Good Girl, Bad Blood

by Holly Jackson

  Connor tried a small smile, but it didn’t convince his eyes. Joanna also looked afraid, but her mouth was set in a determined line.

  Pip’s phone rang in her pocket again. She ignored it, navigating back to the dashboard to look at Jamie’s heart rate in that time span. It started already high, above one hundred, and, strangely, in that window of a few minutes when he wasn’t moving, his heart was picking up faster and faster. At the point right before he started walking again, it spiked up to one hundred and twenty-six beats per minute. It trailed off, but only slightly as he walked those additional two thousand three hundred and seventy-five steps. And then, in those last couple of minutes before half past the hour, Jamie’s heart peaked up to one hundred and fifty-eight beats per minute.

  And then, it flatlined.

  Dropped from one hundred and fifty-eight straight to zero, and beat no more after that.

  Joanna must have been thinking the same thing because just then, a gasp, wretched and guttural, ripped through her, hands smacking to her face to hold everything in. And then the thought took Connor too, his mouth hanging open as his eyes flickered over that steep fall in the graph.

  ‘His heart stopped,’ he said, so quietly that Pip almost didn’t hear him, his chest juddering. ‘He’s . . . is he . . .’

  ‘No, no,’ Pip said, firmly, holding up her palms, though it was a lie, because inside she was feeling the same dread. But she had to hide hers, that’s why she was here. ‘That’s not what it means. All this means is that the Fitbit was no longer monitoring Jamie’s heartbeat data, OK? Jamie could have taken the Fitbit off, that’s all this could be showing us. Please, don’t think that.’

  But she could see from their faces that they weren’t really listening to her any more, both of their gazes fixed on that flatline, sailing along with it into nothingness. And that thought – it was like a black hole, feeding on whatever hope they had left, and nothing Pip could say, nothing she could think of to say, could possibly fill it in again.

  I almost had a disaster, when I remembered you can’t get into DMs on the desktop version of Instagram, only on the mobile app. But it’s OK: Jamie’s associated email was still logged in on his laptop. I was able to send a reset password request from Instagram and then sign into Jamie’s account from my phone. I went straight to Jamie’s DMs with Layla Mead. There weren’t too many of them; only over the course of about eight days. Judging from context, it looks like they met on Tinder first, then Jamie moved the conversation to Instagram and then they moved on to WhatsApp, where I can’t follow them. The start of their conversation:

  Found you . . .

  so you did. i wasn’t exactly hiding

  from you : )

  how’s your day been?

  Yeah it’s been good, thanks. I just made the best

  dinner this world has ever seen and I might

  possibly be the greatest chef.

  And humble too. Go on, what was it?

  Maybe you can make it for me some day.

  I fear I may have talked this up a bit much.

  It was essentially mac and cheese.

  Most of their messages are like that: long bouts of chatting / flirting. On the third day of messages, they discovered they both loved the show Peaky Blinders and Jamie professed his lifelong ambition to be a gangster from the 1920s. Layla does seem very interested in Jamie, she was always asking him questions. But there are a few strange moments I noticed:

  didn’t you say it was your birthday

  coming up soon?

  Yeah it is

  The BIG 30

  So what are you gonna do for it?

  A party? Invite the family?

  I’m not so much a party person tbh. I’ll

  probably just have a chill one, hang with

  friends.

  This one particularly caught my eye because I was confused as to why Layla thinks Jamie is six years older than he is: twenty-nine turning thirty. The answer comes lower down in their conversation. But when I first saw this exchange, I couldn’t help but think of the similarities with what Mr Clark said: that Layla was direct about asking his age, bringing it up a few times. And, strangely, he too is twenty-nine turning thirty. Could be a coincidence, but I felt it was at least worth making a note of.

  Another weird thing is that Jamie (and Layla) keep making reference to the fact that Jamie lives alone in a small house in Kilton, which isn’t a fact at all. Again, this all became clearer when I reached the end of their conversation on Insta:

  hope we can meet up one day.

