Pip:

Sal knew Andie was doing this?

Naomi:

Well, I mentioned it to him. He didn’t approve obviously, but he just said, ‘It’s Andie’s drama. I don’t want to get involved.’ Sal was just too laid-back about some things.

Pip:

Was there anything else that happened between Nat and Andie?

Naomi:

Yeah, actually. Something I think is just as bad, but hardly anyone knew about it. I might have been the only one Nat told ’cause she was crying in biology right after it happened.

Pip:

What?

Naomi:

So in that autumn term the school was doing a sixth-form play. I think it was The Crucible . After auditions Nat was given the main part.

Pip:

Abigail?

Naomi:

Maybe, I don’t know. And apparently Andie had wanted that part and she was really pissed off. So after the parts were posted, Andie corners Nat and she told her . . .

Pip:

Yes?

Naomi:

Sorry, I forgot to mention some context. Nat’s brother, Daniel, who was, like, five years older than us, he had worked at the school part-time as a caretaker when we were like fifteen or sixteen. Only for a year while he was looking for other jobs.

Pip:

OK?

Naomi:

OK, so Andie corners Nat and says to her that when her brother was still working at the school he had sex with Andie even though she was only fifteen at the time. And Andie tells Nat to drop out of the play or she will go to the police and say she was statutorily raped by Nat’s brother. And Nat dropped out because she was scared of what Andie would do.

Pip:

Was it true? Did Andie have a relationship with Nat’s brother?

Naomi:

I don’t know. Nat didn’t know for sure either, that’s why she dropped out. But I don’t think she ever asked him.

Pip:

Do you know where Nat is now? Do you think I could talk to her?

Naomi:

I’m not really in contact with her, but I know she’s back at home with her parents. I heard some stuff about her, though.

Pip:

What stuff?

Naomi:

Um, I think at uni she was involved in some kind of fight. She got arrested and charged with ABH and I think she spent some time in prison.

Pip:

Oh god.

Naomi:

I know.

Pip:

Can you give me her number?

Fourteen

‘Did you get all dressed up to come and see me, Sarge?’ Ravi said, leaning against his front door frame in a green plaid flannel shirt and jeans.

‘Nope, I came straight from school,’ said Pip. ‘And I need your help. Put some shoes on –’ she clapped her hands – ‘you’re coming with me.’

‘Are we going on a mission?’ he said, staggering back to slip on some old trainers discarded in the hallway. ‘Do I need to bring my night-vision goggles and utility belt?’

‘Not this time,’ she smiled, starting down the garden path as Ravi closed the front door, following behind her.

‘Where we going?’

‘To a house where two potential Andie-killer suspects grew up,’ Pip said. ‘One of them just out of prison for committing an “assault occasioning actual bodily harm” ,’ she used quotation fingers around her words. ‘You’re my back-up as we’re going to speak to a potentially violent person of interest.’

‘Back-up?’ he said, catching up to walk alongside her.

‘You know,’ Pip said, ‘so there’s someone there to hear my screams of help if they’re required.’

‘Wait, Pip.’ He closed his fingers round her arm and pulled them both to a stop. ‘I don’t want you doing something that’s actually dangerous. Sal wouldn’t have wanted that either.’

‘Oh, come on.’ She shrugged him off. ‘Nothing gets in between me and my homework, not even a little danger. And I’m just going to, very calmly, ask her a few questions.’

‘Oh, it’s a her?’ Ravi said. ‘OK then.’

Pip swung her rucksack to whack him on the arm.

‘Don’t think I didn’t notice that,’ she said. ‘Women can be just as dangerous as men.’

‘Ouch, tell me about it,’ he said, rubbing his arm. ‘What have you got in there, bricks?’

When Ravi stopped laughing at Pip’s squat and bug-faced car, he clicked his seat belt into place and Pip keyed the address into her phone. She started the car and told Ravi everything she’d learned since they last spoke. Everything except the dark figure in the forest and the note in her sleeping bag. This investigation meant everything to him, and yet, she knew he would tell her to stop if he thought she was putting herself in danger. She couldn’t put him in that position.

‘Andie sounds like a piece of work,’ he said when Pip was done. ‘And yet it was so easy for everyone to believe that Sal was the monster. Wow, that was deep.’ He turned to her. ‘You can quote me on that in your project if you want.’