Good Girl, Bad Blood

by Holly Jackson

  ‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘But they can’t both be telling the truth; their accounts totally contradict each other. So either Nat da Silva or Tom Nowak is lying. And I can’t help but think that Nat would have more reason to. Maybe Jamie did go to her house for a bit that night, and she just didn’t want to say so in front of her boyfriend. He seems quite scary.’

  ‘What’s his name again? Luke?’

  ‘Eaton, yeah. Or maybe she just didn’t want to tell me she saw Jamie because she doesn’t want to be involved. I didn’t exactly treat her well last time. Or she could be lying because she’s involved somehow. I got this weird feeling when I spoke to them about where they were Friday night, like I wasn’t getting the full story.’

  ‘But Jamie was seen alive and well on Wyvil Road almost an hour after that. So if he did go to Nat’s, he was fine when he left.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘So then why lie about it? What is there to hide?’

  ‘Or Tom could be lying,’ Ravi said, bending down to get a closer look at the faded letters on a plaque.

  ‘He could be,’ she sighed. ‘But why? And how could he have known that that house belonged to someone who’s . . . well, a person of interest?’

  ‘You going to talk to Nat again?’

  ‘Not sure.’ Pip wound down another row of graves. ‘I should, but I’m not sure she’ll talk to me again. She really hates me. And this week is hard enough for her anyway.’

  ‘I could go?’ Ravi said. ‘Maybe when Max’s trial is over.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ Pip replied, but the thought that Jamie might still be missing by then made something in her sink. She quickened her pace. ‘We’re going too slowly. Let’s split up.’

  ‘No but I really really like you.’

  And Pip could feel his smirk, even though she wasn’t looking at him.

  ‘We are in a graveyard. Behave.’

  ‘They can’t hear,’ he said, ducking from her frown. ‘OK fine, I’ll check this way.’ He traipsed up and over to the far side of the yard, starting at the other end to work back to her.

  Pip lost him after a few minutes, behind an unkempt hedgerow, and it was like she was alone. Standing here in this field of names. There was no one else around; it was dead-of-night quiet, even though it was only six o’clock.

  She reached the end of another row, no sign of Hillary, when she heard a shout. Ravi’s voice was faint as the wind carried it away from her, but she could see his waving hand above the hedges and hurried over to him.

  ‘You found it?’ she said, breathless now.

  ‘In loving memory of Hillary F. Weiseman,’ he read out, standing over a black marble plaque with gold lettering. ‘Died 4th October 2006. Beloved mother and grandmother. You will be missed dearly.’

  ‘That’s her,’ Pip said, looking around. This part of the graveyard was almost closed in, sheltered by a row of hedges on one side and a cluster of trees on the other. ‘It’s well covered here. You can’t really be seen from any side, apart from the path up there.’

  He nodded. ‘Would make a good secret meeting spot, if that’s what it was.’

  ‘But with who? We know Jamie never met Layla in real life.’

  ‘What about those?’ Ravi pointed down to a small bouquet of flowers, laid beside Hillary’s grave.

  They were dried out and dead, petals flaking away as Pip closed her fingers around the plastic packaging. ‘Clearly left here several weeks ago,’ she said, spotting a small white card in the middle of the flowers. Blue ink bled down the paper, from the rain, but the imprints of the words were still legible.

  ‘Dear Mum, Happy Birthday! Miss you every day. Love from Mary, Harry and Joe,’ she read out to Ravi.

  ‘Mary, Harry and Joe,’ Ravi said thoughtfully. ‘Do we know them?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But I looked on the electoral register and couldn’t find anyone living in Kilton now with the surname Weiseman.’

  ‘They probably aren’t Weisemans then.’

  They heard a scuffling set of footsteps on the gravel path above, drawing closer. Pip and Ravi spun on their heels to see who it was. Pip felt a tightening in her chest, like she’d been caught somewhere she shouldn’t, as she watched the man cross into view from behind the canopy of wind-shivering willow. It was Stanley Forbes, and he looked just as shocked to see them, flinching with a sharp intake of breath when he spotted them there, hiding in the shadows.

  ‘Crap, you scared me,’ he said, holding one hand to his chest.

  ‘Are you allowed to say “crap” near a church?’ Ravi smiled, immediately breaking the tension.

  ‘Sorry,’ Pip said, dead flowers still in her hand. ‘What are you doing here?’ A perfectly fair question, she thought; there was no one else in the graveyard except them, and they weren’t exactly here for ordinary reasons.

