Good Girl, Bad Blood

by Holly Jackson

  She walked away, flicking droplets of Coke from her hand, a hundred eyes following as she went, but none of them, not any of them, would meet hers.

  Cara was waiting for her by the usual spot, at the double doors near their English classroom, the second last lesson of the day. But as Pip crossed the corridor towards her, she noticed something: a quieting of voices as she passed, people gathering to talk behind their hands, looking her way. Well, they couldn’t all have been in the cafeteria at lunch. And anyway, Pip didn’t care what they thought. Tom Nowak was the one who should be walking through whispers, not her.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, arriving at Cara’s side.

  ‘Hey, um . . .’ But Cara was acting strangely too, scrunching her mouth in that way she did when something was wrong. ‘Have you seen it yet?’

  ‘Seen what?’

  ‘The WiredRip article.’ Cara glanced down at the phone in her hand. ‘Someone linked to it on the Facebook event you made for Jamie.’

  ‘No,’ Pip said. ‘Why, what does it say?’

  ‘Um, it . . .’ Cara trailed off. She looked down, thumbs tapping away at her phone and then she held it out on her open hand, offering it to Pip. ‘I think you should just read it.’

  A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder made an explosive return to our ears this week, with the first episode of a new mystery released on Tuesday. Jamie Reynolds, 24, has gone missing from host Pip Fitz-Amobi’s hometown. The police won’t look for him, so Pip has stepped up to the plate, uploading episodes during the course of her investigation.

  But is there a real reason the police aren’t looking for Jamie?

  A source close to Pip has told us, exclusively, that this entire season of the podcast is, in fact, a set-up. Jamie Reynolds is the older brother of one of Pip’s closest friends, and our source says that Jamie’s disappearance has been plotted by the three of them together, to create a thrilling new season for the podcast and capitalize on the popularity of the first. Jamie’s incentive in playing along with his own disappearance is financially motivated, with Pip promising the brothers a large pay-out once the season airs and she has secured new major sponsorship deals.

  So, what do you think – is Jamie Reynolds even missing at all? Are we being duped by the teen queen of True Crime? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

  Thirty

  Another corridor lined with eyes. Circling.

  Pip kept her head down as she stumbled through, towards her locker. It was the end of the day, enough time for that article to have spread around the entire school, clearly.

  But she couldn’t get to her locker. A group of year elevens were standing in front of it, talking in a tight circle of bumping backpacks. Pip drew to a stop and stared at them, until one of the girls noticed her there, eyes widening as she elbowed her friends, shushing them. The group immediately disbanded, scattering away from her, leaving their whispers and giggles behind.

  Pip opened her locker, placing her politics textbook inside. As she withdrew her hand, she noticed the small, folded piece of paper that must have been pushed through the gap above the door.

  She reached for it, opened it.

  In large, black printed letters it read: This is your final warning, Pippa. Walk away.

  The scream inside her flashed again, climbing up her neck. How imaginative; the exact same note Elliot Ward had left in her locker last October.

  Pip’s hand tightened into a fist around the note, screwing it up. She dropped the ball of paper to the floor and slammed her locker shut.

  Cara and Connor were standing just behind it, waiting for her.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Cara asked, her face soft with concern.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Pip said, turning to walk with them down the hall.

  ‘Have you seen?’ Connor said. ‘People online are actually believing it, saying they thought it was all a bit too elaborate. That it felt scripted.’

  ‘I told you,’ Pip said. Her voice came out dark, remoulded by her anger. ‘Never read the comments.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Hey,’ Ant’s voice called as they turned the corner past the Chemistry block. He, Lauren and Zach were just behind them, coming from the other direction.

  They waited for the others to catch up and slot in between, Ant’s steps falling in line with Pip’s.

  ‘Whole school’s talking about you,’ he said, and Pip could see him watching her out of the corner of her eye.

  ‘Well the whole school is full of idiots,’ Cara said, hurrying to walk on Pip’s other side.

  ‘Maybe.’ Ant shrugged, with a glance back to Lauren. ‘But we were just thinking that, I don’t know, it does seem kind of convenient.’

