A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, page 15
Ant, Connor and Zach spotted them then and made their way over, manoeuvring through the staggering crowd.
‘All right?’ Connor said, giving Pip and the others clumsy hugs. ‘You’re late.’
‘I know,’ Lauren said. ‘We had to re-dress Pip.’
Pip didn’t see how dungarees could be embarrassing by association, yet the jerky robot dance moves of Lauren’s drama friends were totally acceptable.
‘Are there cups?’ Cara said, holding up a bottle of vodka and lemonade.
‘Yeah, I’ll show you,’ Ant said, taking Cara off towards the kitchen.
When Cara returned with a drink for her, Pip took frequent imaginary sips as she nodded and laughed along with the conversation. When the opportunity presented itself, she sidled over to the kitchen sink, poured out the cup and filled it with water.
Later, when Zach offered to refill her cup for her, she had to pull the stunt again and got cornered talking to Joe King, who sat behind her in English. His only form of humour was to say a ridiculous statement, wait for his victim to pull a confused face and then say: ‘I’m only Joe -King.’
After the joke’s third resurgence, Pip excused herself and went to hide in a corner, thankfully alone. She stood there in the shadows, undisturbed, and scrutinized the room. She watched the dancers and the over-enthusiastic kissers, searching for any signs of shifty hand trades, pills or gurning jaws. Any over-wide pupils. Anything that might give her a possible lead to Andie’s drug dealer.
Ten whole minutes passed and Pip didn’t notice anything dubious, other than a boy called Stephen smashing a TV remote and hiding the evidence in a flower vase. Her eyes followed him as he wandered through to a large utility room and towards the back door, reaching for a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket.
Of course.
Outside with the smokers should have been the first place on her list to scout out. Pip made her way through the mayhem, protecting herself from the worst of the lurchers and staggerers with her elbows.
There were a handful of people outside. A couple of dark shadows rolling around on the trampoline at the bottom of the garden. A tearful Stella Chapman standing by the garden waste bin wailing down the phone at someone. Another two girls from her year on a children’s swing having what looked like a very serious conversation, punctuated by hands-slapped-to-mouths gasps. And Stephen Thompson-or-Timpson who she used to sit behind in maths. He was perched on a garden wall, a cigarette prone in his mouth as he searched double-handed in his various pockets.
Pip wandered over. ‘Hi,’ she said, plonking herself down on the wall next to him.
‘Hi, Pippa,’ Stephen said, taking the cigarette from his mouth so he could talk. ‘What’s up?’
‘Oh nothing much,’ Pip said. ‘Just came out here, looking for Mary Jane.’
‘Dunno who she is, sorry,’ he said, finally pulling out a neon green lighter.
‘Not a who.’ Pip turned to give him a meaningful look. ‘You know, I’m looking to blast a roach.’
‘Excuse me?’
Pip had spent an hour online that morning researching Urban Dictionary for its current street names.
She tried again, lowering her voice to a whisper. ‘You know, looking for some herb, the doob, a bit of hippie lettuce, giggle smoke, some skunk, wacky tobaccy. You know what I mean. Ganja.’
Stephen burst into laughter. ‘Oh my god,’ he cackled, ‘you are so smashed.’
‘Certainly am.’ She tried to feign a drunken giggle, but it came off as rather villainous. ‘So do you have any? Some shwag grass?’
When he stopped hooting to himself, he turned to look her up and down for a drawn-out moment. His eyes very obviously stalling over her chest and pasty legs. Pip squirmed inside; a gloopy cyclone of disgust and embarrassment. She mentally threw a reproach into Stephen’s face, but her mouth had to remain shut. She was undercover.
‘Yeah,’ Stephen said, biting his bottom lip. ‘I can roll us a joint.’ He searched his pockets again and pulled out a small baggy of weed and a packet of rolling papers.
‘Yes please,’ Pip nodded, feeling anxious and excited and a little sick. ‘You get rolling there; roll it like a . . . um, croupier with a dice.’
