‘Ouch, be careful, would you?’ He closed his hands around his ears to keep the sound in as Pip held up her phone for him and pressed play. A tiny smirk flickered across his face. ‘Wow, that’s embarrassing,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘Is that why you wanted to show m—’
‘Obviously not,’ she said. ‘Wait for the end.’
And when it came, his eyes narrowed and he said, ‘Stella Chapman?’
‘Yep.’ Pip tugged the earphones out of his ears too hard, making him ouch again. ‘Stella Chapman must be the “someone” he spotted at the memorial and followed to the party.’
Connor nodded. ‘So what do we do now?’
‘Find her at lunch and talk to her. Ask how they know each other, what they talked about. Why Jamie followed her.’
‘OK, good,’ Connor said, and his face changed slightly, like the muscles beneath had shifted, loosened. ‘This is good, right?’
‘Yeah,’ she said, though good might not be the right word.
But at least they were finally getting somewhere.
‘Stella?’
‘Oh, hi,’ Stella replied, mid-mouthful of Twix. She narrowed her brown almond-shaped eyes, her perfect cheekbones made even sharper by the bronzer she’d swiped over her tanned skin.
Pip had known exactly where to wait for her. They were locker neighbours, Chapman just six doors over from Fitz-Amobi, and they greeted each other most mornings, their hellos always book-ended by the awful screech of Stella’s locker door. Pip was ready for it this time, as Stella opened the door and deposited some books inside.
‘What’s up?’ Stella’s eyes trailed away, over Pip’s shoulder to where Connor was standing, boxing her in. He looked ridiculous, hands on his hips like he was some kind of bodyguard. Pip flashed him an angry look until he stepped back and relaxed.
‘You on the way to lunch?’ asked Pip. ‘I was wondering if I could talk to you about something.’
‘Er, yeah, I’m heading to the cafeteria. What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Pip said, casually, walking Stella down the hall. ‘Just wondered whether I could borrow you for a few minutes first. In here?’ Pip halted, pushing open the door of a maths classroom she’d already checked was empty.
‘Why?’ The suspicion was clear in Stella’s voice.
‘My brother’s missing,’ Connor butted in, hands going to his hips again. Was he trying to look intimidating? Because it wasn’t working for him at all. Pip glared at him again; normally he was good at reading her eyes.
‘You might’ve heard that I’m looking into his disappearance?’ Pip said. ‘I just have a few questions for you about Jamie Reynolds.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Stella shuffled uncomfortably, picking at the ends of her hair. ‘I don’t know him.’
‘Bu—’ Connor started but Pip cut him off.
‘Jamie was at the calamity party on Friday. It’s currently the last time he was seen,’ she said. ‘I’ve found a video in which Jamie comes over to talk to you at the party. I just want to know what you talked about, how you know each other. That’s all.’
Stella didn’t answer, but her face said everything she wouldn’t: her eyes widened, lines disturbing her smooth forehead.
‘We really need to find him, Stella,’ Pip said gently. ‘He could be in trouble, real trouble, and anything that happened that night might help us work out where he’s gone. It’s . . . it’s life or death,’ she said, refusing to look Connor’s way.
Stella chewed her lip, eyes spooling as she made up her mind.
‘OK,’ she said.
Stella:
Is this OK?
Pip:
Yes, great, I can hear you perfectly. So can we just go over how you know Jamie Reynolds?
Stella:
I . . . um, I don’t . . . know him.
Connor:
[INAUDIBLE]
Pip:
Connor, you can’t talk while we’re recording.
Connor:
[INAUDIBLE]
Stella:
Um . . . I . . . I . . .
Pip:
Actually, Connor, why don’t you go on ahead to lunch? I’ll see you there.
Connor:
[INAUDIBLE]
Pip:
Oh no, really, I insist. Connor. I’ll meet you there. Go on. Oh, close the door please. Thank you. Sorry about that, he’s just worried about his brother.
