The trees shivered on Cross Lane, recoiling from Pip as she walked beneath them, chasing her morning shadow, never catching up to it.
She’d dropped Connor at school once everyone had calmed down, leaving her car there. But she hadn’t gone inside with him. Her mum had already called the school to say she’d be late, so she might as well make use of it. And it couldn’t be avoided any longer: she had to speak to Nat da Silva. At this point, all roads led back to her.
Even this one Pip was walking on.
Her eyes fixated on the painted blue front door as she stepped up the concrete path, following it as it bent to run alongside the house.
She took a breath to steel herself and pressed the bell in two short mechanical bursts. She waited, fidgeting nervously with her unbrushed hair, her heartbeat not yet back to normal.
A shape grew out of the frosted glass, blurred and slow as it approached the door.
It opened with a clack and Nat da Silva stood there, her white-blonde hair pushed back from her face, deep eyeliner streaks holding up her pale blue eyes.
‘Hello,’ Pip said, as brightly as she could.
‘Fuck sake,’ said Nat. ‘What do you want now?’
‘I need to ask you some things, about Jamie,’ she said.
‘Yeah, well I already told you everything I know. I don’t know where he is and he still hasn’t been in contact with me.’ Nat reached for the door to close it again.
‘They found a body,’ Pip blurted, trying to stop her. It worked. ‘It wasn’t Jamie, but it could have been. It’s been six days, Nat, without any contact. Jamie’s in real trouble. And you might be the person who knows him best. Please.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Not for me. I know you hate me and I
understand why. But please help me, for the Reynoldses’ sake. I just came from their house, and for twenty minutes we all thought Jamie was dead.’
It was subtle, almost too subtle to notice, but there was a softening in Nat’s eyes. Something flickered across them, glassy and sad.
‘Do you . . .’ she said, slowly. ‘Do you really think he’s not OK?’
‘I’m trying to stay hopeful, for his family,’ Pip said. ‘But . . . I don’t know.’
Nat relaxed her arm, chewing on her pale bottom lip. ‘Have you and Jamie still been talking in recent weeks?’ ‘Yeah, a bit,’ Nat said.
‘Did he ever mention someone called Layla Mead to you?’
Nat looked up, thinking, teeth moving further down her lip, meeting skin. ‘No. Never heard that name before.’
‘OK. And I know you said before that he didn’t, but did Jamie come to your house after the memorial as planned? Around 10:40 p.m.?’
‘No.’ Nat tilted her head, short white hair skimming down into her eyes. ‘I told you, last time I saw him was at the memorial.’
‘It’s just . . .’ Pip began. ‘Well, an eyewitness saw Jamie go into your house at that time. He said Cross Lane and described your house exactly.’
Nat blinked, and that softness in her eyes was gone.
‘Well, I don’t care what your fucking eyewitness said. He’s wrong,’ she said. ‘Jamie never came here.’
‘OK, I’m sorry.’ Pip held up her hands. ‘I was just asking.’
‘Well you’ve already asked that, and I’ve already answered. Is there anything else?’ Nat’s hand glided to the door again, tightening around the edge.
‘There’s one last thing,’ Pip said, nervously eyeing Nat’s fingers on the door. Last time she was here like this, Nat had slammed it in her face. Tread carefully, Pip. ‘Well, it’s your boyfriend, Luke Eaton.’
‘Yeah, I know his name,’ Nat spat. ‘What about him?’
‘It’s um . . .’ She didn’t know which way to approach it, so she went with fast. ‘Um, so I guess Luke is involved with drugs – has a kid collect them from a gang in London and I presume he then distributes to various dealers in the county.’
Nat’s face tightened.
‘And the place where he picks them up from . . . it’s the abandoned farmhouse where Andie’s body was found. But it’s also the last place Jamie
was, before something happened to him. So there’s a possible connection there to Luke.’
Nat shifted, her knuckles whitening from her grip on the door.
‘But there’s more,’ Pip carried on, giving Nat no room to speak. ‘The kid Luke uses to transport the drugs said that Luke was angry this week because he’d lost nine hundred pounds. And that’s the exact amount of money Jamie asked to borrow from his dad a couple of weeks ago –’
‘What point are you trying to make?’ Nat said, the downward tilt of her head shadowing her eyes.
‘Just that maybe Luke also loans people money, and he loaned Jamie money for something but Jamie couldn’t pay it back so he asked his dad, and then he was desperate enough to try stealing it from work, saying it was life or death . . .’ She paused, daring to glance up at Nat. ‘And I wondered, when I spoke to you both before, you seemed to react when Luke said he was home all night, so I just wondered –’
‘Oh, you just wondered, did you?’ There was a quiver in Nat’s top lip and Pip could feel the rage coming off her, like heat. ‘What is wrong with you? These are people’s lives. You can’t just fuck around with them for your own entertainment.’
‘I’m not, it’s for –’
‘I have nothing to do with Jamie. And neither does Luke,’ Nat shouted, stepping back. ‘Just leave me the fuck alone, Pip.’ Her voice shook. ‘Please. Leave me alone.’
And her face disappeared behind the door as it slammed shut, the sound echoing down into that pit in Pip’s stomach, staying with her as she walked away.
It was when she turned on to Gravelly Way, heading back to school, that she first had the feeling. A creeping up her neck like static on her skin. And she knew what it was, had felt this before. Eyes. Someone watching her.
She stopped in the street, looked over her shoulder. There was no one behind her on Chalk Road, except a man she didn’t know pushing a buggy, and his eyes were down.
She checked in front of her, running her eyes along the windows of the houses that lined the street, bearing down on her. There wasn’t a face in any of them, pushed up against breath-fogged glass. She scanned the cars parked along the road. Nothing. No one.