He laughed at her again and licked one edge of the paper, trying to hold eye contact with her while his stubby pink tongue was out. Pip looked away. It crossed her mind that maybe she had gone too far this time for a homework project. Maybe. But this wasn’t just a project any more. This was for Sal, for Ravi. For the truth. She could do this for them.
Stephen lit the joint and took two long sucks on its end before passing it to Pip. She took it awkwardly between her middle and index fingers and raised it to her lips. She turned her head sharply so that her hair flicked over her face, and pretended to take a couple of drags on the joint.
‘Mmm, lovely stuff,’ she said, passing it back. ‘Spliffing you could say.’
‘You look nice tonight,’ Stephen said, taking a drag and offering the joint again.
Pip tried to take it without her fingers touching his. Another pretend puff but the smell was cloying and she coughed over her next question.
‘So,’ she said, giving it back, ‘where might I score me some of this?’
‘You can share with me.’
‘No, I mean, who do you buy it from? You know, so I can get in on that too.’
‘Just this guy in town.’ Stephen shuffled on the wall, closer to Pip. ‘Called Howie.’
‘And where does Howie live?’ Pip said, passing back the weed and using the movement as an excuse to shift away from Stephen.
‘Dunno,’ Stephen said. ‘He doesn’t deal from his house. I meet him at the station car park, down the end with no cameras.’
‘In the evening?’ Pip asked.
‘Usually, yeah. Whatever time he texts me.’
‘You have his number?’ Pip reached down to her bag for her own phone. ‘Can I have it?’
Stephen shook his head. ‘He’d be mad if he knew I was just handing it out. You don’t need to go to him; if you want something, you can just pay me and I’ll get it for you. I’ll even discount.’ He winked.
‘I’d really rather buy direct,’ Pip said, feeling the heat of annoyance creeping up her neck.
‘No can do.’ He shook his head, eyeing her mouth.
Pip looked away quickly, her long dark hair a curtain between them. Her frustration was too loud, gorging itself on all other thoughts. He wasn’t going to budge, was he?
And then the spark of an idea pushed its way through.
‘Well, how can I buy through you?’ she said, taking the joint from his hands. ‘You don’t even have my number.’
‘Ah, and what a shame that is,’ Stephen said, his voice so slimy it practically dripped out of his mouth. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone. Jabbing his finger at the screen, he entered his passcode and handed her the unlocked phone. ‘Put your digits in there,’ he said.
‘OK,’ said Pip.
She opened the phonebook application and shifted her shoulders, facing Stephen so he couldn’t see the screen. She typed how into the contacts search bar and it was the only result to pop up. Howie Bowers and his phone number.
She studied the sequence of numbers. Damn, she’d never be able to remember the whole thing. Another idea flickered into life. Maybe she could take a picture of the screen; her own phone was on the wall just beside her. But Stephen was right there, staring at her, chewing his finger. She needed some kind of distraction.
She lurched forward suddenly, launching the joint across the lawn. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I thought there was a bug on me.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll get it.’ Stephen jumped down from the wall.
Pip had just a few seconds. She grabbed her phone, swiped left into the camera and positioned it above Stephen’s screen.
Her heart was thudding, her chest closing uncomfortably around it.
The camera flicked in and out of focus, wasting precious time.
Her finger hovered over the button.
The shot cleared and she took the picture, dropping her phone into her lap just as Stephen turned.
‘It’s still lit,’ he said, jumping back up on the wall, sitting far too close to her.
Pip held out Stephen’s phone to him. ‘Um, sorry, I don’t think I want to give you my number actually,’ she said. ‘I’ve decided that drugs aren’t for me.’
‘Don’t be a tease,’ Stephen said, closing his fingers round both his phone and Pip’s hand. He leaned into her.
‘No, thank you,’ she said, scooting back. ‘Think I’m going to go inside.’
And then Stephen put his hand on the back of her head, grabbed her forward and lunged for her face. Pip twisted out of the way and shoved him back. She pushed so hard that he was deseated and fell three feet from the garden wall, sprawled on the wet grass.
