Her hair was dripping by her third time coming back. She stopped dead. There was movement. Someone walking down the front path of Zach’s house. But it wasn’t Zach’s house, not any more. The figure was Charlie Green, carrying a filled black sack towards the bin left out near the path.
He jumped when he saw her emerging from the dark.
‘Ah, Pip, sorry,’ he said, laughing, dropping the bag in the bin. ‘You scared me. Are you –’ He paused, looking at her. ‘God, you’re soaking. Why aren’t you wearing a jacket?’
She didn’t have an answer.
‘Well you’re almost home now. Get in and get dry,’ he said kindly.
‘I-I . . .’ she stuttered, her teeth chattering. ‘I can’t go home. Not yet.’
Charlie tilted his head, his eyes searching out hers.
‘Oh, OK,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Well, do you want to come to ours, for a bit?’
‘No. Thank you,’ she added hastily. ‘I don’t want to be inside.’
‘Oh, right.’ Charlie shuffled, glancing back to his house. ‘Well, uh . . . do you want to sit under the porch, get out of the rain?’
Pip was about to say no but, actually, maybe she was feeling cold now. She nodded.
‘OK, sure,’ Charlie said, beckoning for her to follow him down the path. They stepped under the covered front steps and he paused. ‘Do you want a drink or something? A towel?’
‘No thank you,’ Pip said, sitting herself down on the dry middle step.
‘Right.’ Charlie nodded, pushing his reddish hair back from his face. ‘So, um, are you OK?’
‘I . . .’ Pip began. ‘I’ve had a bad day.’
‘Oh.’ He sat down, on the step below her. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘I don’t really know how,’ she said.
‘I, er, I listened to your podcast, and the new episodes about Jamie Reynolds,’ he said. ‘You’re really good at what you do. And brave. Whatever it is that’s bothering you, I’m sure you’ll find a way.’
‘They found Max Hastings not guilty today.’
‘Oh.’ Charlie sighed, stretching out his legs. ‘Shit. That’s not good.’
‘To put it lightly,’ she sniffed, wiping rainwater from the end of her nose.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘for what it’s worth, the justice system is supposed to be this purveyor of right and wrong, good and bad. But sometimes, I think it gets it wrong almost as much as it gets it right. I’ve had to learn that, too, and it’s hard to accept. What do you do when the things that are supposed to protect you, fail you like that?’
‘I was so naïve,’ Pip said. ‘I practically handed Max Hastings to them, after everything came out last year. And I truly believed it was some kind of victory, that the bad would be punished. Because it was the truth, and the truth was the most important thing to me. It’s all I believed in, all I cared about: finding the truth, no matter the cost. And the truth was that Max was guilty and he would face justice. But justice doesn’t exist, and the truth doesn’t matter, not in the real world, and now they’ve just handed him right back.’
‘Oh, justice exists,’ Charlie said, looking up at the rain. ‘Maybe not the kind that happens in police stations and courtrooms, but it does exist. And when you really think about it, those words – good and bad, right and wrong – they don’t really matter in the real world. Who gets to decide what they mean: those people who just got it wrong and let Max walk free? No,’ he shook his head. ‘I think we all get to decide what good and bad and right and wrong mean to us, not what we’re told to accept. You did nothing wrong. Don’t beat yourself up for other people’s mistakes.’
She turned to him, her stomach clenching. ‘But that doesn’t matter now. Max has won.’
‘He only wins if you let him.’
‘What can I do about it?’ she asked.
‘From listening to your podcast, sounds to me like there’s not much you can’t do.’
‘I haven’t found Jamie.’ She picked at her nails. ‘And now people think he’s not really missing, that I made it all up. That I’m a liar and I’m bad and –’
‘Do you care?’ Charlie asked. ‘Do you care what people think, if you know you’re right?’
