A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, page 27
She spent most of the day working silently through past papers for the ELAT exam, trying to push everything else out of her head. She practised, creating brain-scribed essays in her head while pretending to listen to Mr Ward in history and Miss Welsh in politics. Mrs Morgan cornered her in the corridor, her pudgy face stern as she listed the reasons why it wasn’t really possible to change an EPQ title this late. Pip just mumbled, ‘OK,’ and drifted away, hearing Mrs Morgan tut, ‘Teenagers,’ under her breath.
As soon as she got home from school, she went straight to her workstation and opened up Ravi’s laptop. She would revise more later, after dinner and into the night, even though her eyes were already set inside dark planetary rings. Her mum thought she wasn’t sleeping because of Barney. But she wasn’t sleeping because there wasn’t time to.
Pip opened the browser and pulled up the TripAdvisor page for the Ivy House Hotel. This was her designated lead; Ravi was working on the phone number scribble from the planner. Pip had already messaged some Ivy House reviewers who’d posted around March and April 2012, asking if they remembered seeing a blonde girl at the hotel. But no responses yet.
Next she navigated to the website that had actually processed the bookings for the hotel. On the contact us page, she found their phone number and the friendly adage: Call us anytime! Perhaps she could pretend to be a relative of the old woman who owned the hotel and see whether she could access their old booking information. Probably not, but she had to try. Secret Older Guy’s identity could be at the end of this line.
She unlocked her mobile and clicked on to the phone app. It opened on her recent calls list. She pressed over to the keypad and started to type in the company’s number. Then her thumbs slackened and stopped. She stared down at them, her head whirring as the thought overturned and became conscious.
‘Wait,’ she said aloud, thumbing back on to her recent calls list.
She gazed at the entry right at the top, from when Naomi called her yesterday. On her temporary number. Pip’s eyes traced the digits, a feeling both dreadful and strange curdling in her chest.
She jumped out of her chair so fast that it whirled and crashed into the desk. With her phone in hand she dropped to her knees and pulled the murder board out from its hiding place under her bed. Her eyes darted straight to the Andie section, and to the trajectory of printed pages around her smiling face.
She found it. The page from Andie’s school planner. The scribbled-out phone number and her log entry beside it. She held out her phone, looking from Naomi’s temporary number to the scribble.
07700900476
It wasn’t one of the twelve combinations she had written out. But it very nearly was. She’d thought that the third last digit had to be a 7 or a 9. But what if that was just a loopy scribble? What if it was really a 4?
She slumped back on the floor. There was no way to be absolutely certain, no way to unscribble the number and see it for what it was. But it would be one unbelievable pigs-flying hell-freezing-over coincidence if Naomi’s old SIM just happened to have a number that similar to the one Andie wrote in her planner. It had to be the same number, just had to.
And what did this mean, if anything? Wasn’t this now an irrelevant lead, just Andie copying down the phone number of her boyfriend’s best friend? The number was unrelated and could be discarded as a clue.
Then why did she have that sinking feeling in her gut?
Because if Max was a strong contender, then Naomi was even more so. Naomi knew about the hit-and-run. Naomi had access to the phone numbers of Max, Millie and Jake. Naomi had Pip’s number. Naomi could have left Max’s house while Millie slept and intercepted Andie before 12:45. Naomi had been the closest to Sal. Naomi knew where Pip and Cara were camping in the woods. Naomi knew which woods Pip walked Barney in, the same ones Sal died in.
Naomi already had a lot to lose because of the truths Pip had uncovered. But what if there was even more to it than that? What if she was involved in Andie and Sal’s deaths?
Pip was getting ahead of herself, her tired brain running off and tripping her up. It was just a phone number Andie wrote down; it didn’t tie Naomi to anything else. But there was something that could she realized when she caught up with her brain.
Since taking Naomi off the Persons of Interest list, she’d received another printed note from the killer: the one in her locker. At the start of term, Pip had set up Cara’s laptop to record everything that came through the Wards’ printer.
If Naomi was involved in this, Pip now had a sure way to find out.
