Page 56 of Good Girl, Bad Blood

Stephen picked up on the fourth ring, a confused sounding ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Stephen,’ Pip said. ‘It’s Pip. Fitz-Amobi.’

‘Oh hey,’ Stephen said, his tone changing. Softer and deeper.

Pip rolled her eyes at Cara.

‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the posters around town –’

‘Oh, my mum actually just mentioned seeing those. Complained about them being “unsightly”.’ He made a sound Pip could only describe as a guffaw. ‘They something to do with you?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, in as bright a voice as she could muster. ‘So you know Connor Reynolds in our year? Well, his older brother, Jamie, went missing on Friday night and everyone’s really worried.’

‘Shit,’ Stephen said.

‘You hosted a calamity party at your house on Friday night, didn’t you?’

‘Were you here?’ Stephen asked.

‘Unfortunately not,’ Pip said. Well, she’d been to the outside, to pick up a drunken, sobbing Cara. ‘But there are rumours that Jamie Reynolds was at the party, and I wondered if you remembered seeing him there? Or heard anyone else say they did?’

‘Are you doing, like, a new investigate-y thing?’ he asked.

She ignored the question. ‘Jamie’s twenty-four, he’s about five nine, has dark blonde almost-brown hair and blue eyes. He was –’

‘Yeah,’ Stephen cut her off. ‘Think I might have seen him there. I remember walking past some guy I didn’t know in the living room. He looked a bit older, I presumed he was with one of the girls. Wearing a shirt, a dark red shirt.’

‘Yes.’ Pip sat up straighter, nodding at Cara. ‘That sounds like Jamie. I’m sending a photo to your phone now, can you confirm that’s who you saw?’ Pip lowered her phone to find Jamie’s photo, the one from the poster, and sent it to Stephen.

‘That’s him.’ Stephen’s voice was a little distant through the speaker as he held his phone up to look at the screen.

‘Do you remember what time you saw him?’

‘Ah, not really,’ he said. ‘I think it was early on, maybe nine, ten-ish, but I’m not sure. Only saw him that one time.’

‘What was he doing?’ asked Pip. ‘Was he talking to anyone? Drinking?’

‘No, didn’t see him talking to anyone. Don’t think he had a drink in his hand either. Think he was just standing there, watching. Kinda creepy when you think about it.’

Pip felt like reminding Stephen that he was one to talk about creepy. But she held her tongue. ‘What time did people turn up to your house? The memorial finished around half eight, did most people go straight to yours?’

‘Yeah. I live, like, less than ten minutes away, so most people walked straight from the common. So, you said you’re, like, investigating again, right? Is this to go on your podcast? Because,’ Stephen lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘well, my mum doesn’t know I had a party; she was away on a spa weekend. I blamed the smashed vases and drink stains on our dog. And the party got shut down by the police at, like, one; a neighbour must have called in a noise complaint. But I don’t want my mum to find out about the party, so could you not –’

‘Which police officer came to shut it down?’ Pip interrupted.

‘Oh, that da Silva guy. Just told everyone to go home. So, you won’t mention the party, right? On your podcast?’

‘Oh, right, sure,’ Pip lied. Of course she was going to mention it, even better if it got Stephen ‘Gropey’ Thompson in trouble. She thanked him and hung up. ‘You were right,’ she told Cara, dropping the phone.

‘I was? Jamie was there? I helped?’

‘He was and you did.’ Pip smiled at her. ‘Well, we have two eyewitness accounts, neither with an exact time, but I think we can be fairly certain Jamie went there after the memorial. Now I need to try find photographic evidence, narrow down the timeframe. What’s the best way to get a message to everyone who was at the calamity?’

‘Message everyone in that school year group on Facebook?’ Cara shrugged.

‘Good idea.’ Pip re-awakened her laptop. ‘I should tell Connor first. What the hell was Jamie doing there?’ Her computer burred into life and Jamie’s face popped up onscreen from the missing poster document, his pale eyes staring right out into hers, holding her there as a cold shiver crept down the back of her neck. She knew him; this was Jamie.Jamie. But how well did you ever know anyone? She watched his eyes, trying to unpick the secrets that lay behind them.Where are you?She asked him silently, face to face.