  ‘What seems convenient?’ Pip said, and there was a growl in her voice. Maybe no one else could hear it, but she did.

  ‘Well, the whole Jamie thing,’ Lauren spoke up now.

  ‘Oh really?’ Pip shot her a warning look, trying to hurt her with her eyes. ‘Connor, has it felt convenient to you that your brother is missing?’

  Connor’s mouth opened, but he was unsure how to answer, and all that came out was a croak between yes and no.

  ‘You know what I mean, though,’ Ant carried on. ‘Like, the whole catfish thing, so you don’t actually have to name a culprit because it’s someone who doesn’t really exist. Everything happening the night of the memorial for Andie and Sal. The missing knife, and you just happening to find it by that creepy farmhouse. It is all a bit . . . convenient, isn’t it?’

  ‘Shut up, Ant,’ Zach said quietly, falling back to keep his distance like he could sense something was coming.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Cara stared incredulously at Ant. ‘Say the word “convenient” one more time and I will end you.’

  ‘Whoa.’ Ant chuckled, holding up his hands. ‘I’m just saying.’

  But Pip couldn’t hear what he was just saying, because her ears were ringing, a hiss like static, broken up by her own voice asking her: Did you plant the knife? Could you have planted the knife? Is Jamie missing? Is Layla Mead real? Is any of this even real?

  And she didn’t know how she was still walking because she couldn’t feel her feet. She could feel only one thing. The scream had wound itself around her throat now, pulling tighter and tighter as it chased its own end.

  ‘I won’t be mad,’ Ant was saying. ‘To be honest, if this is all made up, I think it’s a genius idea. Except, you know, that you got caught. And that you didn’t tell me and Lauren.’

  Cara snapped. ‘So, you’re essentially calling both Connor and Pip liars? Grow up, Ant, and stop being such a dick all your life.’

  ‘Hey,’ Lauren chimed in now. ‘You’re the one being a dick.’

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘Guys . . .’ Connor said, but the word was lost as soon as he uttered it.

  ‘So where is Jamie?’ Ant said. ‘Holed up in some Premier Inn somewhere?’

  And Pip knew that he was just prodding her, but she couldn’t control it, she couldn’t –

  The double doors swung inwards at the end of the corridor, and the headteacher, Mrs Morgan stepped through. Her eyes narrowed, and then lit up.

  ‘Ah, Pip!’ she shouted down the hall. ‘I need to speak to you, urgently, before you go home!’

  ‘Busted,’ Ant whispered, making Lauren snort. ‘Go on, it’s over now. Might as well tell us the truth.’

  But everything had turned to fire behind Pip’s eyes.

  Her feet twisted.

  Her arms swung out.

  Hands against Ant’s chest, she shoved him, pushing him with all her strength across the width of the hall.

  He crashed into a bank of lockers.

  ‘What the –’

  Pip’s elbow drew up, her forearm against Ant’s neck, holding him in place. She stared him in the eyes, though hers had burned to ash, and she finally let it out.

  She screamed into his face. It ripped at her throat and tore at her eyes, feeding itself from that never-ending pit in
her stomach.

  Pip screamed and they were all that existed. Just her and the scream.

  Thirty-One

  ‘Suspended?’

  Pip sank into the stool in the kitchen, avoiding her dad’s eyes.

  ‘Yes.’ Her mum was standing on the other side of the room,

  Pip in the middle. Talking around her, over her head. ‘For three days. What about Cambridge, Pippa?’

  ‘Who was the other student?’ Dad asked, voice softening where her mum’s had grown harder, sharper.

  ‘Anthony Lowe.’

  Pip glanced up, catching the face her dad pulled: bottom lip rolled up over the top, eyes crinkling like he wasn’t surprised.

  ‘What’s that look for?’ her mum said.

  ‘Nothing.’ Her dad rearranged his face, untucking his lip. ‘Just never really liked the kid that much.’

  ‘How is that helpful right now, Victor?’ her mum snapped.

