Page 151 of Good Girl, Bad Blood

‘Why does that matter?’

‘It matters,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry.’ Ravi tried to hold her eyes but her gaze kept slipping away. ‘If there was anything I could do to change it, I would. Anything. But there’s nothing we can do now. And you getting suspended because you’re so angry about Max . . . he’s not worth any of that.’

‘So he just wins?’

‘No, I . . .’ Ravi abandoned his sentence, stepping over to her, his arms out to pull her in and wrap her up. And maybe it was because Max’s angled face flashed into her head, or maybe she didn’t want Ravi to get too close to the after-scream still thrumming inside her, but she pulled away from him.

‘Wha—’ His arms fell back to his sides, his eyes darkening, deepening. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘So, what is it, you just want to hate the whole world right now, including me?’

‘Maybe,’ she said.

‘Pip –’

‘Well, what’s the point?’ Her voice snagged against her dried out throat. ‘What was the point in everything we did last year? I thought I was doing it for the truth. But guess what? The truth doesn’t matter. It doesn’t! Max Hastings is innocent and I’m a liar and Jamie Reynolds isn’t missing.That’sthe truth now.’ Her eyes filled. ‘What if I can’t save him? What if I’m not good enough to save him? I’m not good, Ravi, I –’

‘We will find him,’ Ravi said.

‘Ineedto.’

‘And you think I don’t?’ he said. ‘I might not know him like you do, and I can’t explain it, but I need Jamie to be OK. He knew my brother, was friends with him and Andie at school. It’s like it’s happening all over again six years later, and this time I actually have a chance, a small chance, to help to save Connor’s brother where I had no hope of saving my own. I know Jamie isn’t Sal, but this feels like some kind of second chance for me. You aren’t on your own here, so stop pushing people away. Stop pushing me away.’

Her hands gripped the desk, bones pushing through her skin. He needed to get away from her, in case she couldn’t control it again. The scream. ‘I just want to be alone.’

‘Fine,’ Ravi said, scratching the phantom itch at the back of his head. ‘I’ll go. I know you’re only lashing out because you’re angry. I’m angry too. And you don’t mean it, you know you don’t mean it.’ He sighed. ‘Let me know when you remember who I am. Who you are.’

Ravi moved over to the door, his hand stalling in the air before it, head slightly cocked. ‘I love you,’ he said angrily, not looking at her. He slammed the handle down and walked out, the door juddering behind him.

Thirty-Two

Makes me sick.

That’s what the text said. From Naomi Ward.

Pip sat up on her bed, clicking on to the photo Naomi sent with the message.

It was a screenshot, from Facebook. A post from Nancy Tangotits: the name of Max Hastings’ profile. A photo, of Max, his mum and dad and his lawyer, Christopher Epps. They were gathered around a table in a lavish-looking restaurant, white pillars and a giant powder-blue bird cage in the background. Max was holding up the phone to get them all in the frame. And they were smiling, all of them, glasses of champagne in their hands.

He’d tagged them in at The Savoy Hotel in London, and the caption above read:celebrating. . .

The room immediately started to shrink, closing in around Pip. The walls took an inward step and the shadows in the corners stretched out to take her. She couldn’t be here. She needed to get out before she suffocated inside this room.

She stumbled out of her door, phone in hand, tiptoeing past Josh’s room to the stairs. He was already in bed, but he’d come in to see her earlier, with a whispered, ‘Thought you might be hungry,’ leaving her a packet of Pom-Bears he’d smuggled from the kitchen. ‘Shhh, don’t tell Mum and Dad.’

Pip could hear the sounds of her parents watching television in the living room, waiting for their programme to start at nine. They were talking, a muffled drone through the door, but she could hear one word clearly: her own name.

Quietly, she stepped into her trainers, scooped up her keys from the side, and slipped out of the front door, shutting it silently behind her.

It was raining, hard, spattering against the ground and up against her ankles. That was fine, that was OK. She needed to get out, clear her head. And maybe the rain would help, water down the rage until she was no longer ablaze, just the charred parts left behind.

She ran across the road, into the woods on the other side. It was dark here, pitch dark, but it covered her from the worst of the rain. And that was fine too, until something unseen rustled through the undergrowth and scared her. She returned to the road, safe along the moonlit pavement, soaked through. She should have felt cold – she was shivering – but she couldn’t really feel it. And she didn’t know where to go. She just wanted to walk, to be outside where nothing could shut her in. So she walked, up to the end of Martinsend Way and back, stopping before she reached her house, turning and walking the road again. Up and down and back again, chasing her thoughts, trying to unravel their ends.

Her hair was dripping by her third time coming back. She stopped dead. There was movement. Someone walking down the front path of Zach’s house. But it wasn’t Zach’s house, not any more. The figure was Charlie Green, carrying a filled black sack towards the bin left out near the path.