Pip could’ve sworn she felt it. Or maybe she was just losing her mind.
She carried on towards school, holding on to the straps of her bag. It took her a while to realize she wasn’t hearing her own footsteps. Not just her own, anyway. There was another set, stepping faintly in between hers, coming from the right. Pip looked up.
‘Morning,’ a voice called from across the road. It was Mary Scythe from the Kilton Mail, with a black Labrador at her side. ‘Good morning,’ Pip returned the greeting, but it sounded empty even to her own ears. Luckily her ringing phone excused her. She turned away and swiped to answer.
‘Pip,’ Ravi said.
‘Oh god,’ she said, falling into his voice, wrapping herself up with it. ‘You won’t believe what’s happened this morning. It was on the news that they found a body, a white male in his twenties. So I panicked, went to the Reynoldses’ house but they called in and it wasn’t Jamie, it was someone else . . .’
‘Pip?’
‘. . . and Arthur finally agreed to talk to me. And he told me that Jamie asked him to borrow nine hundred pounds, the exact amount Robin said Luke had just lost this week, so . . .’
‘Pip?’
‘. . . that’s too coincidental to be nothing, right? So then I just went to see Nat and she insists Jamie didn’t go there after—’
‘Pip, I really need you to stop talking and listen to me.’ And now Pip heard it, the edge in his voice, new and unfamiliar.
‘What? Sorry. What?’ she said, her feet slowing to a stop. ‘The jury just returned their verdict,’ he said.
‘Already? And?’
But Ravi didn’t say anything, and she could hear a click as his breath caught in his throat.
‘No,’ she said, her heart picking up on that click before she did, throwing itself against her ribs. ‘Ravi? What? No, don’t say . . . it can’t . . .’
‘They found him not guilty, on all charges.’
And Pip didn’t hear what he said next because her ears flooded with blood, a rushing sound, like a windstorm trapped inside her head. Her hand found the wall beside her and she leaned into it, lowering herself down to sit on the cold concrete pavement.
‘No,’ she whispered, because if she said it any louder, she would scream. She still might scream; she could feel it clawing at her insides, fighting to get out. She grabbed her face and held her mouth shut, fingernails digging into her cheeks.
‘Pip,’ Ravi said, gently. ‘I’m so sorry. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t. It isn’t fair. This isn’t right. If there was anything I could do to change this, I would. Anything. Pip? Are you OK?’
‘No,’ she said through her hand. She would never be OK again. This was it; the worst thing that could have happened. She’d thought about it, had had bad dreams about it, but she’d known it couldn’t really happen. It wouldn’t happen. But it just did. And the truth no longer mattered. Max Hastings, not guilty. Even though she had his voice on a recording, admitting to it all. Even though she knew he was guilty, beyond any doubt. But no, she and Nat da Silva and Becca Bell and those two women from university: they were the liars now. And a serial rapist had just walked free.
Her mind turned to Nat.
‘Oh god, Nat,’ she said, removing her hand. ‘Ravi, I have to go, I have to go back to see Nat. Make sure she’s OK.’
‘OK, I lo—’ he said, but it was too late. Pip had already pressed the red button, pushing herself up from the ground as she turned back down Gravelly Way.
She knew that Nat hated her. But she also knew that Nat shouldn’t be alone when she heard the news. No one should be alone for something like that.
Pip sprinted, her trainers slapping uncomfortably against the pavement, juddering up through her body. Her chest hurt, like her heart wanted to give out already, give up. But she ran, pushing herself harder as she turned the corner on to Cross Lane, back to that painted blue door.
She knocked this time, forgetting about the bell because her mind was already stuttering, rewinding the last few minutes. It couldn’t have happened, could it? This couldn’t be real. It didn’t feel real.
Nat’s silhouette emerged in the frosted glass, and Pip tried to read it, study it, work out if Nat’s world had already been blown apart.
She opened the door, jaw clenching as soon as she saw Pip standing there.
‘What the fuck, I told you to . . .’
But then she must have noticed the way Pip was breathing. The horror that must be written all over her face.
‘What is it?’ Nat said quickly, pulling the door open fully. ‘Is Jamie OK?’ ‘H-have you heard?’ Pip said, and her voice sounded strange to her, not
her own. ‘The verdict?’
‘What?’ Nat narrowed her eyes. ‘No, no one’s called me yet. Are they done? What . . . ?’
And Pip could see the moment it happened, the moment Nat read what was on her face. The moment her eyes changed.
‘No,’ she said, but it was more a breath than a word.
She stumbled back from the door, hands snapping up to her face as she gasped, her eyes glazing over.
‘No!’ The word was a strangled yell this time, choking her. Nat fell back into the wall in the hallway, slamming against it. A picture frame dropped from its hook, cracking as it hit the floor.
Pip darted forward, inside the house, catching Nat around the arms as she slid down the wall. But she lost her footing and they slid down together, Nat right down to the floorboards, Pip to her knees.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Pip said. ‘I’m so so so sorry.’
Nat was crying, but the tears stained as they ran through her make-up, black tears chasing each other down her face.
‘This can’t be real,’ she cried. ‘It can’t be real. FUCK!’
Pip sat forward, wrapping her arms around Nat’s back. She thought Nat would pull away from her, push her off. But she didn’t. She leaned into Pip, arms climbing up and around her neck as she held on. Tight. Her face buried into Pip’s shoulder.
Nat screamed, the sound muffled, burrowing into Pip’s jumper, her breath hot and jagged as it spread down into Pip’s skin. And then the scream broke open and she cried, shaking the both of them with the force of it.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Pip whispered.
