Page 120 of Good Girl, Bad Blood

‘OK.’

‘Bye,’ she said, and it came out as barely a whisper as she left them, walking away down the corridor. But after three steps, something stopped her. The fragment of a thought, circling too fast for her to catch. And when it finally settled, she retraced those three steps back to Jamie’s door.

‘Jomumma?’ she said.

‘Yes.’ Joanna lifted her gaze back to Pip, like it was almost too heavy.

‘I mean . . . did you try Jomumma?’ ‘Pardon?’

‘For Jamie’s password, sorry,’ she said.

‘N-no,’ Joanna said, glancing at Connor, a horrified look in her eyes. ‘I thought when you said to try nicknames, you meant just nicknames we had for Jamie.’

‘That’s OK. It really could be anything,’ Pip said, making her way over to Jamie’s desk. ‘Can I sit?’

‘Of course.’ Joanna came to stand behind her, Connor on the other side, as Pip pulled open the laptop. The dead screen mirrored back their faces, over-stretching them into the faces of phantoms. Pip pressed the power button and brought up the blue log-in screen, that empty white password box staring her down.

She typed it in,Jomumma, the letters mutating into small black circles as they entered the box. She paused, finger hanging over the enter button as the room suddenly went too silent. Joanna and Connor were holding their breath.

She pressed it and immediately:

Incorrect Password.

Behind her, they both exhaled, someone’s breath ruffling her half-up hair.

‘Sorry,’ Pip said, not wanting to look back at them. ‘I thought it was worth a try.’ It had been, and maybe it was worth a few more, she thought.

She tried it again, replacing theowith a zero.

Incorrect Password.

She tried it with a one at the end. And then a two. And then a one, two, three, and a one, two, three, four. Swapping the zero andoin and out.

Incorrect Password.

Capital J. Lowercase j.

Capital M for the start of Mumma. Lowercase m.

Pip hung her head, sighing.

‘It’s OK.’ Connor placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘You tried. The experts will be able to do it, right?’

Yes, if they ever replied to her email. Clearly they hadn’t had time yet, which was all wrong because if anything, everyone else had all the time, and Pip had none. Jamie had none.

But giving up was too hard, she’d never been good at that. So she tried one last thing. ‘Joanna, what year were you born?’

‘Oh, sixty-six,’ she said. ‘Doubt Jamie knows that, though.’

Pip typed inJomumma66and pressed enter.

Incorrect Password. The screen mocked her, and she felt a flare of anger rise within her, itching in her hands to grab the machine and throw it against the wall. That hot, primal thing inside that she never knew existed before a year ago. Connor was saying her name, but it didn’t belong to this person sitting in the chair any more. But she controlled it, pushed it back. Biting her tongue, she tried again, fingers hammering the keys.

JoMumma66

Incorrect Password.

Fuck.