Page 231 of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

‘But –’

‘No buts, Sarge.’ He stared at her, his eyes suddenly sharp. ‘Mr Ward has already ruined too many lives. He’s not ruining yours as well. OK?’

‘OK,’ she said quietly.

‘Good.’ He took her hand, pulled her off the bed and into her chair. He wheeled her over to the desk and put a pen in her hand. ‘You are going to forget about Andie Bell and Sal for the next eighteen hours. And I want you in bed and sleeping by ten thirty.’

She looked up at Ravi, at his kind eyes and his serious face, and she didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to feel. She was on a high cliff edge somewhere between laughing and crying and screaming.

Forty-Three

The following poems and extracts from longer texts all offer representations of guilt. They are arranged chronologically by date of publication. Read all the material carefully, and then complete the task below.

The ticking of the clock was a snare-drum echo in her head. She opened her answer booklet and looked up one last time. The exam invigilator was sitting with his feet up on a table, his face stuck into a paperback with a craggy spine. Pip was on a small and wobbling desk in the middle of an empty classroom made for thirty. And three minutes had already ticked by.

She looked down, brain talking to block out the sound of the clock, and pressed her pen on to the page.

When the invigilator called stop, Pip had already been finished for forty-nine seconds, her eyes following the second hand of the clock as it strutted on in a near-complete circle. She closed the booklet and handed it to the man on her way out.

She’d written about how certain texts manipulate the placing of blame by using the passive voice during the character’s guilty act. She’d had almost seven hours’ sleep and she thought she’d done OK.

It was nearly lunchtime and, turning into the next corridor, she heard Cara calling her name.

‘Pip!’

She remembered only at the last second to put the limp back into her tread.

‘How did it go?’ Cara caught up with her.

‘Yeah, fine I think.’

‘Yay, you’re free,’ she said, waving Pip’s arm in celebration for her. ‘How’s your ankle?’

‘Not too bad. Think it’ll be better by tomorrow.’

‘Oh, and,’ Cara said, shuffling around in her pocket, ‘you were right.’ She pulled out Pip’s phone. ‘Youhadsomehow left it in Dad’s car. It was wedged under the back seat.’

Pip took it. ‘Oh, don’t know how that happened.’

‘We should celebrate your freedom,’ Cara said. ‘I can invite everyone round mine tomorrow and have a game night or something?’

‘Yeah, maybe.’

Pip waited and when there was finally a lull she said, ‘Hey, you know my mum’s doing a viewing of a house in Mill End Road in Wendover today. Isn’t that where you used to live?’

‘Yeah,’ Cara said. ‘How funny.’

‘Number forty-four.’

‘Oh, we were forty-two.’

‘Does your dad still go there?’ Pip asked, her voice flat and disinterested.

‘No, he sold it ages ago,’ Cara said. ‘They kept it when we moved because Mum had just got a huge inheritance from her grandma. They rented it out for extra income while Mum did her painting. But Dad sold it a couple of years after Mum died, I think.’

Pip nodded. Clearly Elliot had been telling lies for a long time. Over five years, in fact.

She sleepwalked through lunch. And when it was over and Cara was heading off the other way, Pip limped up and hugged her.