‘Absolutely,’ Pip said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘No worries.’ Becca’s head dipped in a hesitant nod as she walked briskly past Pip and out of the cafe door.

Pip waited several moments and then followed her out, suddenly enormously glad she had changed out of the grey T-shirt she’d been wearing earlier, otherwise she’d now certainly be modelling giant dark grey pit-rings.

‘All right,’ she said, unhooking Barney’s lead from the table, ‘let’s get home.’

‘Don’t think that lady liked you,’ Josh said, his eyes still down on the cartoon figures dancing across her phone screen. ‘Were you being unfriendly, hippo pippo?’

Pippa Fitz-Amobi

EPQ 24/09/2017

Production Log – Entry 19

I know, I pushed my luck trying to question Becca. It was wrong. I just couldn’t help myself; she was right there, two steps away from me. The last person to see Andie alive, other than the killer of course.

Her sister was murdered. I can’t expect her to want to talk about it, even if I am trying to find the truth. And if Mrs Morgan finds out, my project will be disqualified. Not that I think that would stop me at this point.

But I am lacking a certain insight into Andie’s home life and, of course, it’s not even in the realm of possibility or acceptability to try to speak to her parents.

I’ve been stalking Becca on Facebook back to five years ago, pre-murder. Other than learning that her hair used to be mousier and her cheeks fuller, it looks like she had one really close friend in 2012. A girl called Jess Walker. Maybe Jess will be detached enough to not be as emotional about Andie, yet close enough that I can get some of the answers I desperately need.

Jess Walker’s profile is very neat and informative. She’s currently at university in Newcastle. Just scrolled back to five years ago (it took forever) and nearly all of her photos were taken with Becca Bell back then, until they abruptly aren’t.

Crap crap fudging bugger monkeypoo crapola arse chops . . .

I just accidentally liked one of her photos from five years ago.

Damn it. Could I look any more like a stalker??? I’ve un-liked it now but she’ll still get the notification. Grr, laptop/tablet hybrids with touch screens are ABSOLUTELY HAZARDOUS to the casual Facebook prowler.

It’s too late now anyway. She’ll know I’ve been poking my nose into her life half a decade ago. I’ll send her a private message and see if she’d be willing to give me a phone interview.

STUPID CLUMSY THUMBS.

Pippa Fitz-Amobi EPQ 26/09/2017

Production Log – Entry 20

Transcript of interview with Jess Walker (Becca Bell’s friend)

[We talk a bit about Little Kilton, about how the school has changed since she left, which teachers are still there, etc. It’s a few minutes until I can steer the conversation back to my project.]

Pip:

So I wanted to ask you, really, about the Bells, not just Andie. What kind of family they were, how did they get on? Things like that.

Jess:

Oh, well I mean, that’s a loaded question right there. (She sniffs.)

Pip:

What do you mean?

Jess:

Um, I don’t know if dysfunctional is quite the right word. People use that as a funny kind of accolade. I’d mean it in the proper sense. Like they weren’t quite normal. I mean, they were normal enough; they seemed normal unless you spent a lot of time there, like I did. And I picked up on a lot of little things that you wouldn’t have noticed if you didn’t live among the Bells.

Pip:

What do you mean by not quite normal?

Jess:

I don’t know if that’s a good way of describing it. There were just a couple of things that weren’t quite right. It was mainly Jason, Becca’s dad.

Pip:

What did he do?

Jess:

It was just the way he spoke to them, the girls and Dawn. If you only saw it a couple of times, you’d think he was just trying to be funny. But I saw it often, very often, and I think it definitely affected the environment in that house.

Pip:

What?

Jess:

Sorry, I’m talking in circles, aren’t I? It’s quite difficult to explain. Um. He would just say things to them, always little digs about how they looked and stuff. The total opposite of how you should talk to your teenage daughters. He’d pick up on things he knew they were self-conscious about. He said things to Becca about her weight and would laugh it off as a joke. He’d tell Andie she needed to put on make-up before she left the house, that her face was her money-maker. Jokes like this all the time. Like how they looked was the most important thing in the world. I remember when I was over for dinner one time Andie was upset that she didn’t get any offers from the universities she’d applied to, only one from her back-up, that local one. And Jason said, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, you’re only going to university to find a rich husband anyway.’

Pip:

No?!

Jess:

And he did it to his wife too; he’d say really uncomfortable things when I was there. Like how she was looking old, joking around counting wrinkles on her face. Saying that he’d married her for her looks and she’d married him for his money and only one of them was upholding their deal. I mean, they would all laugh when he did it, like it was just family teasing. But seeing it happen so many times, it was . . . unsettling. I didn’t like being there.