Thirty-Nine
Naomi had a knife and Pip stepped back.
‘Be careful,’ she said.
‘Oh no!’ Naomi shook her head. ‘The eyes are uneven.’
She spun the pumpkin round so Pip and Cara could see its face.
‘Looks a bit like Trump,’ Cara cackled.
‘It’s supposed to be an evil cat.’ Naomi placed her knife down next to the bowl of pumpkin innards.
‘Don’t give up the day job,’ Cara said, wiping pumpkin goo from her hands and sauntering over to the cupboard.
‘I don’t have a day job.’
‘Oh, for god’s sake,’ Cara grumbled, on tiptoes looking through the cupboard. ‘Where have those two packets of biscuits gone? I was literally with Dad two days ago when we bought them.’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t eaten them.’ Naomi came over to admire Pip’s pumpkin. ‘What on earth is yours, Pip?’
‘Sauron’s eye,’ she said quietly.
‘Or a vagina on fire,’ Cara said, grabbing a banana instead.
‘Now that is scary,’ Naomi laughed.
No, this was.
Naomi had had the pumpkins and knives laid out and ready for when Cara and Pip got in from school. Pip hadn’t had a chance to sneak off yet.
‘Naomi,’ she said, ‘thanks for ringing me the other day. I got that email from your friend’s cousin about the Cambridge exam. It was very helpful.’
‘Oh good,’ she smiled. ‘No worries.’
‘So when will your phone be fixed?’
‘Tomorrow actually, the shop says. It’s taken bloody long enough.’
Pip nodded, tensing her chin in what she hoped was a sympathetic look. ‘Well, at least you had your old phone with a SIM that still worked. Lucky you held on to them.’
‘Well, lucky Dad had a spare pay-as-you-go micro SIM kicking around. And bonus: eighteen pounds credit on it. There was just an expired contract one in my phone.’
The knife almost fell from Pip’s hand. A climbing hum in her ears.
‘Your dad’s SIM card?’
‘Yeah,’ Naomi said, scoring the knife along her pumpkin face, her tongue out as she concentrated. ‘Cara found it in his desk. At the bottom of his bits and bobs drawer. You know that drawer every family has, full of old useless chargers and foreign currency and stuff.’
The hum split into a ringing sound, shrieking and shrieking and stuffing her head. She felt sick, the back of her throat filling with a metallic taste.
Elliot’s SIM card.
Elliot’s old phone number scribbled out in Andie’s planner.
Andie calling Mr Ward an arsehole to her friends the week she disappeared.
Elliot.
‘You OK, Pip?’ Cara asked as she dropped the lit candle into her pumpkin and it glowed into life.
‘Yeah.’ Pip nodded too hard. ‘I’m just, um . . . just hungry.’
‘Well, I would offer you a biscuit, but they seem to have disappeared, as always. Toast?’
‘Err . . . no thanks.’
‘I feed you because I love you,’ Cara said.
Pip’s mouth filled, all tacky and sickly. No, it might not mean what she was thinking. Maybe Elliot was just offering to tutor Andie and that’s why she wrote his number down. Maybe. It couldn’t be him. She needed to calm down, try to breathe. This wasn’t proof of anything.
But she had a way to find proof.
‘I think we should have spooky Halloween music on while we do this,’ Pip said. ‘Cara, can I go get your laptop?’
‘Yeah, it’s on my bed.’
Pip closed the kitchen door behind her.
She raced up the stairs and into Cara’s room. With the laptop tucked under her arm she crept back downstairs, her heart thudding, fighting to be louder than the ringing in her ears.
She slipped into Elliot’s study and gently closed the door, staring for a moment at the printer on Elliot’s desk. The rainbow-coloured people from Isobel Ward’s paintings watched her as she put Cara’s laptop down on the oxblood leather chair and pulled open the lid, kneeling on the floor before it.
When it awoke she clicked on to the control panel and into Devices and Printers. Hovering the mouse over Freddie Prints Jr, she right-clicked and, holding her breath, clicked the top item in the drop-down menu: See what’s printing.
