Page 127 of Good Girl, Bad Blood

Pip tripped as they crossed from gravel on to grass, Ravi’s hand skimming hers instinctively, to pull her up. And as they neared, she saw the gathering of people, Cara’s team, a colourful spattering of clothes against the dull colours of the farmhouse and the long neglected land, strewn with high tufts of weedy grass that tried to grab her feet.

Everyone was standing in a loose formation, all eyes trained on the same place: a small cluster of trees by the side of the house, the branches grown so close to the building, like they were slowly reaching over to claim it as their own.

Cara was in front of the group, with Naomi, waving Pip over as she shouted over her shoulder for everyone to get back.

‘What is it?’ Pip said, breathless. ‘What did you find?’

‘It’s over there, in the long grass at the bottom of those trees.’ Naomi pointed.

‘It’s a knife,’ said Cara.

‘A knife?’ Pip repeated the words, her feet following her eyes over to the trees. And she knew. She knew before she even saw it, exactly which knife it would be.

Ravi was beside her as she bent down to look. And there it was, lying half concealed by the grass: a grey-bladed knife with a yellow band around the handle.

‘That’s the one missing from the Reynoldses’ kitchen, isn’t it?’ Ravi asked, but he didn’t need Pip to answer, her eyes told him enough.

She studied it through squinted eyes, not daring to get any closer. From here, a few feet away, the knife looked clean. Maybe a few flecks of dirt, but no blood. Not enough to be seen, at least. She sniffed, pulling out her phone to take a photo of it where it lay, then she drew back, beckoning Ravi to come with her.

‘OK,’ she said, the panic hardening into something like dread. But Pip could control dread, use it. ‘Cara, can you call Connor, tell him to let everyone on his team go and come over here, right now.’

‘On it,’ she said, the phone already halfway up to her ear.

‘Naomi, when Cara’s done, can you tell her to call Zach to dismiss my search team as well?’

She and Ravi had left their team in the care of Zach and Stella Chapman. But they wouldn’t find anything out there in the woods, because Jamie had come here. Jamie was here, carrying a knife he must have taken from his house. Here, at the outer limit of their search zone, which meant that Jamie’s brief stop had been somewhere else, before he’d walked to the farmhouse. And here, right here at 12:28 a.m., his Fitbit stopped recording his heart rate and step count. And there was a knife.

A knife was evidence. And evidence had to be dealt with in the proper way, without breaking the chain of custody. No one here had touched the knife, and no one would, not until the police got here.

Pip dialled the number of the police station in Amersham. She walked away from the gathering, plugging her other ear against the wind.

‘Hello Eliza,’ she said. ‘Yes, it’s Pip Fitz-Amobi. Yep. Is anyone in at the station? Uh-huh. Could you do me a favour and ask anyone who’s free to come over to the farmhouse on Sycamore Road in Kilton? Yes that’s where Andie B— No, this is about an open missing persons case. Jamie Reynolds. I’ve found a knife that’s connected to his case, and it needs to be collected and documented properly as evidence. I know I’m supposed to call the other number . . . could you just, this one favour, Eliza, I swear, just this once.’ She paused, listening down the other end. ‘Thank you, thank you.’

‘Fifteen minutes,’ she said, rejoining Ravi. They might as well use those fifteen minutes, start trying to work out why Jamie might have come here.

‘Can you keep everyone back from those trees?’ she asked Naomi.

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘Come on.’ Pip led Ravi towards the farmhouse entrance, the red-painted front door dangling off its hinges, like a mouth hanging open.

They stepped through and the inside of the house wrapped them up in its dim light. The windows were fogged over by moss and grime, and the old carpet crunched under their feet, covered in stains. It even smelled abandoned in here: mildew and must and dust.

‘When do we move in?’ Ravi said, looking around in disgust.

‘Like your bedroom is much better than this.’

They continued down the hallway, the old blue faded wallpaper peeling off and away in rolls that exposed the white underside, like small waves breaking up against the walls. An archway opened into a large space that once must have been a living room. There was a staircase on the far side, yellowing and peeling. Windows with limp, sun-bleached curtains that might have been floral-patterned in another life. Two old red sofas in the middle, brushed with grey, clinging dust.

As Pip stepped closer, she noticed there was a break in the dust against one of the sofa cushions: a clearer circular patch of the red material. Like someone had sat here. Recently.

‘Look.’ Ravi drew her attention up to the centre of the room, where there were three small metal bins, upturned into stools. Scattered around them were food wrappers: digestive biscuits, crisp packets, empty tubs of Pringles. Discarded bottles of beer and butts of hand-rolled cigarettes.

‘Maybe not so abandoned after all,’ Ravi said, bending to pick up one of the butts, raising it to his nose. ‘Smells like weed.’

‘Great, and now you’ve put your prints on it, if this is a crime scene.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ he said and gritted his teeth, a guilty look in his eyes. ‘Maybe I’ll just take this one home with me to dispose of.’ He pocketed it and straightened up.