Page 103 of Good Girl, Bad Blood

‘I don’t know him, and I only saw his picture in theKilton Mailtoday, but that’s Jamie Reynolds, isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ Pip said, her throat constricting again. ‘What’s he doing?’

‘Well, if you look to the window on the left, that’s the one in here, this room,’ Charlie pointed to it on screen. ‘I must have had it open during the day, for a breeze, and maybe I thought I closed it properly. But look, it’s still open, just a couple of inches from the bottom.’

As he said that, the green Jamie on screen noticed it too, bending down in front of it and creeping his fingers in under the gap. You couldn’t see the back of his head; he had a dark hood pulled up over his hair. Pip watched Jamie pull at the window, sliding it up until the gap was large enough.

‘What’s he doing?’ Ravi asked, leaning closer to the screen too, the flapjack a thing of the past. ‘Is he breaking in?’

The question become redundant a half second later as Jamie lowered his head and climbed through the window, slipping his legs in behind him, leaving just an empty dark green opening into the house.

‘He’s only in the house for a total of forty-one seconds,’ Charlie said, skipping the video to the point where Jamie’s lighter green head re-emerged at the window. He dragged himself outside, landing on one unsteady foot. But he looked the same as before he’d gone in: still scared, nothing in his hands. He turned back to the window, leaning into his elbows as he pushed it closed, right down to the sill. And then he walked away from the house, his steps breaking into a run as he reached the gate and disappeared into the engulfing all-green night.

‘Oh,’ Pip and Ravi said together.

‘We only found this yesterday,’ Charlie said. ‘And we discussed it. It’s my fault for leaving the window open. And we’re not going to go to the police and press charges or anything, seems like this Jamie guy has enough on his plate as it is. And what he took, well, what wethinkhe took, it wasn’t that valuable, only sentimental value, so –’

‘What did he take?’ Pip asked, her eyes flicking to Flora, instinct pulling her gaze to the empty spaces at Flora’s wrists. ‘What did Jamie steal from you?’

‘My watch,’ Flora said, putting the box of flapjacks down. ‘I remember leaving it in here the weekend before last, because it kept catching on the book I was reading. I haven’t seen it since. And it’s the only thing missing.’

‘Is this watch rose gold with light pink leather straps, metal flowers on one side?’ Pip asked, and immediately Charlie and Flora’s eyes snapped to each other in alarm.

‘Yes,’ Flora said. ‘Yes, that’s exactly it. It wasn’t that expensive, but Charlie bought it for our first Christmas together. How did you . . .’

‘I’ve seen your watch,’ Pip said. ‘It’s in Jamie Reynolds’ bedroom.’

‘O-oh,’ Charlie stuttered.

‘I can make sure it’s returned to you, right away.’

‘That would be great, but no rush,’ Flora smiled kindly. ‘I know you must be very busy.’

‘But the strange thing is –’ Charlie crossed the room, past a watchful Ravi, over to the window Jamie had climbed through just a week ago – ‘why did he take only the watch? It’s clearly not expensive. And I leave my wallet in this room, with cash in. There’s my computer equipment too, none of that is cheap. Why did Jamie ignore all the rest of that? Why just a watch that’s almost worthless? In and out in forty seconds and just the watch?’

‘I don’t know, that is strange,’ Pip said. ‘I can’t explain it. I’m so sorry, this . . .’ she cleared her throat, ‘this isn’t the Jamie I know.’

Charlie’s eyes fell to the bottom ledge of the window, where Jamie’s fingers had snuck through. ‘Some people are pretty good at hiding who they really are.’

Pip:

There’s one inescapable thing that haunts me in this case, something I didn’t have to face last time. And that’s time itself. As it passes, every minute and every hour, the chances of Jamie returning home safe and well get slimmer and slimmer. That’s what the statistics say. By the time I’ve uploaded this episode and you’re listening to it, we will have passed another important deadline: the seventy-two-hour mark from when Jamie was last seen. In normal police procedure, while investigating ahigh-riskmissing persons case, the seventy-two-hour mark is a line in the sand, after which they quietly accept that they might not be looking for a person any more, but a body. Time is in charge here, not me, and that’s terrifying.

But I have to believe Jamie is OK, that we still have time to find him. Probability is just that: probable. Nothing is certain. And I’m closer than I was yesterday, finding the dots and connecting them. I think everything is linked. And if that’s true, then it all comes back to one person: Layla Mead. A person who doesn’t really exist.

Join us next time.