loudly as Pip and Cara made their way downstairs. ‘Lauren and I have decided that I should come to your kilometre party too.’
‘Calamity, Dad. And over my dead brain cells.’
Victor strolled over, wrapped his arm round her shoulders and squeezed. ‘Little Pipsy going to a house party.’
‘I know,’ Pip’s mum said, her smile wide and glistening. ‘With alcohol and boys.’
‘Yes.’ He let go and looked down at Pip, a serious expression on his face and his finger raised. ‘Pip, I want you to remember to be, at least, a little irresponsible.’
‘Right,’ Pip announced, grabbing her car keys and strolling to the front door. ‘We’re going now. Farewell, my backwards and abnormal parents.’
‘Fare thee well,’ Victor said dramatically, gripping on to the banister and reaching for the departing teenagers, like the house was a sinking ship and he the heroic captain going down with it.
Even the pavement outside was pulsing with the music. The three of them strolled up to the front door and Pip raised her fist to knock. As she did, the door swung inward, opening a gateway into a writhing cacophony of deep-bass tinny tunes, slurred chattering and poor lighting.
Pip took a tentative step inside, her first breath already tainted with the muggy metallic smell of vodka, undertones of sweat and the slightest hint of vomit. She caught sight of the host, Ant’s friend George, trying to mesh his face with a girl’s from the year below, his eyes open and staring. He looked their way and, without breaking the kiss, waved to them behind his partner’s back.
Pip couldn’t let herself be complicit in such a greeting, so she ignored it and started down the corridor. Cara and Lauren walked beside her, Lauren having to step over Paul-from-politics who was slumped against the wall, lightly snoring.
‘This looks . . . like some people’s idea of fun,’ Pip muttered as they entered the open-plan living room and the chaos of teenage bustle hosted there: bodies grinding and thrashing to the music, towers of precariously balanced beer bottles, drunken meaning-of-life monologues yelled across the room, wet carpet patches, unsubtle groin scratches and couples pushed up against the condensation-dripping walls.
‘You’re the one who was so desperate to come,’ Lauren said, waving to some girls she took after-school drama class with.
Pip swallowed. ‘Yeah. And present Pip is always pleased with past Pip’s decisions.’