  Yeah sure. I’d really like that : )

  Listen Layla. I have to tell you something. It’s not

  easy to say it, but I really like you. Really. I haven’t

  felt like this about anyone ever and so I need to

  be honest with you. I’m not actually 29, I’m turning

  24 in a few weeks. And I’m not a successful

  portfolio manager for a financial company in

  London, that wasn’t true. I’m working as a

  receptionist at a job a family friend got for me. And

  I don’t own a house, I live at home still with my

  parents and my brother. I’m so sorry, my intention

  was never to deceive anyone, especially not you.

  I’m not even sure why I made up all those lies for

  my profile. I made it when I was in a really bad

  place, feeling very self-conscious about me, my

  life or lack thereof, and so I think I just invented

  the person I want to be, instead of the real me.

  Which was wrong, and I’m sorry. But I hope to be

  that man one day, and meeting someone like you

  makes me want to try. I’m sorry Layla and I

  understand if you’re angry with me. But, if it’s OK,

  I’d really like to keep talking to you. You make

  everything better.

  Which is veeeeerrrrryyyy interesting. So, Jamie sort of catfished the catfish first. Lying on his Tinder profile about his age, his job, his living arrangements. He explained it best himself: it was insecurity. I wonder if these insecurities are related to what happened with Nat da Silva, feeling like he lost someone so important to him to an older guy like Luke Eaton. In fact, I wonder whether Luke is twenty-nine and that’s why Jamie picked that age, as a sort of confidence boost, or a rationalisation in his head of why Nat chose Luke and not him.

  After that long message, Layla stops replying to Jamie for three days. During that time, Jamie keeps trying, until he finds something that works:

  Layla, please talk to me.

  Let me explain

  I am very truly sorry

  I would never want to upset you ever

  I understand if you never talk to

  me again.

  But you haven’t blocked me, so

  maybe there’ s a chance?

  Layla, please talk to me

  I care about you a lot.

  I would do anything for you

  Anything?

  Oh my god hi Yes. Anything. I’d do

  anything for you. I swear. I promise

  ok

  hey what’s your number? Let’s

  move this over to WhatsApp

  I’m so happy you’re speaking to me

  again. I’m 07700900472

  I don’t know, there’s something about this exchange that gives me chills. She ignores him for three days and then she just comes back with that ‘Anything?’ It feels creepy, but maybe those are just my residual feelings from my one small exchange with Layla. Who is Layla? Nothing here gives me any real identifying marks. She’s very careful, good at being the right amount of vague. If only she’d given Jamie her phone number instead of asking for his, I’d be in a different position now: able to call Layla directly, or look up the number. But here I am, still hanging on those two questions. Who really is Layla? And how is she involved in Jamie’s disappearance?

  O
ther notes

  I looked up heart rate information, I just needed some context about what I was seeing in these graphs. But now I wish I hadn’t. Jamie’s heart rate spikes up to 126 in that initial stationary period at 12:02 a.m., and then it races up to 158 just before the data cuts out. But that range of beats per minute – the experts say – is what they might consider the heart rate of someone who is experiencing a fight-or-flight response.

  WEDNESDAY

  5 DAYS MISSING

  Hello everyone,

  As you might have heard, Connor Reynolds’ older brother, Jamie, has been missing for 5 days now, and I am looking into his disappearance for my podcast.

  But I need your help! I’ve recently uncovered some information that provides an approximate area for Jamie’s last known location. This area needs to be searched for any sign or clue as to where exactly Jamie was on Friday night and what happened to him. But the area is quite large, so I’m in desperate need of volunteers to help in the search.

  If you would like to offer a hand, please meet after school today, 4:30 p.m., at the end of the car park for the briefing. If we have enough volunteers, we’ll be splitting into three search teams, led by me, Connor Reynolds and Cara Ward. Please come and find one of us to be assigned to a team.

  Thank you, and please let me know if you’re intending to come.

