Page 212 of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

‘Oh, nothing big. Their son had crashed his car into a tree in front of the house. Needed to file a police report for the insurance. Why?’

‘No reason,’ she said faux-nonchalantly. She could see Daniel’s feet starting to turn away from her. ‘Just one more thing I’m interested to know.’

‘Yep?’

‘You were one of the first responding officers when Andie Bell was reported missing. You conducted the primary search of the Bell residence.’

Daniel nodded, lines tightening around his eyes.

‘Was that not some sort of conflict of interest, seeing as you were so close to her father?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t. I’m a professional when I have this uniform on. And I have to say, I don’t really like where these questions are going. Excuse me.’ He shuffled a few inches away.

Just then, a woman appeared behind Daniel and stepped in beside him and Pip. She had long fair hair and a freckled nose, and a giant belly pushing out the front of her dress. She must have been at least seven months pregnant.

‘Well, hi,’ she said in a forced pleasant tone to Pip. ‘I’m Dan’s wife. How entirely unusual for me to catch him talking to a young girl. Must say you aren’t his usual type.’

‘Kim,’ Daniel said, placing his arm on her back, ‘come on.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Just some kid who came to the meeting. I don’t know.’ He led his wife away to the other side of the room.

At the library’s exit Pip took one more look over her shoulder. Daniel stood with his wife, talking to Mrs Faversham, deliberately not looking over at her. Pip pushed the door and went outside, huddling further into her khaki coat as the cold air enclosed her. Ravi was waiting for her just up the road, opposite the cafe.

‘You were right not to come in,’ she said when she arrived at his side. ‘He was pretty hostile to just me. And Stanley Forbes was there too.’

‘Lovely guy,’ Ravi said sarcastically, dipping his hands in his pockets to hide them from the bitter wind. ‘So you didn’t learn anything?’

‘Oh, I didn’t say that,’ Pip said, stepping in closer to him to shield herself from the wind. ‘He let one thing slip; don’t even know if he realized it.’

‘Stop pausing for dramatic effect.’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘He said he knew the Hastings, that he was the one who filed the police report when Max crashed his car into the tree by their house.’

‘Oh,’ Ravi’s lips opened around the sound. ‘So he . . . maybe he could have known about the hit-and-run?’

‘Maybe he could.’

Pip’s hands were so cold now that they started to curl into claws. She was about to suggest going back to hers when Ravi stiffened, his eyes fixed on a point behind her.

She turned.

Daniel da Silva and Stanley Forbes had just left the library, the door banging behind them. They were deep in hushed conversation, Daniel explaining something with gestured hands. Stanley’s head did a half-owl spin, checking around them and that’s when he spotted Pip and Ravi.

Stanley’s eyes cooled, and his gaze was a cold blast in the wind as it flicked between the two of them. Daniel looked over and stared, but his eyes were just on Pip, sharp and blistering.

Ravi took her hand. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

Thirty-Three

‘All right, puppuccino,’ Pip said to Barney, bending down to unclip the lead from his tartan collar. ‘Off you go.’

He looked up at her with his sloped and smiling eyes. And when she straightened up he was off, bounding up the muddy track ahead and winding between the trees in that forever-puppy way that he ran.

Her mum had been right; it was a little too late to be going out on a walk. The woods were darkening already, the sky a churned grey peeking through the gaps between the autumn-speckled trees. It was quarter to six already and her weather app told her that sunset was in two minutes. She wouldn’t stay out long; she just needed a quick jaunt to get her away from her workstation. She needed air. Needed space.

All day she had flitted between studying for her exam next week and staring hard at the names in her suspect list. She would stare for so long that her gaze went cross-eyed, drawing imaginary and thorny lines that budded from the letter-tips of one name to wrap round the others until the list was just a chaotic mess of swaddled names and tangled bonds.