‘You stupid slut,’ he said, picking himself up and wiping off his trousers.
‘You degenerate, perverted, reprobate ape. Sorry, apes,’ Pip shouted back. ‘I said no.’
That was when she realized. She didn’t know how or when it had happened, but she looked up and saw that they were now alone in the garden.
Fear flushed through her in an instant, her skin bristling with it.
Stephen climbed back over the wall and Pip turned, hurrying towards the door.
‘Hey, it’s OK, we can talk for a bit more,’ he said, grabbing her wrist to pull her back.
‘Let me go, Stephen.’ She spat the words at him.
‘But –’
Pip grabbed his wrist with her other hand and squeezed, digging her nails into his skin. Stephen hissed and let go and Pip did not hesitate. She ran towards the house and slammed the door, flicking the lock behind her.
Inside, she wound her way through the crowd on the makeshift Persian-rug dance floor, being jostled this way and that. She searched through the flailing body parts and sweaty laughing faces. Searching for the safety of Cara’s face.
It was musty and hot, inside the crush of all these bodies. But Pip was shaking, an aftershock of cold quaking through her, knocking her bare knees.
Pippa Fitz-Amobi
EPQ 03/10/2017
Production Log – Entry 22
Update: I waited in my car for four hours tonight. At the far end of the station car park. I checked, no cameras. Three separate waves of commuters getting in from London Marylebone came and went, Dad among them. Luckily he didn’t spot my car.
I didn’t see anyone hanging around. No one who looked like they were there to buy or sell drugs. Not that I really know what that looks like; I never would have guessed Andie Bell was the kind.
Yes, I know I managed to get Howie Bowers’ number from Stephen-the-creep. I could just ring Howie and see whether he’d be willing to answer some questions about Andie. That’s what Ravi thinks we should do. But – let’s be real – he’s not going to give me anything that way. He’s a drug dealer. He’s not going to admit it to a stranger on the phone like he’s casually discussing the weather or trickle-down economics.
No. The only way he’ll talk to us is if we have the appropriate leverage first.
I’ll return to the station tomorrow evening. Ravi has work again, but I can do this alone. I’ll just tell my parents I’m doing my English coursework over at Cara’s house. The lying gets easier the more I have to do it.
I need to find Howie.
I need this leverage.
I also need sleep.
Persons of Interest
Jason Bell
Naomi Ward
Secret Older Guy
Nat da Silva
Daniel da Silva
Max Hastings
Drug dealer – Howie Bowers?
Nineteen
Pip was thirteen chapters in, reading by the harsh silver light from the torch on her phone, when she noticed a lone figure crossing under a street lamp. She was in her car, parked down the far end of the station car park, every half-hour marked with the screech and growl of London or Aylesbury-bound trains.
The street lamps had flickered on about an hour ago, when the sun had retreated, staining Little Kilton a darkening blue. The lights were that buzzy orange-yellow colour, illuminating the area with an unsettling industrial glow.
Pip squinted against the window. As the figure passed under the light, she saw it was a man in a dark green jacket with a furred hood and bright orange lining. His hood was up over a mask made of shadows, with only a downward-lit triangle nose for a face.
She quickly switched off her phone torch and put Great Expectations down on the passenger seat. She shifted her own seat back so she could crouch on the car floor, hidden from sight by the door, the top of her head and her eyes pressed up against the window.
The man walked over to the very outer boundary of the car park and leaned against the fence there, in a gloomy space just between two orange-lit pools from the lamps. Pip watched him, holding her breath because it fogged the window and blocked her view.
With his head down, the man pulled a phone out of one of his pockets. As he unlocked it and the screen lit up, Pip could see his face for the first time: a bony face full of sharp lines and edges and neatly kept dark stubble. Pip wasn’t the best with ages but, at a guess, the man was in his late twenties or early thirties.
True, this wasn’t the first time tonight she thought she’d found Howie Bowers. There had been two other men she’d ducked and hid to watch. The first got into a banged-up car straight away and drove off. The second stopped to smoke, long enough for Pip’s heart to pick up. But then he’d stubbed out the cigarette, blipped a car and also headed off.