She paused, her answer sliding back down her throat. Why did she care? She was about to say she didn’t care at all, but hadn’t that been the feeling in the pit of her stomach all along? The pit that had been growing these last six months. Guilt about what she did last time, about her dog dying, about not being good, about putting her family in danger, and every day reading the disappointment in her mum’s eyes. Feeling bad about the secrets she was keeping to protect Cara and Naomi. She was a liar, that part was true.
And worse, to make herself feel better about it all, she’d said it wasn’t really her and she’d never be that person again. That she was different now . . . good. That she’d almost lost herself last time and it wouldn’t happen again. But that wasn’t it, was it? She hadn’t almost lost herself, maybe she’d actually been meeting herself for the very first time. And she was tired of feeling guilty about it. Tired of feeling shame about who she was. She bet Max Hastings had never felt ashamed a day in his life.
‘You’re right,’ she said. And as she straightened up, untwisted, she realized that the pit in her stomach, the one that had been swallowing her from inside out, it was starting to go. Filling in until it was hardly there at all. ‘Maybe I don’t have to be good, or other people’s versions of good. And maybe I don’t have to be likeable.’ She turned to him, her movements quick and light despite her water-heavy clothes. ‘Fuck likeable. You know who’s likeable? People like Max Hastings who walk into a courtroom with fake glasses and charm their way out. I don’t want to be like that.’
‘So don’t,’ Charlie said. ‘And don’t give up because of him. Someone’s life might depend on you. And I know you can find him, find Jamie.’ He turned a smile to her. ‘Other people might not believe in you but, for what it’s worth, your neighbour from four doors down does.’
She felt it grow on her face: a smile. Small, flickering out after a moment, but it had been there. And it had been real. ‘Thank you, Charlie.’ She’d needed to hear that. All of it. Maybe she wouldn’t have listened, it if had come from anyone close to her. There’d been too much anger, too much guilt, too many voices. But she was listening now. ‘Thank you.’ She meant it. And the voice in her head thanked him too.
‘No problem.’
Pip stood up, out into the downpour, staring up at the moon, its light quivering through the sheets of rain. ‘I have to go and do something.’
Thirty-Three
Pip sat in her car, halfway down Tudor Lane. Not outside his house, just a little further up, so no one would see. Her thumbs on her phone, she played the audio clip one last time:
‘Max, at a calamity party in March 2012, did you drug and rape Becca Bell?’
‘What? No I fucking didn’t.’
‘MAX, do not lie to me or I swear to god I will ruin you! Did you put Rohypnol in Becca’s drink and have sex with her?’
‘Yes, but, like . . . it wasn’t rape. She didn’t say no.’
‘Because you drugged her, you vile rapist gargoyle. You have no idea what you’ve done.’
Her ears rang, trying to push away his voice and listen to her own. Good and bad didn’t matter here. There were only winners. And he only won if she let him. That was justice.
So, she did it.
She pressed the button, uploading the audio of that phone call to her website, reposting it on the podcast’s Twitter account. Alongside the post, she wrote: Max Hastings trial final update. I don’t care what the jury believes: he is guilty.
It was done, it was gone.
There was no going back now. This was her, and it was OK.
She dropped her phone on to the passenger seat and picked up the pot of paint she’d taken from the garage, tucking the brush into her back pocket. She opened the door, reaching back for the final item, t
he hammer from her dad’s toolkit, before stepping silently out of her car.
She walked up the road, passing one house, two, three, four, until she stopped, looking up at the Hastings family’s sprawling home, with its painted white front door. They were out, all of them, at their fancy dinner at the Savoy. And Pip was here, outside their empty house.
Up the drive, past the large oak tree, coming to a stop before the front door. She laid the paint pot on the ground, bending down to use the end of the hammer to pry open the lid. It was half full, the paint a dull green as she pulled out the brush and dipped it inside, spooling off the excess.
No going back. She took one breath and then stepped up, pressing the brush against the front door. She reached high, looping it up and down, crouching to pick up more paint when her lines ran dry.
The letters were shaky and dripping, spreading out from the door to the light-coloured bricks either side. She went back over the words, deeper and darker, and when she was done, she dropped the brush on the path, a small spatter of paint where it landed. She picked up the hammer, twirling it between her fingers, feeling its weight in her hands.