  ‘I’m er . . .’ Stanley looked taken aback. ‘I’m here to talk to the vicar about a story for next week’s paper. Why? Why are you here?’ He returned the question, squinting so he could read the grave they were standing at.

  Well, he’d caught them, Pip might as well give it a go. ‘Hey Stanley,’ she said, ‘you know most people in town, right? Because of the newspaper. Do you know the family of a woman called Hillary Weiseman, daughter called Mary, and maybe two sons or grandsons called Harry and Joe?’

  He narrowed his eyes, like this was one of the stranger things he’d ever been asked after bumping into two people lurking in a graveyard. ‘Well, yes, I do. So do you. That’s Mary Scythe. The Mary who volunteers at the paper with me. Those are her sons, Harry and Joe.’

  And as he said that, something clicked in Pip’s head.

  ‘Harry Scythe. Does he work at The Book Cellar?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, I think he does,’ Stanley said, shuffling his feet. ‘Does this have something to do with that disappearance you’re looking into, Jamie Reynolds?’

  ‘It might.’ She shrugged, reading something like disappointment on his face when she didn’t elaborate. Well, sorry; she didn’t want a small-town volunteer journalist chasing the story too, getting in her way. But maybe that wasn’t entirely fair; Stanley had printed the missing poster in the Kilton Mail like she’d asked, and it had brought people to her with information. ‘Um,’ she added, ‘I just wanted to say thank you for printing that notice in the paper, Stanley. You didn’t have to, and it’s really helped. So, yeah. Thanks. For that.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ he smiled, looking between her and Ravi. ‘And I hope you find him. I mean, I’m sure you will.’ He rolled up one sleeve to look at the time. ‘I better go, don’t want to keep the vicar waiting. Um. Yeah. OK. Bye.’ He flashed them a small awkward wave, down by his waist, and walked off towards the church.

  ‘Harry Scythe was one of the witnesses on Wyvil Road,’ Pip told Ravi in a hushed tone, watching Stanley walk away.

  ‘Huh, really?’ Ravi said. ‘Small town.’

  ‘It is,’ Pip said, laying the dead flowers back by Hillary’s grave. ‘It is a small town.’ She wasn’t sure if this meant anything other than that. And she wasn’t sure that coming here had explained anything about that scrap of paper in Jamie’s bin, other than he possibly came here to meet someone, here under these same shadows. But it was too unclear, too vague to be a proper lead.

  ‘Come on. We should get the trial update done and out of the way,’ Ravi said, taking her hand, winding his fingers between hers. ‘Also, I can’t believe you actually said thank you to Stanley Forbes.’ He pulled a face at her, like he was frozen in shock, eyes crossing over each other.

  ‘Stop.’ She nudged him.

  ‘You actually being nice to someone.’ The stupid face continued. ‘Well done. Gold star for you, Pip.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Twenty-Three

  The Reynoldses’ house stared her down, the top windows yellow and unblinking. But only for a second before the door swung inwards and Joanna Reynolds appeared in the crack.

  ‘You’re here.’ Joanna ushered
Pip inside as Connor appeared down the hall. ‘Thanks for coming straight away.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ Pip shrugged off her bag and shoes. She and Ravi had just finished recording the new update on Max Hastings’ trial – discussing two witnesses for the defence, Max’s male friends from university – when Joanna had called.

  ‘It sounded urgent?’ Pip said, looking between the two of them. She could hear the sounds of the television behind the closed door to the living room. Presumably Arthur Reynolds was inside, still refusing to have anything to do with this. But Jamie had been gone for four days now, when would his dad relent? Pip understood: it’s hard to climb back out of the hole once you’ve dug in your heels. But surely he was starting to worry?

  ‘Yes, it is, I think.’ Joanna gestured for Pip to follow her down the hallway, turning to climb the stairs behind Connor.

  ‘Is it his computer?’ Pip asked. ‘Did you manage to get on?’

  ‘No, not that,’ she said. ‘We’ve been trying. Tried more than seven hundred options now. Nothing.’

  ‘OK, well I emailed two computer experts yesterday, so we’ll see what they say.’ Pip moved up the stairs, trying not to catch Joanna’s heels. ‘So, what’s wrong?’