  ‘Sorry, it’s not,’ he said, exchanging a look with Pip. It was quick, but it was enough, and she felt a little less alone out there in the middle of the room. ‘Why did you do it, Pip?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ her mum said. ‘You shoved him against a locker with your arm on his throat. How do you not know how that happens? You’re lucky Cara, Zach and Connor were there and defended you to Mrs Morgan, told her Ant provoked you, otherwise you would have been expelled.’

  ‘How did he provoke you, pickle?’ her dad asked.

  ‘Called me a liar,’ she said. ‘The internet thinks I’m a liar. A jury of twelve peers think I’m a liar. My own friends think I’m a liar. So I guess I’m a liar now, and Max Hastings is the good guy.’

  ‘I’m sorry about the verdict,’ he said. ‘That must be really hard for you.’

  ‘Harder for the people he drugged and raped,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, and it’s unfair and awful,’ her mum said with a frown. ‘But that’s not an excuse for your violent behaviour.’

  ‘I’m not making an excuse. I’m not asking for forgiveness,’ Pip said, flatly. ‘It happened and I don’t feel guilty. He deserved it.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ she said. ‘This isn’t like you.’

  ‘What if it is?’ Pip rose from the stool. ‘What if this is exactly like me?’

  ‘Pip, don’t shout at your mother,’ her dad said, crossing over to her mum’s side, abandoning her in the middle.

  ‘Shouting? Really?’ Pip said, really shouting now. ‘That’s what we’re focusing on? A serial rapist walked free today. Jamie has been missing six whole days and might be dead. Oh, but the real problem is that I’m shouting!’

  ‘Calm down, please,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t! I can’t calm down any more! Why should I?’

  Her phone was face down on the floor. She hadn’t looked at it for an hour, sitting here underneath her desk, her fingers hooked around her toes. Her head was pressed against the cool wood of the desk leg, eyes hiding from the light.

  She hadn’t gone down for dinner, said she wasn’t hungry, even though her dad came up and said they didn’t have to talk about it, not in front of Josh. But she didn’t want to sit there at the table, in a fake truce mid-argument. An argument that couldn’t end, because she wasn’t sorry, she knew that. And that’s what her mum wanted from her.

  She heard a knock at the front door, a knock she knew: long-short-long. The door opened and closed, and then the footsteps she knew too, the scuff of Ravi’s trainers on the wooden floor before he took them off and lined them up neatly by the doormat.

  And the next thing she heard was her mum’s voice, passing by the stairs. ‘She’s in her room. See if you can talk any sense into her.’

  Ravi couldn’t find her, as he stepped into the room; not until she said, quietly, ‘I’m down here.’

  He bent down, knees clicking as his face came into view.

  ‘Why aren’t you answering your phone?’ he said.

  Pip looked at her face-down phone, out of arm’s reach.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he said.

  And she wanted, more than anything, to say no, to slide out from under the desk and fall into him. To stay there, in his gaze, wrap herself up in it and never set foot outside again. To let him tell her it was all going to be OK, even though neither of them knew it would be. She wanted just to be the Pip she was with Ravi for a while. But that Pip wasn’t here right now. And maybe she really was gone.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Your parents are worried about you.’

  ‘Don’t need their worry,’ she sniffed.

  ‘I’m worried about you,’ he said.

  She put her head against the desk again. ‘Don’t need yours either.’

  ‘Can you come out and talk to me?’ he said gently. ‘Please?’

  ‘Did he smile?’ she asked. ‘Did he smile when they said, “not guilty”?’

  ‘I couldn’t see his face.’ Ravi offered his hand to help Pip out from under the desk. She didn’t take it, crawling out on her own and standing up.

  ‘I bet he smiled.’ She ran her finger along the sharp edge of her desk, pressing in until it hurt her.

  ‘Why does that matter?’

  ‘It matters,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Ravi tried to hold her eyes but her gaze kept slipping away. ‘If there was anything I could do to change it, I would. Anything. But there’s nothing we can do now. And you getting suspended because you’re so angry about Max . . . he’s not worth any of that.’

  ‘So he just wins?’

  ‘No, I . . .’ Ravi abandoned his sentence, stepping over to her, his arms out to pull her in and wrap her up. And maybe it was because Max’s angled face flashed into her head, or maybe she didn’t want Ravi to get too close to the after-scream still thrumming inside her, but she pulled away from him.