  X

  Twenty-Five

  Every step she took was considered, careful, staring down at the forest floor and the mud that bunched up around the outline of her shoes. A record of her having been there, a trail of imprints that stalked her through the woods. But she was looking for someone else’s prints: the jagged vertical lines on the soles of the Puma trainers Jamie had been wearing when he disappeared.

  And so was everyone else, eyes down and circling, searching for any of the signs Pip had mentioned in the briefing. Eighty-eight volunteers had turned up after school, most from her year but a few year twelves too. Thirty people on Connor’s team, now searching the fields behind school, and knocking on doors down the far end of Martinsend Way, Acres End and the lower part of Tudor Lane, to ask residents if they’d seen Jamie between 12:02 and 12:28 a.m. Friday night. Twenty-nine people on Cara’s team, who were further north, combing through the fields and farmland up near Old Farm Road and Blackfield Lane. And twenty-nine people here with Pip, standing in a wide ant-line, staggered every two metres as they searched from one end of Lodge Wood to the other.

  Well, thirty people, now that Ravi had joined them. Max’s trial had adjourned early today; it had been Max’s turn on the stand and – Ravi told her reluctantly with a glint in his eyes that looked like hate – Max and his lawyer had done an alright job. They’d prepared an answer to everything the prosecution threw at him in cross-examination. Closing remarks from both sides had followed and then the judge sent the jury off to deliberate.

  ‘I can’t wait to see his face tomorrow when he goes down. Wish I could record it for you,’ Ravi had said, using his foot to check inside a holly bush, reminding Pip of that time they were in these very woods, recreating Andie Bell’s murder to prove Sal didn’t have time to be the killer.

  Pip glanced up to her other side, exchanging a small, strained smile with Stella Chapman. But the face of Layla Mead stared back at her, sending a cold shiver down her back. They’d been out here for over an hour already, and all the team had found was a tied baggie of dog shit and a crumpled prawn cocktail crisp packet.

  ‘Jamie!’ someone down the line called.

  The shouting had been going on for a while. Pip didn’t know who’d started it, who’d first called out his name, but it had caught on, spreading sporadically up and down the line as they trudged on.

  ‘Jamie!’ she called in answer. It was probably pointless, a literal shout into the void. Jamie couldn’t still be here; and if he was, he’d no longer be able to hear his name. But at least it felt like they were actually doing something.

  Pip stalled, breaking the line for a moment as she bent to check beneath a raised tree root. Nothing.

  Her phone chimed, disturbing the crunching of their feet. It was a text from Connor: OK, we split into threes to do the door knocking, just finished Tudor Lane and moving on to the fields. Found anything? X

  ‘Jamie!’

  Pip was relieved she didn’t have to cover Tudor Lane, the road where Max Hastings lived, even though his house was actually just outside the search zone. And no one was in anyway; he and his parents were staying in an expensive hotel near the Crown Court for the duration of the trial. But still, she was glad she didn’t have to go anywhere near that house.

  Nothing yet, she texted back. ‘Jamie!’

  But as she pressed send, her screen was overtaken by an incoming call from Cara.

  ‘Hey,’ Pip answered in an almost-whisper.

  ‘Hi, yeah,’ Cara said, the wind rattling against her microphone. ‘Um, someone on my team just found something. I’ve told everyone to stand back from it, set up a perimeter, as you’d say. But, um, you need to get here. Now.’

  ‘What is it?’ Pip said, the panic riding her voice, twisting it. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘We’re at the farmhouse. The abandoned farmhouse on Sycamore Road. You know the one.’

  Pip did know the one.

  ‘On my way,’ she said.

  *

  They were running now, her and Ravi, turning the corner on to Sycamore Road, the farmhouse set back and growing out of the small hill. Its dull white painted bricks were cut through and sliced up by blackened timber, and the roof seemed to be curving inwards now, in a way that roofs shouldn’t do, like it could no longer quite hold up the sky. And the place just out of sight, behind the abandoned building, where Becca Bell had hidden her sister’s body for five and a half years. Andie had been right here all along, decomposing in the septic tank.