  ‘I’ve listened to the first episode you released last night, several times already,’ Joanna spoke quickly, growing breathless halfway up the steps. ‘It’s the interview you did with the eyewitnesses from the bookshop, the ones who saw him on Wyvil at 11:40. There was something nagging at me about that interview, and I finally realized what it was.’

  Joanna led her into Jamie’s chaotic bedroom, where Connor had switched on the light, waiting for them.

  ‘Is it Harry Scythe?’ Pip asked. ‘Do you know him?’

  Joanna shook her head. ‘It’s that part where they talked about what Jamie was wearing. Two witnesses thought they saw him in the burgundy shirt, the one we know he left the house in. But those were the first two to see him, as Jamie would have been walking towards them. The other two witnesses got to the door after, when Jamie would have already passed. So, they saw him from behind. And they both thought that maybe he wasn’t wearing a burgundy shirt, maybe he was wearing something darker, with a hood, and pockets because they couldn’t see Jamie’s hands.’

  ‘Yes, there is that discrepancy,’ Pip said. ‘But that can happen with small details in eyewitness accounts.’

  Joanna’s eyes were alight now, burning a path across Pip’s face. ‘Yes, and our instinct was to believe the two who saw him in the shirt, because that’s what we presumed Jamie was wearing. But what if it’s the other two who are right, the ones who saw him in a black hoodie? Jamie has a black hoodie,’ she said, ‘one with a zip. He wears it all the time. If it was undone, maybe from the front you wouldn’t see much of it and would focus on the shirt beneath.’

  ‘But he wasn’t wearing a black hoodie when he left the house on Friday,’ Pip said, looking to Connor. ‘And he wasn’t carrying it with him, didn’t have a rucksack or anything.’

  ‘No, he definitely didn’t have it on him,’ Connor stepped in. ‘That’s what I said at first. But . . .’ He gestured back to his mum.

  ‘But –’ Joanna picked it up – ‘I’ve looked everywhere. Everywhere. In his wardrobe, his drawers, all these piles of clothes, his laundry basket, the ironing pile, the cupboards in our room, Connor’s and Zoe’s. Jamie’s black hoodie isn’t here. It’s not in the house.’

  Pip’s breath stalled in her chest. ‘It’s not here?’

  ‘We’ve, like, triple-checked everywhere it could be,’ said Connor. ‘Spent the last few hours searching. It’s gone.’

  ‘So, if they’re right,’ Joanna said, ‘if those two eyewitnesses are right, and they saw Jamie wearing a black hoodie, then . . .’

  ‘Then Jamie came back home,’ Pip said, and she felt a cold shiver, wandering the wrong way past her stomach, filling the hollows of her legs. ‘Between the calamity party and the sighting on Wyvil Road, Jamie came back home. Back here,’ she said, looking around the room with new eyes: the hectic piles of clothes strewn about, maybe when Jamie had been frantically searching for the hoodie. The smashed mug by his bed, maybe that happened by accident, in his haste. The missing knife downstairs. Maybe, if Jamie was the one who took it, maybe that’s the real reason he returned home.

  ‘Yes, exactly,’ Joanna said. ‘That’s what I was thinking. Jamie came home.’ She said it with such hope in her voice, such undisguised wanting, her little boy back home, like the part that came after couldn’t ever take that away from her; that he’d then left again and disappeared.

  ‘So if he did come back and take his hoodie,’ Pip said, avoiding any mention of the missing knife, ‘it must have been between, say, 10:45 p.m., after walking back from Highmoor, and 11:25ish, because it would’ve taken at least fifteen minutes to get halfway down Wyvil.’

  Joanna nodded, hanging on her every word.

  ‘But . . .’ Pip stopped herself, and restarted, directing the question at Connor. It was easier that way. ‘But didn’t your dad get home from the pub around 11:15?’

  Joanna answered anyway. ‘Yes, he did. About then. Obviously, Arthur didn’t see Jamie at all, so Jamie must have come and gone before Arthur got back.’

  ‘Have you asked him about that?’ Pip said tentatively.

  ‘Asked him what?’

  ‘About his movements that night?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Joanna said bluntly. ‘He got back from the pub around 11:15, as you said. No sign of Jamie.’

  ‘So, Jamie must have come back earlier, right?’ Connor asked.

