‘I’m not talking to you until you’ve stopped ,’ Ravi quoted.

‘You know something?’ Pip smiled. ‘Your brother has never looked more innocent than right now.’

‘Thanks.’ He returned the smile. ‘You know, I’ve never said this to a girl before, but . . . I’m glad you came knocking on my door out of the blue.’

‘I distinctly remember you telling me to go away,’ she said.

‘Well, it appears you’re hard to get rid of.’

‘That I am.’ She bowed her head. ‘Ready to do some knocking with me?’

‘Wait. No. What?’ He looked at her, appalled.

‘Oh, come on,’ she said, striding towards Howie’s front door, ‘you’re finally going to get some action.’

‘Gah, so hard not to point out all the innuendoes. Wait, Pip,’ Ravi said, bounding after her. ‘What are you doing? He’s not going to talk to us.’

‘He will,’ Pip said, waving her phone above her head. ‘I have leverage.’

‘What leverage?’ Ravi caught up with her just before the front door.

She turned and flashed him a scrunched-up, crinkly-eyed smile. And then she took his hand. Before Ravi could take it away, she knocked it three times against the door.

He widened his eyes and raised his finger in a silent telling-off.

They heard shuffling and coughing from inside. A few seconds later, the door was roughly pulled open.

Howie stood there, blinking at them. He’d taken his coat off now and was wearing a stained blue T-shirt, his feet bare. He appeared with a smell of stale smoke and damp, mouldering clothes.

‘Hello, Howie Bowers,’ Pip said. ‘Please may we buy some drugs?’

‘Who the hell are you?’ Howie spat.

‘I’m the hell person who took these lovely photos earlier tonight,’ Pip said, scrolling on to the pictures of Howie and holding the phone up to face him. She swiped with her thumb so he saw the whole range. ‘Interestingly I know this boy you sold drugs to. His name’s Robin. I wonder what would happen if I called his parents right now and told them to search his rucksack. I wonder if they’d find a small paper bag of treats. And then I wonder how long it would take for the police to come knocking round here, especially once I give them a call to help them along.’

She let Howie digest it all, his eyes darting between the phone, Ravi and Pip’s eyes.

He grunted. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want you to invite us in and answer some of our questions,’ Pip said. ‘That’s all, and we won’t go to the police.’

‘What about?’ he said, picking something from his teeth with his fingernails.

‘About Andie Bell.’

A look of badly performed confusion stretched into Howie’s face.

‘You know, the girl you supplied with drugs to sell on to schoolkids. The same girl who was murdered five years ago. Remember her?’ Pip said. ‘Well, if you don’t, I’m sure the police will remember.’

‘Fine,’ Howie said, stepping back over a pile of plastic bags, holding the door open. ‘You can come in.’

‘Excellent,’ Pip said with a look back to Ravi over her shoulder. She mouthed, ‘Leverage,’ to him and he rolled his eyes. But as she went to enter the house Ravi pulled her back behind him, crossing the threshold first. He stared Howie down until the man drew back from the door and moved down the tiny corridor.

Pip followed Ravi inside, closing the door behind her.

‘This way,’ Howie said gruffly, disappearing into the living room.

Howie fell back into a tattered armchair, an open can of beer waiting for him on the armrest. Ravi stepped over to the sofa and, pushing away a pile of clothes, took the seat opposite Howie, straight-backed and as close to the edge of the sofa cushion as it was possible to be. Pip sat beside him, crossing her arms.

Howie pointed his beer can at Ravi. ‘You’re the brother of the guy that murdered her.’

‘Allegedly,’ both Pip and Ravi said at the same time.

The tension in the room flailed between the three of them, like invisible sticky tendrils that licked from one person to the other as eye contact shifted.

‘You understand that we’ll go to the police with these pictures if you don’t answer our questions about Andie?’ Pip said, eyeing the beer that probably wasn’t Howie’s first since returning home.

‘Yes, darling,’ Howie laughed a teeth-whistle laugh. ‘You’ve made that clear enough.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’ll keep my questions nice and clear too. When did Andie first start working with you and how did it come about?’

‘I don’t remember.’ He took a large glug of beer. ‘Maybe early 2011. And she was the one who came to me. All I know is I had this ballsy teenager strolling up to me in the car park, telling me she could get me more business if I gave her a cut. Said she wanted to make money and I told her that I had similar interests. Don’t know how she found out where I sold.’

‘So you agreed when she offered to help you sell?’

‘Yeah, obviously. She was promising an in with the younger crowd, kids I couldn’t really get to. It was win-win.’

‘And then what happened?’ Ravi said.