  Pip tripped as they crossed from gravel on to grass, Ravi’s hand skimming hers instinctively, to pull her up. And as they neared, she saw the gathering of people, Cara’s team, a colourful spattering of clothes against the dull colours of the farmhouse and the long neglected land, strewn with high tufts of weedy grass that tried to grab her feet.

  Everyone was standing in a loose formation, all eyes trained on the same place: a small cluster of trees by the side of the house, the branches grown so close to the building, like they were slowly reaching over to claim it as their own.

  Cara was in front of the group, with Naomi, waving Pip over as she shouted over her shoulder for everyone to get back.

  ‘What is it?’ Pip said, breathless. ‘What did you find?’

  ‘It’s over there, in the long grass at the bottom of those trees.’ Naomi pointed.

  ‘It’s a knife,’ said Cara.

  ‘A knife?’ Pip repeated the words, her feet following her eyes over to the trees. And she knew. She knew before she even saw it, exactly which knife it would be.

  Ravi was beside her as she bent down to look. And there it was, lying half concealed by the grass: a grey-bladed knife with a yellow band around the handle.

  ‘That’s the one missing from the Reynoldses’ kitchen, isn’t it?’ Ravi asked, but he didn’t need Pip to answer, her eyes told him enough.

  She studied it through squinted eyes, not daring to get any closer. From here, a few feet away, the knife looked clean. Maybe a few flecks of dirt, but no blood. Not enough to be seen, at least. She sniffed, pulling out her phone to take a photo of it where it lay, then she drew back, beckoning Ravi to come with her.

  ‘OK,’ she said, the panic hardening into something like dread. But Pip could control dread, use it. ‘Cara, can you call Connor, tell him to let everyone on his team go and come over here, right now.’

  ‘On it,’ she said, the phone already halfway up to her ear.

  ‘Naomi, when Cara’s done, can you tell her to call Zach to dismiss my search team as well?’

  She and Ravi had left their team in the care of Zach and Stella Chapman. But they wouldn’t find anyth
ing out there in the woods, because Jamie had come here. Jamie was here, carrying a knife he must have taken from his house. Here, at the outer limit of their search zone, which meant that Jamie’s brief stop had been somewhere else, before he’d walked to the farmhouse. And here, right here at 12:28 a.m., his Fitbit stopped recording his heart rate and step count. And there was a knife.

  A knife was evidence. And evidence had to be dealt with in the proper way, without breaking the chain of custody. No one here had touched the knife, and no one would, not until the police got here.

  Pip dialled the number of the police station in Amersham. She walked away from the gathering, plugging her other ear against the wind.

  ‘Hello Eliza,’ she said. ‘Yes, it’s Pip Fitz-Amobi. Yep. Is anyone in at the station? Uh-huh. Could you do me a favour and ask anyone who’s free to come over to the farmhouse on Sycamore Road in Kilton? Yes that’s where Andie B— No, this is about an open missing persons case. Jamie Reynolds. I’ve found a knife that’s connected to his case, and it needs to be collected and documented properly as evidence. I know I’m supposed to call the other number . . . could you just, this one favour, Eliza, I swear, just this once.’ She paused, listening down the other end. ‘Thank you, thank you.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes,’ she said, rejoining Ravi. They might as well use those fifteen minutes, start trying to work out why Jamie might have come here.

  ‘Can you keep everyone back from those trees?’ she asked Naomi.

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  ‘Come on.’ Pip led Ravi towards the farmhouse entrance, the red-painted front door dangling off its hinges, like a mouth hanging open.

  They stepped through and the inside of the house wrapped them up in its dim light. The windows were fogged over by moss and grime, and the old carpet crunched under their feet, covered in stains. It even smelled abandoned in here: mildew and must and dust.

  ‘When do we move in?’ Ravi said, looking around in disgust.

  ‘Like your bedroom is much better than this.’