A small blue-bordered box popped up. Inside was a table with six columns: Document Name, Status, Owner, Pages, Size and Date Submitted.
It was filled with entries. One yesterday from Cara called Personal Statement second draft. One a few days ago from Elliot Comp: Gluten free cookies recipe. Several in a row from Naomi: CV 2017, Charity Job application, Cover letter, Cover letter 2.
The note was put in Pip’s locker on Friday the 20th October. With her eyes on the Date Submitted column, she scrolled down.
Her fingers drew up. On the 19th October at twenty to midnight, Elliot Comp had printed Microsoft Word – Document 1.
An unnamed, unsaved document.
Her fingers left sweaty tracks on the mousepad as she right-clicked on the document. Another small drop-down menu appeared. Her heart in her throat, she bit down on her tongue and clicked the Restart option.
The printer clacked behind her and she flinched.
Pivoting on the balls of her feet, she turned as it hissed, sucking in the top piece of paper.
She straightened up as it started to sputt-sputt-sputt the page through.
She moved towards it, a step between each sputt.
The paper started to push through, a glimpse of fresh black ink, upside down.
The printer finished and spat it out.
Pip reached for it.
She turned it round.
This is your final warning, Pippa. Walk away.
Forty
Words left her.
She stared down at the paper and shook her head.
It was something primal and wordless, the feeling that took her. Numb rage blackened with terror. And a betrayal that gored through every part of her.
She staggered back and looked away, out of the darkening window.
Elliot Ward was Unknown.
Elliot was the killer. Andie’s killer. Sal’s. Barney’s.
She watched the half-deadened trees beckoning in the wind. And in her reflection in the glass she recreated the scene. Her bumping into Mr Ward in the history classroom, the note gliding to the floor. This note, the one he’d left for her. His deceitful kind face as he asked whether she was being bullied. Cara dropping round cookies she and Elliot had baked to cheer up the Amobis about their dead dog.
Lies. All lies. Elliot, the man she’d grown up looking to as another father figure. The man who’d made elaborate scavenger hunts for them in the garden. The man who bought Pip matching bear-claw slippers to wear at their house. The man who told knock-knock jokes with an easy high laugh. And he was the murderer. A wolf in the pastel shirts and thick-rimmed glasses of a sheep.
She heard Cara call her name.
She folded the page and slipped it in her blazer pocket.
‘You’ve been ages,’ Cara said as Pip pushed open the door to the kitchen.
‘Toilet,’ she said, placing the laptop down in front of Cara. ‘Listen, I’m not feeling so great. And I should really be studying for my exam; it’s in two days. I think I’m going to head off.’
‘Oh,’ Cara frowned. ‘But Lauren’s gonna be here soon and I wanted us all to watch Blair Witch. Dad even agreed and we can all laugh at him ’cause he’s such a wimp with scary films.’
‘Where is your dad?’ Pip said. ‘Tutoring?’
‘How often are you here? You know tutoring is Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Think he just had to stay late at school.’
‘Oh yeah, sorry, the days are blurring.’ She paused, thinking. ‘I’ve always wondered why your dad does tutoring; surely he doesn’t need the money.’
‘Why,’ Cara said, ‘because my mum’s side of the family are minted?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I think he just enjoys it,’ Naomi said, placing a lit tea light through the mouth of her pumpkin. ‘He’d probably be willing to pay his tutees just to let him garble on about history.’
‘I can’t remember when he started,’ Pip said.
‘Um.’ Naomi looked up to think. ‘He started just before I was about to leave for university, I think.’
‘So, just over five years ago?’
‘Think so,’ Naomi said. ‘Why don’t you ask him? His car’s just pulled up.’
Pip stiffened, a million bumps flaring up out of her skin.
‘OK, well, I’m going to head off now anyway. Sorry.’ She grabbed her rucksack, watching the headlights flick off to darkness through the window.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Cara said, concern lining around her eyes, ‘I get it. Maybe you and I can redo Halloween when you have less on?’
‘Yeah.’
A key scraping. The back door shoved open. Footsteps crossing the utility room.