Stella:
Yeah, that’s OK, I get it. I just didn’t want to talk about his brother right in front of him, y’know? It’s weird.
Pip:
I understand. It’s better this way. So, how do you know Jamie?
Stella:
I really don’t know him. At all. That time on Friday, that was the first time I ever spoke to him. I didn’t know who he was until I saw the posters on my way to school this morning.
Pip:
Let me play this clip for you. Ignore Hannah’s face. You see, in the background, you walk away from Katya and then Jamie comes over to you.
Stella:
Yeah, he did. It was, um . . . strange. Really strange. I think there must have been a misunderstanding or something. Or he was confused.
Pip:
What do you mean? What did he want to talk to you about?
Stella:
Well, like you can see there, he tapped me on the shoulder, so I turned to him and he said, ‘Leila, it’s you.’ And so I was like, ‘No, I’m Stella.’ But he carried on, he was like: ‘Leila, it’s really you,’ and he wasn’t listening when I said, ‘No, that’s not me.’
Pip:
Leila?
Stella:
Yeah. He was pretty insistent so then I was like, ‘Sorry, I don’t know you,’ and began to walk away and he said something like, ‘Leila, it’s me, Jamie. I almost didn’t recognize you because you’ve changed your hair.’ So, I was really confused at this point. And he also looked really confused, and then he asked me what I was doing at a high-school party anyway. By this point he was freaking me out a bit, so I said to him, ‘I’m not called Leila, my name’s Stella and I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about. Leave me alone or I’ll scream.’ And then I walked away. That was it. He didn’t say anything else or follow me. He actually looked really sad when I left, but I don’t know why. I still don’t understand what was going on, what he meant. If it was some like weird creepy pick-up tactic, I dunno. He’s older, right?
Pip:
Yes, he’s twenty-four. So wait, let me get this straight: he calls you Leila, multiple times, saying, ‘It’s me, Jamie,’ when you don’t seem to recognize him. Then he comments that you’ve changed your hair –
Stella:
Which I haven’t, my hair’s been the same since, like, forever.
Pip:
Right, and then he also asks you: ‘What are you doing at a high-school party?’
Stella:
Yeah, basically those exact words. Why? What are you thinking?
Pip:
Stella . . . on your social media, like on Insta, do you have a lot of pictures of yourself? Like selfies, or photos where it’s just you in the shot?
Stella:
Well, yeah, I do. Most of them. What’s wrong with that?
Pip:
Nothing. How many photos have you posted of just you?
Stella:
I don’t know, loads. Why?
Pip:
How many followers do you have?
Stella:
Not that many. Around eight hundred-ish? Why, Pip? What’s wrong?
Pip:
I, um, I think . . . it sounds to me like Jamie might have been talking to a catfish.
Stella:
A catfish?
Pip:
Someone who’s been using your photos, calls themselves Leila.
Stella:
Oh. You know, that actually makes a lot of sense, now you’ve said it. Yeah, it definitely seemed as though Jamie thought he knew me, and the way he was
talking like he expected me to know him too. As if we’d spoken many times before. Clearly never in real life, though.
Pip:
Yes. And if it is a catfish, maybe they’ve edited your photos somehow, hence the ‘changed your hair’ comment. I think Jamie spotted you at the memorial, well . . . he spotted who he thought was Leila, and it was the first time he’d seen her in real life, but he was confused because you looked different. I think he then followed you when you walked to the calamity party, waiting for an opportunity to speak to you. But he was also confused about why you were there, at a high-school party, hanging round with eighteen-year-olds, so I’m guessing this Leila told him she was older, in her twenties.
Stella:
Yes, that makes total sense. That all fits. A catfish. That’s so obvious now. Oh god, I feel bad about what I said, now I know he wasn’t trying to be creepy. And he looked so crushed afterwards. He must have worked it out, right? Realized then that Leila wasn’t real, that she’d been lying to him?
Pip:
Seems like it.
Stella:
So, he’s missing now? Like missing missing?
