Inside, she wound her way through the crowd on the makeshift Persian-rug dance floor, being jostled this way and that. She searched through the flailing body parts and sweaty laughing faces. Searching for the safety of Cara’s face.

It was musty and hot, inside the crush of all these bodies. But Pip was shaking, an aftershock of cold quaking through her, knocking her bare knees.

Pippa Fitz-Amobi

EPQ 03/10/2017

Production Log – Entry 22

Update: I waited in my car for four hours tonight. At the far end of the station car park. I checked, no cameras. Three separate waves of commuters getting in from London Marylebone came and went, Dad among them. Luckily he didn’t spot my car.

I didn’t see anyone hanging around. No one who looked like they were there to buy or sell drugs. Not that I really know what that looks like; I never would have guessed Andie Bell was the kind.

Yes, I know I managed to get Howie Bowers’ number from Stephen-the-creep. I could just ring Howie and see whether he’d be willing to answer some questions about Andie. That’s what Ravi thinks we should do. But – let’s be real – he’s not going to give me anything that way. He’s a drug dealer. He’s not going to admit it to a stranger on the phone like he’s casually discussing the weather or trickle-down economics.

No. The only way he’ll talk to us is if we have the appropriate leverage first.

I’ll return to the station tomorrow evening. Ravi has work again, but I can do this alone. I’ll just tell my parents I’m doing my English coursework over at Cara’s house. The lying gets easier the more I have to do it.

I need to find Howie.

I need this leverage.

I also need sleep.

Persons of Interest

Jason Bell

Naomi Ward

Secret Older Guy

Nat da Silva

Daniel da Silva

Max Hastings

Drug dealer – Howie Bowers?

Nineteen

Pip was thirteen chapters in, reading by the harsh silver light from the torch on her phone, when she noticed a lone figure crossing under a street lamp. She was in her car, parked down the far end of the station car park, every half-hour marked with the screech and growl of London or Aylesbury-bound trains.

The street lamps had flickered on about an hour ago, when the sun had retreated, staining Little Kilton a darkening blue. The lights were that buzzy orange-yellow colour, illuminating the area with an unsettling industrial glow.

Pip squinted against the window. As the figure passed under the light, she saw it was a man in a dark green jacket with a furred hood and bright orange lining. His hood was up over a mask made of shadows, with only a downward-lit triangle nose for a face.

She quickly switched off her phone torch and put Great Expectations down on the passenger seat. She shifted her own seat back so she could crouch on the car floor, hidden from sight by the door, the top of her head and her eyes pressed up against the window.

The man walked over to the very outer boundary of the car park and leaned against the fence there, in a gloomy space just between two orange-lit pools from the lamps. Pip watched him, holding her breath because it fogged the window and blocked her view.

With his head down, the man pulled a phone out of one of his pockets. As he unlocked it and the screen lit up, Pip could see his face for the first time: a bony face full of sharp lines and edges and neatly kept dark stubble. Pip wasn’t the best with ages but, at a guess, the man was in his late twenties or early thirties.

True, this wasn’t the first time tonight she thought she’d found Howie Bowers. There had been two other men she’d ducked and hid to watch. The first got into a banged-up car straight away and drove off. The second stopped to smoke, long enough for Pip’s heart to pick up. But then he’d stubbed out the cigarette, blipped a car and also headed off.

But something hadn’t felt right about those last two sightings: the men had been dressed in work suits and smart coats, clearly dawdlers of a train-load from the city. But this man was different. He was in jeans and a short parka, and there was no doubt that he was waiting for something. Or someone.

His thumbs were working away on his phone screen. Possibly texting a client to tell them he was waiting. Typical Pippism, getting ahead of herself. But she had one sure way to confirm that this lurking parka-wearing man was Howie. She pulled out her phone, trying to hide its illumination by holding it low and turning it to face into her thigh. She scrolled down in her contacts to the entry for Howie Bowers and pressed the call button.

Her eyes back to the window, thumb hovering over the red hang-up button, she waited. Her nerves spiking with every half second.

Then she heard it.

Much louder than the outgoing call sound from her own phone.

A mechanical duck started quacking, the sound coming from the hands of the man. She watched as he pressed something on his phone and raised it to his ear.

‘Hello?’ came a distant voice from outside, muffled by her window. Fractionally later the same voice spoke through the speakers of her phone. Howie’s voice, it was confirmed.

Pip pressed the hang-up button and watched as Howie Bowers lowered his phone and stared at it, his thick but remarkably straight eyebrows lowering, eclipsing his eyes in shadows. He thumbed the phone and raised it to his ear again.

‘Crap,’ Pip whispered, snatching her phone up and clicking it on to silent. Less than a second later, the screen lit up with an incoming call from Howie Bowers. Pip pressed the lock button and let the call silently ring out, her heart drumming painfully against her ribs. That was close, too close. Stupid not to withhold her number, really.