Elliot appeared in the doorway. The lenses in his glasses steamed up around the edges as he entered the warm room, smiling at the three of them. He placed his briefcase and a plastic bag down on the counter.
‘Hello, all,’ he said. ‘Gosh, teachers do love the sound of their own voices. Longest meeting of my life.’
Pip forced a laugh.
‘Wow, look at these pumpkins,’ he said, eyes flicking between them, a wide smile splitting his face. ‘Pip, are you here for dinner? I’ve just picked up some spooky Halloween potato shapes.’
He held up the frozen packet and waved it, singing a haunted ghost-like howl.
Forty-One
She got home just as her parents were leaving to take a Harry-Pottered Josh out trick-or-treating.
‘Come with us, pickle,’ Victor said as Leanne zipped him into his Ghostbusters Stay Puft Marshmallow Man costume.
‘I should stay in and study,’ she said. ‘And deal with any trick-or-treaters.’
‘Can’t give yourself the night off?’ Leanne asked.
‘Can’t. Sorry.’
‘OK, sweetie. The sweeties are by the door.’ Her mum giggled at her own joke.
‘Got it. See you later.’
Josh stepped outside waving his wand and shouting, ‘Accio candy.’
Victor grabbed his marshmallow head and followed. Leanne paused to kiss the top of Pip’s head and then closed the door behind them.
Pip watched through the glass pane in the front door. When they reached the end of the drive, she pulled out her phone and texted Ravi: COME TO MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW!
He stared down at the mug clasped between his fingers.
‘Mr Ward.’ He shook his head. ‘It can’t be.’
‘It can, though,’ Pip said, her knee rattling against the underside of the table. ‘He doesn’t have an alibi for the night Andie disappeared. I know he doesn’t. One of his daughters was at Max’s house all night and the other one was sleeping round mine.’
Ravi exhaled and it rippled through the surface of his milky tea. It must have been cold by now, like hers.
‘And he has no alibi for the Tuesday when Sal died,’ she said. ‘He called in sick to work that day; he told me himself.’
‘But Sal loved Mr Ward,’ Ravi said in the smallest voice she’d ever heard from him.
‘I know.’
The table suddenly seemed very wide between them.
‘So is he the secret older man Andie was seeing?’ Ravi said after a while. ‘The one she was meeting at the Ivy House?’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Andie spoke of ruining this person; Elliot was a teacher in a position of trust. He would have been in a lot of trouble if she told someone about them. Criminal charges, jail time.’ She looked down at her own untouched tea and the shaky reflection of herself in it. ‘Andie called Elliot an arsehole to her friends in the days before she went missing. Elliot said it was because he found out Andie was a bully and contacted her father about the topless video. Maybe that’s not what it was about.’
‘How did he find out about the hit-and-run? Did Naomi tell him?’
‘I don’t think so. She said she’s never told anyone. I don’t know how he knew.’
‘There are still some gaps here,’ Ravi said.
‘I know. But he’s the one who threatened me and killed Barney. It’s him, Ravi.’
‘OK.’ Ravi locked his wide and drained eyes on hers. ‘So how do we prove it?’
Pip moved her mug away and leaned on the table. ‘Elliot tutors three times a week,’ she said. ‘I’d never really thought it was weird until tonight. The Wards don’t need to worry about money; his wife’s life insurance paid out a lot and Isobel’s parents are still alive and are super rich. Plus Elliot is head of department at school; he’s probably on a really good salary. He only started tutoring just over five years ago, in 2012.’
‘OK?’
‘So what if he’s not tutoring three times a week?’ she said. ‘What if he . . . I don’t know, goes to the place where he buried Andie? Visiting her grave as some kind of penance?’
Ravi pulled a face, lines of doubt crossing his forehead and nose. ‘Not three times every week.’
‘Yeah OK,’ she conceded. ‘Well, what if he’s visiting . . . her ?’ She only thought it for the first time as the word formed in her throat. ‘What if Andie is alive and he’s keeping her somewhere? And he goes to see her three times a week.’