She crossed to the left side of the house, to the window there. She readied her arm and the hammer, held it back. Then she swung with full force into the window.
It shattered. A sprinkling of broken glass fell inside and out, like glitter, like rain, dusting the tops of her trainers. She tightened her grip on the hammer, glass crunching under her feet as she approached the next window. Pulled back and smashed it, the sound of the tinkling glass lost beneath the rain. And the next window. First swing, cracked. Second swing, exploded. Past the front door and the words she’d painted there, to the windows on the other side. One. Two. Three. Until all six windows at the front of the house were destroyed. Broken open. Exposed.
Pip’s breath was heavy in her chest now, right arm aching as she back-stepped down the drive. Her hair was matted and wet, whipping across her face as she looked up at the destruction. Her destruction.
And painted across the front, in the same forest-green shade as the Amobis’ new garden shed, were the words:
Rapist
I will get you
Pip read them, and read them again; looked around at what she’d done.
And she checked, down inside herself, under her skin, but she couldn’t find it. The scream was no longer there, waiting for her. She’d beaten it.
*
Can you come outside? she texted him, the rain pattering against her screen, the phone no longer recognizing her thumb.
Read, it said beneath her message a few seconds later.
She watched from outside as the light in Ravi’s bedroom window clicked on, and the curtain twitched for just a second.
Pip followed his progress as the hall light turned on in the upper middle window, and then the downstairs hall light, glowing through the glass in the front door. Broken up now by Ravi’s silhouette as he made his way towards it.
It opened and he stood there against the light, wearing just a white T-shirt and navy joggers. He looked at her, then up at the rain in the sky, and he walked outside, his feet bare, slapping against the path.
‘Nice night,’ he said, squinting against the droplets now running down his face.
‘I’m sorry.’ Pip looked at him, her hair sticking to her face in long dark streaks. ‘I’m sorry I took it out on you.’
‘That’s OK,’ he said.
‘No, it’s not.’ She shook her head. ‘I had no right to be angry at you. I think I was angry at me, mostly. And it’s not just everything that happened today. I mean, it is that, but also I’ve been lying to myself for a while now, trying to separate myself from that person who became so obsessed with finding Andie Bell’s killer. Trying to convince everyone else it wasn’t really me so I could convince myself. But I think, now, that that is me. And maybe I’m selfish and maybe I’m a liar and maybe I’m reckless and obsessive and I’m OK with doing bad things when it’s me doing them and maybe I’m a hypocrite, and maybe none of that is good, but it feels good. It feels like me, and I hope you’re OK with all that because . . . I love you too.’
She had barely finished speaking, but Ravi’s hand was against her face, cupped around her cheek, his thumb rubbing the rain from her bottom lip. He moved his fingers down to lift her chin and then he kissed her. Long and hard, their faces wet against each other, both trying to fight a smile.
But the smile broke eventually, and Ravi drew back. ‘You should have just asked me. I know exactly who you are. And I love her. I love you. Oh, by the way, I said it first.’
‘Yeah, in anger,’ said Pip.
‘Ah, that’s just because I’m so brooding and mysterious.’ He pulled a face with puckered lips and too-serious eyes.
‘Um, Ravi?’
‘Yes, Um Pip.’
‘I need to tell you something. Something I just did.’
‘What did you do?’ He dropped the face into one that was actually serious. ‘Pip, what did you just do?’
FRIDAY
7 DAYS MISSING
Thirty-Four
Pip’s alarm went off for school, chirping from her bedside table.
She yawned, sticking one foot outside the duvet. Then she remembered that she was suspended, so she tucked the foot back inside and leaned over to snooze the alarm.
But even through one sleepy eye, she saw the message waiting on her phone. Received seven minutes ago, from Nat da Silva.
Hi it’s Nat. I need to show you something. It’s about Jamie. About Layla Mead.
