‘Oh . . . right. Let’s go and scope out the target, Sarge.’ Ravi looked intently at her, pretending to do a complex sequence of military hand gestures. She flicked him to get him to stop.

Pip went first, walking briskly across the road and over the front lawn. Thank goodness the Bells lived right at the end of a quiet street; there was no one around. She reached the front door and turned to watch Ravi darting across, head down, to join her.

They checked under the doormat first, the place where Pip’s family kept their spare key. But no luck. Ravi reached up and felt the frame above the front door. He pulled his hand back empty, fingertips covered in dust and grime.

‘OK, you check that bush, I’ll check this one.’

There was no key under either, nor hidden around the fitted lanterns nor on any secret nail behind the creeping ivy.

‘Oh, surely not,’ Ravi said, pointing at a chrome wind chime mounted beside the front door. He snaked his hand through the metal tubes, gritting his teeth when two knocked tunefully together.

‘Ravi,’ she said in an urgent whisper, ‘what are you –’

He pulled something off the small wooden platform that hung in the middle of the chimes and held it up to her. A key with a little nub of old Blu-Tack attached.

‘Aha,’ he said, ‘student becomes master. You may be the sarge, Sarge, but I am chief inspector.’

‘Zip it, Singh.’

Pip swung her bag off and lowered it to the ground. She rustled inside and immediately found what she was looking for, her fingers alighting on their smooth vinyl texture. She pulled them out.

‘Wh– I don’t even want to ask,’ Ravi laughed, shaking his head as Pip pulled on the bright yellow rubber gloves.

‘I’m about to commit a crime,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to leave any fingerprints. There’s a pair in here for you too.’

She held out her florescent yellow palm and Ravi placed the key into it. He bent to rifle through her bag and stood up again, his hands gripped round a pair of purple flower-patterned gloves.

‘What are these?’ he said.

‘My mum’s gardening gloves. Look, I didn’t have long to plan this heist, OK?’

‘Clearly,’ Ravi muttered.

‘They’re the bigger pair. Just put them on.’

‘Real men wear floral when trespassing,’ Ravi said, slipping them on and clapping his gloved hands together.

He nodded that he was ready.

Pip shouldered her bag and stepped up to the door. She took a breath and held it in. Gripping her other hand to steady it, she guided the key into the lock and twisted.

Twenty-Three

The sunlight followed them inside, cracking into the tiled hallway in a long, glowing strip. As they stepped over the threshold, their shadows carved through the beam of light, both of them together as one stretched silhouette, with two heads and a tangle of moving arms and legs.

Ravi closed the door and they walked slowly down the hallway. Pip couldn’t help but tiptoe, even though she knew no one was home. She’d seen this house many times before, pictured at different angles with police in black and high-vis swarming outside. But that was always outside. All she’d ever seen of the inside were snippets when the front door was open and a press photographer clicked the moment into forever.

The border between outside and in felt significant here.

She could tell Ravi felt it too, the way he held his breath. There was a heaviness to the air in here. Secrets captured in the silence, floating around like invisible motes of dust. Pip didn’t even want to think too loudly, in case she disturbed it. This quiet place, the place where Andie Bell was last seen alive when she was only a few months older than Pip. The house itself was part of the mystery, part of Kilton’s history.

They moved towards the stairs, glancing into the plush living room on the right and the huge vintage-style kitchen on the left, fitted with duck-egg blue cabinets and a large wood-top island.

And then they heard it. A small thump upstairs.

Pip froze and Ravi grabbed her gloved hand with his.

Another thump, closer this time, just above their heads.

Pip looked back at the door; could they make it in time?

The thumps became a sound of frantic jingling and a few seconds later a black cat appeared at the top of the stairs.

‘Holy crap,’ Ravi said, dropping his shoulders and her hand, his relief like an actual blast of air rippling through the quiet.

Pip sniffed a hollow, anxious laugh, her hands starting to sweat inside the rubber. The cat bounded down the stairs, stopping halfway to meow in their direction. Pip, born and raised a dog person, wasn’t sure how to react.

‘Hi, cat,’ she whispered as it padded down the rest of the stairs and slinked over to her. It rubbed its face on her shins, curling in and out of her legs.

‘Pip, I don’t like cats,’ Ravi said uneasily, watching with disgust as the cat started to press its fur-topped skull into his ankles. Pip bent down and patted the cat lightly with her rubber-gloved hand. It came back over to her and started to purr.

‘Come on,’ she said to Ravi.

Unwinding her legs from the cat, Pip headed for the stairs. As she took them, Ravi following behind, the cat meowed and raced after them, darting round his legs.

‘Pip . . .’ Ravi’s voice trailed nervously as he tried not to step on it. Pip shooed the cat and it trotted back downstairs and into the kitchen. ‘I wasn’t scared,’ he added unconvincingly.