Pip:

Thanks for agreeing to talk again. This is a really short follow-up, I promise.

Emma:

Yeah, no that’s fine.

Pip:

Thanks. OK, so firstly I’ve been asking around about Andie and I’ve heard certain rumours I wanted to run by you. That Andie may have been seeing someone at the same time as Sal. An older guy perhaps? Had you ever heard anything like that?

Emma:

Who told you that?

Pip:

Sorry, they asked me to keep them anonymous.

Emma:

Was it Chloe Burch?

Pip:

Again, sorry, I was asked not to say.

Emma:

It had to be her; we were the only ones who knew.

Pip:

So it’s true? Andie was seeing an older man during her relationship with Sal?

Emma:

Well, yeah, that’s what she said; she never told us his name or anything.

Pip:

Did you have any indication about how long it had been going on for?

Emma:

Like, not long at all before she went missing. I think she started talking about it in March. That’s just a guess, though.

Pip:

And you knew nothing about who it was?

Emma:

No, she liked teasing us that we didn’t know.

Pip:

And you didn’t think it was relevant to tell the police?

Emma:

No because, honestly, those are the only details we ever knew. And I kind of thought Andie had made him up for some drama.

Pip:

And after the whole Sal thing happened, you never thought to tell the police that that could be a possible motive?

Emma:

No, ’cause again I wasn’t convinced he was real. And Andie wasn’t stupid; she wouldn’t have told Sal about him.

Pip:

But what if Sal found out anyway?

Emma:

Hmm, I don’t think so. Andie was good at keeping secrets.

Pip:

OK, moving on to my final question, I was wondering if you knew whether Andie had ever fallen out with Naomi Ward. Or whether they had a strained relationship?

Emma:

Naomi Ward, Sal’s friend?

Pip:

Yeah.

Emma:

No, not to my knowledge.

Pip:

Andie never mentioned any tension with Naomi or said bad things about her?

Emma:

No. Actually, now you mention it, she definitely was hating on one of the Wards, but it wasn’t Naomi.

Pip:

What do you mean?

Emma:

You know Mr Ward, the history teacher? I don’t know if he’s still at Kilton Grammar. But yeah, Andie did not like him. I remember her referring to him as an arsehole, among other stronger words.

Pip:

Why? When was this?

Emma:

Um, I couldn’t say specifically but I think it was around that Easter. So, not long before everything happened.

Pip:

But Andie wasn’t taking history?

Emma:

No, it must have been something like he’d told her that her skirt was too short for school. She always hated that.

Pip:

OK that’s everything I needed to ask. Thanks again for all your help, Emma.

Emma:

No worries. Bye.

NO . Just no.

First Naomi, who I can’t even look in the eye any more. And now Elliot? Why are questions about Andie Bell returning answers about the people close to me?

OK, Andie insulting a teacher to her friends in the lead-up to her death looks like an utter coincidence. Yes. It could be entirely innocent.

But – and it’s quite a big but – Elliot told me he hardly knew Andie or had anything to do with her in the last two years of her life. So why did she call him an arsehole if they had nothing to do with each other? Was Elliot lying, and for what reason?

I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t speculate wildly, as I have before, just because I’m close to Elliot. So even though it physically pains me: could this innocuous clue, in fact, indicate that Elliot Ward was the secret older man? I mean, I first thought the ‘secret older guy’ would be someone in their mid to late twenties. But maybe my instincts were wrong; maybe it refers to someone much older. I baked the cake for Elliot’s last birthday, so I know he’s now forty-seven, which would have made him forty-two in the year of Andie’s disappearance.

Andie told her friends she could ‘ruin’ this man. I thought this meant that the guy – whoever he was – was married. Elliot wasn’t; his wife had died a couple of years before. But he was a teacher at her school, in a position of trust. If there was some inappropriate relationship, Elliot could have faced jail time. That certainly can be covered under ‘ruining’ someone.

Is he the type of person who would do that? No, he isn’t. And is he the kind of man a seventeen-year-old beautiful blonde student would lust after? I don’t think so. I mean, he’s not hideous and he has a certain greying professorial look but . . . just no. I can’t see it.