Her eyes hadn’t even unstuck yet, but Pip sat up and kicked off the duvet. Her jeans were still damp from last night as she pulled them on, with a white long sleeved T-shirt from the top of the laundry basket; it probably had one more use in it.
She was just fighting a brush through her rain-tangled hair when her mum came in to say goodbye before work.
‘I’m taking Josh to school now,’ she said.
‘OK.’ Pip winced as the brush caught in a knot. ‘Have a good day.’
‘We need to have a proper conversation about what’s going on with you, this weekend.’ Her mum’s eyes were stern, but her voice was trying not to be. ‘I know you’re under a lot of pressure, but we agreed that wouldn’t happen this time.’
‘No pressure, not any more,’ Pip said, the knot coming loose. ‘And I’m sorry about getting suspended.’ She wasn’t, not one bit. Ant deserved it, as far as she was concerned. But if that’s what her mum needed to hear to leave it alone, then lying it was. Her mum had the best intentions, Pip knew, but right now, those best intentions would only get in her way.
‘That’s OK, sweetie,’ she said. ‘I know the verdict must have hit you hard. And everything with Jamie Reynolds. Maybe it’s best if you stay in today, get some studying done. Some normality.’
‘OK, I’ll try.’
Pip waited, listening at her bedroom door to the sounds of her mum telling Joshua to put his shoes on the correct feet and ushering him outside. The car engine, wheels on the drive. She gave them a three-minute head start, and then she left.
Nat’s face appeared in the crack, her eyes swollen, white hair pushed back, broken up by visible finger tracks.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, pulling the door fully open.
‘I got your message,’ Pip said, her chest constricting as she met Nat’s sad eyes.
‘Yeah.’ Nat stepped back. ‘You should, um, you should come in.’ She beckoned Pip over the threshold, before closing the door and leading them down the corridor to the kitchen. The furthest Pip had ever been invited inside this house.
Nat took a seat at the small kitchen table, gesturing for Pip to take the one opposite. She did, sitting awkwardly at its very edge. Waiting, the air thickening between them.
Nat cleared her throat, rubbed one eye. ‘My brother told me something this morning. He said Max Hastings’ house was vandalized last night, and someone painted Rapist across his door.’
&nb
sp; ‘Oh . . . r-really?’ said Pip, swallowing hard.
‘Yeah. But, apparently, they don’t know who it was, don’t have any witnesses or anything.’
‘Oh, that’s a . . . that’s a shame,’ Pip coughed.
Nat looked pointedly at her, something different, something new in her eyes. And Pip knew that she knew.
Then something else happened; Nat reached out across the table and took Pip’s hand. Held on to it.
‘And I saw you uploaded that audio file,’ she said, her hand shifting around inside Pip’s. ‘You’re going to get in trouble for that, aren’t you?’
‘Probably,’ said Pip.
‘I know how that feels,’ Nat said. ‘That anger. Like you just want to set fire to the world and watch it burn.’
‘Something like that.’
Nat tightened her grip on Pip’s hand and then she let it go, drawing hers back flat against the table. ‘I think we’re quite alike, you and me. I didn’t before. I wanted to hate you so badly, I really did. I used to hate Andie Bell that much; for a while it felt like the only thing I had. And you know why I wanted to hate you so much? Apart from you being a pain in the arse.’ She tapped her fingers. ‘I listened to your podcast, and it made me not hate Andie quite so much any more. In fact, I felt sorry for her, so I hated you even harder instead. But I think I’ve been hating the wrong people all along.’ She sniffed with a tiny smile. ‘You’re OK,’ she said.
‘Thanks,’ Pip said, Nat’s smile passing to her and then out of the open window.
‘And you were right.’ Nat picked at her fingernails. ‘About Luke.’
‘Your boyfriend?’
‘Not any more. Not that he knows it yet.’ She laughed, but there was no joy in it.
‘What was I right about?’
‘What you noticed, when you asked where we were the night Jamie went missing. Luke said he was home all night, alone.’ She paused. ‘He was lying, you were right.’
Good Girl, Bad Blood Page 24