‘All right, puppuccino,’ Pip said to Barney, bending down to unclip the lead from his tartan collar. ‘Off you go.’
He looked up at her with his sloped and smiling eyes. And when she straightened up he was off, bounding up the muddy track ahead and winding between the trees in that forever-puppy way that he ran.
Her mum had been right; it was a little too late to be going out on a walk.
The woods were darkening already, the sky a churned grey peeking through the gaps between the autumn-speckled trees. It was quarter to six already and her weather app told her that sunset was in two minutes. She wouldn’t stay out long; she just needed a quick jaunt to get her away from her workstation. She needed air. Needed space.
All day she had flitted between studying for her exam next week and staring hard at the names in her suspect list. She would stare for so long that her gaze went cross-eyed, drawing imaginary and thorny lines that budded from the letter-tips of one name to wrap round the others until the list was just a chaotic mess of swaddled names and tangled bonds.
She didn’t know what to do. Perhaps try to talk to Daniel da Silva’s wife; there certainly was palpable friction between the couple. And why, what possible secrets had caused it? Or should she focus back on the burner phone, consider breaking into the homes of those suspects that knew about the phone and searching for it there?
No.
She had come on this walk to forget Andie Bell and to clear her head.
She reached into her pocket and unwound her headphones. Tucking them into her ears, she pressed play on her phone, resuming the true crime podcast episode she was on. She had to turn the volume right up, struggling to hear the episode over the crunch of her wellies on the path of fallen leaves.
Listening to the voice in her ears, to the story of another murdered girl, Pip tried to forget her own.
She took the short circuit through the woods, her eyes on the shadows from scraggy branches above, shadows that grew lighter as the world around was growing darker. When the twilight took a turn towards darkness Pip walked off the path, dipping into the trees to get to the road faster. She called Barney when the gate to the road was visible, thirty feet in front of her.
When she reached it she paused her podcast and spooled the headphones back round her phone.
‘Barney, come on,’ she called, slipping it into her pocket.
A car flew by on the road, the full beam of its headlights blinding Pip when she looked into them.
‘Doggo!’ she called, louder and higher this time. ‘Barney, come!’ The trees were dark and still.
Pip wet her lips and whistled. ‘Barney! Here, Barney!’
No sound of paws trampling through the fallen leaves. No golden flash among the trees. Nothing.
Cold fear began to creep up her toes and down her fingers. ‘Bar-ney!’ she shouted and her voice cracked.
She ran back the way she’d come. Back into the dark engulfing trees.
‘Barney,’ she screamed, crashing along the path, the dog lead swinging in wide empty arcs from her hand.
