Page 241 of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

The pieces dropped and fell in a line.

From the murder board she grabbed all the relevant pages. Log entry 3: the interview with Stanley Forbes. Entry 10: the first interview with Emma Hutton. Entry 20: the interview with Jess Walker about the Bells. 21 about Max buying drugs from Andie. 23 about Howie and what he supplied her with. Entry 28 and 29 about drink spiking at calamities. The paper on which Ravi had written:who could have taken the burner phone???in large, capital letters. And the time Elliot said Andie left his house.

She looked them over and she knew who it was.

The killer had a face and a name.

The last person to see Andie alive.

But there was just one last thing to confirm. Pip pulled out her phone, scrolled down her contacts and dialled the number.

‘Hello?’

‘Max?’ she said. ‘I’m going to ask you a question.’

‘I’m not interested. See, you were wrong about me. I’ve heard what happened, that it was Mr Ward.’

‘Good,’ Pip said, ‘then you know that right now I have a lot of credibility with the police. I told Mr Ward to cover up the hit-and-run, but if you don’t answer my question, I will ring the police now and tell them everything.’

‘You wouldn’t.’

‘I will. Naomi’s life is already destroyed; don’t think that will stop me any more,’ she bluffed.

‘What do you want?’ he spat.

Pip paused. She put the phone on speaker and scrolled to her recording app. She pressed the red record button and sniffed loudly to hide the beep.

‘Max, at a calamity party in March 2012,’ she said, ‘did you drug and rape Becca Bell?’

‘What? No, I fucking didn’t.’

‘MAX,’ Pip roared down the phone, ‘do not lie to me or I swear to god I will ruin you! Did you put Rohypnol in Becca’s drink and have sex with her?’

He coughed.

‘Yes, but, like . . . it wasn’t rape. She didn’t say no.’

‘Because you drugged her, you vile rapist gargoyle,’ Pip shouted. ‘You have no idea what you’ve done.’

She hung up, stopped the recording and pressed the lock button. Her sharp eyes encased in the darkened screen stared right back into her.

The last person to see Andie alive? It had been Becca. It had always been Becca.

Pip’s eyes blinked back at her and the decision was made.

Forty-Nine

The car jerked as Pip pulled roughly on to the kerb. She stepped out into the darkened street and up to the front door.

She knocked.

The wind chimes beside it were swaying and singing in the evening breeze, high and insistent.

The front door opened and Becca’s face appeared in the crack. She looked at Pip and pulled it fully open.

‘Oh, hi, Pippa,’ she said.

‘Hi, Becca. I’m . . . I came to see if you were OK, after Thursday night. I saw you in the car and –’