Page 173 of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

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.’

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 onlyJoe-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.