  ‘Wha—’ His arms fell back to his sides, his eyes darkening, deepening. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So, what is it, you just want to hate the whole world right now, including me?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said.

  ‘Pip –’

  ‘Well, what’s the point?’ Her voice snagged against her dried out throat. ‘What was the point in everything we did last year? I thought I was doing it for the truth. But guess what? The truth doesn’t matter. It doesn’t! Max Hastings is innocent and I’m a liar and Jamie Reynolds isn’t missing. That’s the truth now.’ Her eyes filled. ‘What if I can’t save him? What if I’m not good enough to save him? I’m not good, Ravi, I –’

  ‘We will find him,’ Ravi said.

  ‘I need to.’

  ‘And you think I don’t?’ he said. ‘I might not know him like you do, and I can’t explain it, but I need Jamie to be OK. He knew my brother, was friends with him and Andie at school. It’s like it’s happening all over again six years later, and this time I actually have a chance, a small chance, to help to save Connor’s brother where I had no hope of saving my own. I know Jamie isn’t Sal, but this feels like some kind of second chance for me. You aren’t on your own here, so stop pushing people away. Stop pushing me away.’

  Her hands gripped the desk, bones pushing through her skin. He needed to get away from her, in case she couldn’t control it again. The scream. ‘I just want to be alone.’

  ‘Fine,’ Ravi said, scratching the phantom itch at the back of his head. ‘I’ll go. I know you’re only lashing out because you’re angry. I’m angry too. And you don’t mean it, you know you don’t mean it.’ He sighed. ‘Let me know when you remember who I am. Who you are.’

  Ravi moved over to the door, his hand stalling in the air before it, head slightly cocked. ‘I love you,’ he said angrily, not looking at her. He slammed the handle down and walked out, the door juddering behind him.

  Thirty-Two

  Makes me sick.

  That’s what the text said. From Naomi Ward.

  Pip sat up on her bed, clicking on to th
e photo Naomi sent with the message.

  It was a screenshot, from Facebook. A post from Nancy Tangotits: the name of Max Hastings’ profile. A photo, of Max, his mum and dad and his lawyer, Christopher Epps. They were gathered around a table in a lavish-looking restaurant, white pillars and a giant powder-blue bird cage in the background. Max was holding up the phone to get them all in the frame. And they were smiling, all of them, glasses of champagne in their hands.

  He’d tagged them in at The Savoy Hotel in London, and the caption above read: celebrating . . .

  The room immediately started to shrink, closing in around Pip. The walls took an inward step and the shadows in the corners stretched out to take her. She couldn’t be here. She needed to get out before she suffocated inside this room.

  She stumbled out of her door, phone in hand, tiptoeing past Josh’s room to the stairs. He was already in bed, but he’d come in to see her earlier, with a whispered, ‘Thought you might be hungry,’ leaving her a packet of Pom-Bears he’d smuggled from the kitchen. ‘Shhh, don’t tell Mum and Dad.’

  Pip could hear the sounds of her parents watching television in the living room, waiting for their programme to start at nine. They were talking, a muffled drone through the door, but she could hear one word clearly: her own name.

  Quietly, she stepped into her trainers, scooped up her keys from the side, and slipped out of the front door, shutting it silently behind her.

  It was raining, hard, spattering against the ground and up against her ankles. That was fine, that was OK. She needed to get out, clear her head. And maybe the rain would help, water down the rage until she was no longer ablaze, just the charred parts left behind.

  She ran across the road, into the woods on the other side. It was dark here, pitch dark, but it covered her from the worst of the rain. And that was fine too, until something unseen rustled through the undergrowth and scared her. She returned to the road, safe along the moonlit pavement, soaked through. She should have felt cold – she was shivering – but she couldn’t really feel it. And she didn’t know where to go. She just wanted to walk, to be outside where nothing could shut her in. So she walked, up to the end of Martinsend Way and back, stopping before she reached her house, turning and walking the road again. Up and down and back again, chasing her thoughts, trying to unravel their ends.