Pip:
Yeah, he’s missing missing. Right after he found out someone’s been catfishing him.
From: [email protected] 2:41 p.m.
To: [email protected]
Subject: Sighting of Jamie Reynolds
Dear Pippa Fitz-Amobi
Hello, my name’s Harry Scythe. I’m a big fan of your podcast
– great job with the first season! So I live in Kilton and currently
work at the bookshop (where I’m emailing from now). I was
working Friday afternoon and after we closed up, me and a few
work friends went to the memorial – didn’t really know Andie or
Sal, but it’s nice to show up, I think. And then we went to my
mate’s house on Wyvil Road for some takeaway / beers.
Anyway, when we were leaving at the end of the night, I’m
pretty sure we saw your guy, Jamie Reynolds, walking past. I’m
like, 98% sure it was him, and since seeing your posters up this
morning, I spoke to my friends and they think it was him too.
So I thought I should let you know ASAP. Me and two of my
friends who were also there are working now, so feel free to
contact us / come in and talk, if this information is at all useful
to your investigation.
Yours sincerely,
Harry
Seventeen
The Book Cellar stood out along the high street. It always had done, as far back as Pip could remember. And not just because it had been her favourite place to go, dragging her mum in by the arm when she needed just one more book. But quite literally: the owner had painted the outside of the shop a bright, cheerful purple, where the rest of the street was uniform in its clean white facades and black criss-crossing timber beams. Apparently, it had caused quite the uproar ten years ago.
Connor was lagging behind Pip on the pavement. He still wasn’t quite on board with this whole catfish theory, as he’d phrased it. Even when she pointed out that, in Connor’s own words, Jamie had been on his phone all the time in recent weeks.
‘It fits everything we know so far,’ she carried on, eyeing the bookshop up ahead. ‘Late-night phone calls. And he’s been protective about no one seeing his screen, which makes me think that his relationship with this Leila, this catfish, is a romantic one. Jamie was probably feeling vulnerable after the whole Nat da Silva situation; it’s easy to see how he might fall for someone online. Especially someone using Stella Chapman’s photos.’
‘I guess. Just not what I expected.’ Connor dipped his head into his shoulders, a gesture that could either have been a nod or a shrug.
It wasn’t the same, doing this with Connor. Ravi knew just what to say, what to pick out, how to push her into thinking clearly. And he jumped with her, hand in hand, into even her wildest conclusions. They just worked like that, teased out the best in each other, knowing when to talk and when to just be there. Ravi was still at the courthouse, but she’d called him earlier, after Stella’s interview. He’d been waiting around for Max’s defence to start because the prosecution had just rested, and they’d talked through it all together – Jamie, Leila – until it all fit. But this was the third time she’d run the explanation by Connor, and each time he’d shrugged, making the doubts creep into Pip’s mind. There wasn’t time for doubts, so Pip tried to outrun them, hurrying along the pavement as Connor struggled to keep up.
‘It’s the only explanation that fits the evidence we have,’ she said. ‘Hunches have to follow the evidence, that’s how this works.’ She turned her attention to The Book Cellar, drawing to a stop before the door. ‘When we’re finished here with this potential sighting, we’ll go back to mine and see if we can find this Leila online and confirm the theory. Oh,’ she turned to him, ‘and let me do the talking, please. It works better that way.’
‘Yeah fine,’ he said. ‘I said sorry about the Stella thing.’
‘I know. And I know you’re just worried.’ She softened her face. ‘Just leave it to me. That’s what I’m here for.’
A bell tinkled above the glass door as Pip pushed her way in. She loved the smell inside here, an ancient kind of smell, stale and timeless. You could get lost in here, a labyrinth of dark mahogany bookshelves signposted by gold metal letters. Even as a child, she’d always found herself in front of the Crime shelves.
‘Hi,’ came a deep voice from behind the counter. And then: ‘Oh, it’s you. Hi.’
