Page 238 of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

‘No, it’s OK,’ she said, ‘I have my car.’

She made Ravi get in the car with her; there was no way she’d let him drive home on his own – he was shaking too hard. And, secretly, she didn’t want to be alone either.

Pip turned the key in the ignition, catching sight of her face in the rear-view mirror before the lights dimmed. She looked gaunt and grey, her eyes glowing inside sunken shadows. She was tired. So unutterably tired.

‘I can finally tell my parents,’ Ravi said when they were back on the main road out of Wendover. ‘I don’t know how to even start.’

Her headlights lit up theWelcome to Little Kiltonsign, the letters thickening with side shadows as they moved past and crossed into town. Pip drove down the high street, heading towards Ravi’s house. She drew to a stop at the main roundabout. There was a car waiting on the cusp of the roundabout at the other side, its headlights a bright and piercing white. It was their right of way.

‘Why aren’t they moving?’ Pip said, staring at the dark boxy car ahead, lines of yellow light across its body from the street lamp above.

‘Don’t know,’ Ravi said. ‘You just go.’

She did, pulling forward slowly across the roundabout. The other car had still not moved. As they drew closer and out of the glare of the oncoming headlights, Pip’s foot eased up on the pedal as she looked curiously out of her window.

‘Oh shit,’ Ravi said.

It was the Bell family. All three of them. Jason was in the driver seat, his face red and striped with tear trails. It looked like he was shouting, smacking his hand against the steering wheel, his mouth moving with angry words. Dawn Bell was beside him, shrinking away. She was crying, her body heaving as she tried to breathe through the tears, her mouth bared in confused agony.

Their cars drew level and Pip saw Becca in the back seat on this side. Her face was pale, pushed up against the cold touch of the window. Her lips were parted and her brows furrowed, her eyes lost in some other place as she stared quietly ahead.

And as they passed Becca’s eyes snapped into life, landing on Pip. There was a flicker of recognition in them. And something heavy and urgent, something like dread.

They drove away down the street and Ravi let out his held breath.

‘You think they’ve been told?’ he said

‘Looks like they just have,’ said Pip. ‘The girl kept saying her name was Andie Bell. Maybe they have to go and formally identify that she isn’t.’

She looked into her rear-view mirror and watched as the Bells’ car finally rolled away across the roundabout, towards the snatched promise of a daughter returned.

Forty-Seven

Pip sat at the end of her parents’ bed well into the night. Her and the albatross on her shoulders and her story. The telling of it was almost as hard as the living of it.

The worst part was Cara. As the clock on her phone had ticked past 10:00 p.m., Pip knew she couldn’t avoid it any longer. Her thumb had hovered over the blue call button but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t say the words aloud and listen as her best friend’s world changed forever, as it turned dark and strange. Pip wished she was strong enough, but she’d learned that she wasn’t invincible; she too could break. She clicked over to messages and started to type.

I should be ringing to tell you this but I don’t think I could get through the telling, not with your little voice at the end of the line. This is the coward’s way out and I’m truly sorry. It was your dad, Cara. Your dad is the one who killed Sal Singh. He was keeping a girl he believed was Andie Bell in your old house in Wendover. He’s been arrested. Naomi will be safe, I give you my word. I know why he did it when you’re ready to hear it. I’m so sorry. I wish I could save you from this. I love you.

She’d read it over, in her parents’ bed, and pressed send, tears falling against the phone as she cradled it into her cupped hands.

Her mum made Pip breakfast when she finally woke at two in the afternoon; there’d been no question of her going into school. They didn’t talk about it again; there was nothing more to say, not yet. But still the question of Andie Bell played on Pip’s mind, how Andie had one last mystery left in her yet.

Pip tried to call Cara seventeen times but it rang out each time. Naomi’s phone too.

Later that afternoon, Leanne drove round to the Wards’ house after picking up Josh. She came back saying that no one was home and their car was gone.

‘They’ve probably gone to their auntie Lila’s,’ Pip said, pressing redial again.

Victor came home early from work. They all sat in the living room, watching old runs of quiz shows that would usually be punctuated by Pip and her dad racing to shout out the answer. But they watched silently, exchanging furtive looks over Josh’s head, the air bloated with a sad andwhat-nowtension.

When someone knocked at the front door Pip jumped up to escape the strangeness that smothered the room. In her tie-dye pyjamas she pulled open the door and the air stung her toes.

It was Ravi, standing in front of his parents, the spaces between them perfect like they’d pre-arranged the pose.

‘Hello, Sarge,’ Ravi said, smiling at her bright and garish pyjamas. ‘This is my mum, Nisha.’ He gestured like a game-show host and his mum smiled at Pip, her black hair in two loose plaits. ‘And my dad, Mohan.’ Mohan nodded and his chin tickled the top of the giant bouquet of flowers he held, a box of chocolates tucked under the other arm. ‘Parents,’ Ravi said, ‘this isthePip.’

Pip’s polite ‘Hello’ got muddled in with theirs.