  ‘Right,’ Pip said, but that’s not what she was thinking at all. She was thinking that Tom Nowak said he saw Jamie going into Nat da Silva’s house on Cross Lane at 10:50 p.m. And was there time to do both? Visit Nat, walk home and leave again? No, not really, not without Jamie’s time window overlapping with Arthur’s. But Arthur said he was home at 11:15 and hadn’t seen Jamie. Something wasn’t adding up here.

  Either Jamie didn’t go to Nat’s at all, came home earlier and left before 11:15 when his dad got home. Or Jamie did go to Nat’s, briefly, then walked home, coinciding with the time his dad was back and Arthur just hadn’t noticed Jamie was there, or when he left. Or Arthur did notice, and for some reason he was lying about it.

  ‘Pip?’ Joanna repeated.

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’ Pip said, out of her head and back inside the room.

  ‘I said, when I was looking for Jamie’s black hoodie, I found something else.’ Joanna’s eyes darkened as she approached Jamie’s white laundry basket. ‘I looked through here,’ she said, opening the lid and retrieving an item of clothing from the top. ‘And this was about halfway down.’

  She held it up by the seams on the shoulders to show Pip. It was a grey cotton jumper. And down the front, about five inches below the collar, were drops of blood, dried to a reddish brown. Seven stains in all, each one smaller than a centimetre. And a long smear of blood on the cuff of one sleeve.

  ‘Shit.’ Pip stepped forward to get a better look at the blood.

  ‘This is the jumper he wore on his birthday,’ Joanna said, and indeed Pip recognized it from the missing posters all over town.

  ‘You heard him sneak out late that night, didn’t you?’ Pip asked Connor.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And he didn’t accidentally hurt himself at home that evening?’

  Joanna shook her head. ‘He went into his bedroom and he was fine. Happy.’

  ‘These look like the blood dripped from above, it’s not spatter,’ Pip said, circling her finger in front of the jumper. ‘The sleeve looks like it was wiped against a source of blood.’

  ‘Jamie’s blood?’ The colour had gone from Joanna’s face, drained away to somewhere unseen.

  ‘Possibly. Did you notice if he had any cuts or bruises the next day?’

  ‘No,’ Joanna said quietly. ‘Nowhere I could see.’

  ‘It could be someone else’s blood,’
Pip thought aloud and immediately regretted it. Joanna’s face folded, collapsing in on itself as a lone tear escaped and twisted around the contours of her cheeks.

  ‘I’m sorry, Joanna,’ Pip said. ‘I shouldn’t have s—’

  ‘No, it’s not you,’ Joanna cried, carefully placing the jumper back on top of the basket. Two more tears broke free, racing each other to her chin. ‘It’s just this feeling, like I don’t even know my son at all.’

  Connor went to his mum, folded her into a hug. She had shrunk again, and she disappeared inside his arms, sobbing into his chest. An awful, raw sound that hurt Pip just to hear it.

  ‘It’s OK, Mum,’ Connor whispered down into her hair, looking to Pip, but she also didn’t know what to say to make anything better.

  Joanna re-emerged with a sniff, wiping at her eyes in vain. ‘I’m not sure I recognize him.’ She stared down at Jamie’s jumper. ‘Trying to steal from your mum, getting fired and lying to us for weeks. Breaking into someone’s home in the middle of the night to steal a watch he didn’t need. Sneaking out. Coming back possibly with someone’s blood on his clothes. I don’t recognize this Jamie,’ she said, closing her eyes like she could imagine her son back in front of her, the one she knew. ‘This isn’t him, these things he’s done. He’s not this person; he’s sweet, he’s considerate. He makes me tea when I get in from work, he asks me how my day went. We talk, about how he’s feeling, how I’m feeling. We’re a team, me and him, we have been since he was born. I know everything about him – except clearly I don’t any more.’

  Pip found herself staring at the bloodied jumper too, unable to pull her eyes away. ‘There’s more to all this than we understand right now,’ she said. ‘There has to be a reason behind it. He hasn’t just changed after twenty-four years, flipped a switch. There’s a reason, and I will find it. I promise.’

  ‘I just want him back.’ Joanna squeezed Connor’s hand, meeting Pip’s eyes. ‘I want our Jamie back. The one who still calls me Jomumma because he knows it makes me smile. That was his name for me, when Jamie was three and first learned I had a name other than Mummy. He came up with Jomumma, so that I could have my own name back whilst still being his mum.’ Joanna sniffed and the sound stuttered all the way through her, shuddering in her shoulders. ‘What if I never get to hear him call me that again?’