But something hadn’t felt right about those last two sightings: the men had been dressed in work suits and smart coats, clearly dawdlers of a train-load from the city. But this man was different. He was in jeans and a short parka, and there was no doubt that he was waiting for something. Or someone.
His thumbs were working away on his phone screen. Possibly texting a client to tell them he was waiting. Typical Pippism, getting ahead of herself. But she had one sure way to confirm that this lurking parka-wearing man was Howie. She pulled out her phone, trying to hide its illumination by holding it low and turning it to face into her thigh. She scrolled down in her contacts to the entry for Howie Bowers and pressed the call button.
Her eyes back to the window, thumb hovering over the red hang-up button, she waited. Her nerves spiking with every half second.
Then she heard it.
Much louder than the outgoing call sound from her own phone.
A mechanical duck started quacking, the sound coming from the hands of the man. She watched as he pressed something on his phone and raised it to his ear.
‘Hello?’ came a distant voice from outside, muffled by her window. Fractionally later the same voice spoke through the speakers of her phone. Howie’s voice, it was confirmed.
Pip pressed the hang-up button and watched as Howie Bowers lowered his phone and stared at it, his thick but remarkably straight eyebrows lowering, eclipsing his eyes in shadows. He thumbed the phone and raised it to his ear again.
‘Crap,’ Pip whispered, snatching her phone up and clicking it on to silent. Less than a second later, the screen lit up with an incoming call from Howie Bowers. Pip pressed the lock button and let the call silently ring out, her heart drumming painfully against her ribs. That was close, too close. Stupid not to withhold her number, really.
Howie put his phone away then and stood, head down, hands back in pockets. Of course, even though she now knew this man was Howie Bowers, she didn’t have confirmation that he had been the man who’d supplied Andie with drugs. The only fact was that Howie Bowers was now currently dealing to kids at school, the same crowd that Andie had introduced her dealer to. It could be coincidence. Howie Bowers might not be the man Andie had worked with all that time ago. But in a small town like Kilton you couldn’t put too much trust in coincidences.
Just then, Howie raised his head and nodded pointedly. Then Pip heard it, sharp clicking footsteps against the concrete drawing closer and louder. She didn’t dare move to look for who was approaching, the clicks jolting through her with each step. And then the person crossed into view.
It was a tall man wearing a long beige coat and polished black shoes, their sheen and sharp clicking a sign of their newness. His hair was dark and cropped close to his head. As he arrived at Howie’s side, he spun to lean against the fence beside him. It took a few moments of straining her eyes to focus her gaze before Pip gasped.
She knew this man. Knew his face from the staff pictures on the Kilton Mail website. It was Stanley Forbes.
Stanley Forbes, an outsider to Pip’s investigation who had now cropped up twice. Becca Bell said she was kind of seeing him and now here he was, meeting with the man who had possibly supplied Becca’s sister with drugs.
Neither of the men had spoken yet. Stanley scratched his nose and then pulled out a thick envelope from his pocket. He shoved the packet into Howie’s chest and only then did she notice that his face was flushed and his hands shaking. Pip raised her phone and, checking the flash was off, took a few pictures of the meeting.
‘This is the last time, do you hear me?’ Stanley spat, making no effort to keep his voice down. Pip could just about hear the edges of his words through the glass of the car window. ‘You can’t keep asking for more; I don’t have it.’
Howie spoke far too quietly and Pip only heard the mumbled start and end of his sentence: ‘But . . . tell.’
Stanley rounded on him. ‘I don’t think you would dare.’
They stared into each other’s faces for a tense and lingering moment, then Stanley turned on his heels and walked quickly away, his coat flicking out behind him.
When he was gone Howie looked through the envelope in his hands before stuffing it in his coat. Pip took another few pictures of him with it in his hands. But Howie wasn’t going anywhere yet. He stood against the fence, tapping away at his phone again. Like he was waiting for someone else.