The guy at the till side-stepped the desk and moved towards them across the shop floor. He looked out of place here, as tall as the very highest shelves and almost as wide, his arms thick with muscle, and his near-black hair tied back from his face in a small bun.
‘I’m Harry,’ he said, holding his hand out to Pip. ‘Scythe,’ he clarified when she shook it. ‘The one who emailed you.’
‘Yes, thank you so much for that,’ Pip said. ‘I came as soon as I could, we ran out after final bell.’ A floorboard creaked under Connor’s feet. ‘This is Connor Reynolds, Jamie’s brother.’
‘Hello,’ Harry said, pivoting the outstretched hand to Connor now too. ‘I’m sorry about your brother, man.’
Connor mumbled a few half-words.
‘Could I ask you about what you saw on Friday night?’ Pip asked. ‘Would you mind if I record us?’
‘Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. Hey, Mike,’ he called to a guy restocking shelves at the back. ‘Go get Soph from the office! All three of us were there when we saw him,’ he explained.
‘Perfect. And could I set up the microphones here?’ She gestured to the desk, beside the till.
‘Sure, sure, it’s always quiet from four till closing anyway.’ Harry cleared a pile of brown paper bags so Pip could set her rucksack down. She pulled out her laptop and the two USB microphones.
Soph and Mike appeared from the back office. Pip had always been so curious about what was back there, the sort of wonder that dies a little more each year you grow older.
They swapped new hellos and introductions and Pip instructed the three Book Cellar employees to gather around one microphone. She had to raise theirs up on a stack of books to compensate for Harry’s height.
When everyone was ready, Pip pressed record and nodded pointedly. ‘So, after the memorial, Harry, you said you went to someone’s house. Where was that?’
‘It was my house,’ said Mike, scratching his beard too hard, making the blue audio line spike on Pip’s screen. He looked older than the other two, in his thirties at least. ‘On Wyvil Road.’
‘Whereabouts do you live?’
‘It’s number fifty-eight, halfway up where the road bends.’
She knew exactly where he meant. ‘OK, so you all spent the evening together?’
‘Yep,’ Soph said. ‘Us and our friend, Lucy. She’s not in toda
y.’
‘And did you all leave Mike’s house at the same time?’
‘Yeah, I was driving,’ said Harry. ‘I dropped Soph and Lucy home on my way.’
‘OK,’ Pip said, ‘and do any of you remember what time exactly you left the house?’
‘It was, like, 11:45ish, wasn’t it?’ Harry said, glancing at his friends. ‘I tried to work it back from the time I got home.’
Mike shook his head. ‘Think it was just before that. I was already in bed at 11:45, ’cause I looked at my phone to set my alarm. I went straight up after seeing you lot off and it only takes me five minutes to get ready, so I’m thinking it was closer to 11:40.’
‘11:40? That’s great, thank you,’ Pip said. ‘And can you tell me about seeing Jamie? Where was he? What was he doing?’
‘He was walking,’ Harry said, pushing back some flyaway strands of hair. ‘Quite fast . . . with purpose, I mean. He was on the pavement on Mike’s side of the road, so he crossed only a few feet behind us. He didn’t even glance at us. Seemed totally focused on wherever he was going.’
‘Which direction was he going in?’
‘Up Wyvil Road,’ said Mike, ‘away from the centre of town.’
‘Did he go all the way up Wyvil Road? Or could he have turned off, say, down Tudor Lane or somewhere?’ she asked, holding her headphones to her ears and glancing back to check Connor was OK. He was watching intently, eyes tracking every spoken word.
‘Don’t know,’ Harry said. ‘We didn’t see him after he passed us, we went the other way to my car. Sorry.’
‘And are you certain it was Jamie Reynolds?’
‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was him,’ Soph spoke up, leaning instinctively towards the microphone. ‘There was no one else walking around at that time, so I sort of noticed him more, if that makes sense. I knew it when Harry showed me your poster. I walked out the front door first, saw Jamie walking towards us and then I turned around to say bye to Mike.’
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