When you ask people in town what happened to Andie Bell, they’ll tell you without hesitation: ‘She was murdered by Salil Singh.’ No allegedly , no might have , no probably , no most likely .

He did it, they say. Sal Singh killed Andie.

But I’m just not so sure . . .

[Next log – possibly look at what the prosecution’s case against Sal might have looked like if it went to court. Then start pecking away and putting holes in it.]

Three

It was an emergency, the text said. An SOS emergency. Pip knew immediately that that could only mean one thing.

She grabbed her car keys, yelled a perfunctory goodbye to Mum and Josh and rushed out of the front door.

She stopped by the shop on her way to buy a king-size chocolate bar to help mend Lauren’s king-size broken heart.

When she pulled up outside Lauren’s house, she saw that Cara had had the exact same idea. Yet Cara’s post-break-up first-aid kit was more extensive than Pip’s; she had also brought a box of tissues, crisps and dip, and a rainbow array of face mask packets.

‘Ready for this?’ Pip asked Cara, hip-bumping her in greeting.

‘Yep, well prepared for the tears.’ She held up the tissues, the corner of the box snagging on her curly ash-blonde hair.

Pip untangled it for her and then pressed the doorbell, both of them wincing at the scratchy mechanical song.

Lauren’s mum answered the door.

‘Oh, the cavalry are here,’ she smiled. ‘She’s upstairs in her room.’

They found Lauren fully submerged in a duvet fort on the bed; the only sign of her existence was a splay of ginger hair poking out of the bottom. It took a full minute of coaxing and chocolate bait to get her to surface.

‘Firstly,’ Cara said, prising Lauren’s phone from her fingers, ‘you’re banned from looking at this for the next twenty-four hours.’

‘He did it by text!’ Lauren wailed, blowing her nose as an entire snot-swamp was cannon-shot into the woefully thin tissue.

‘Boys are dicks, thank god I don’t have to deal with that,’ Cara said, putting her arm round Lauren and resting her sharp chin on her shoulder. ‘Loz, you could do so much better than him.’

‘Yeah.’ Pip broke Lauren off another line of chocolate. ‘Plus Tom always said “pacifically” when he meant “specifically”.’

Cara clicked eagerly and pointed at Pip in agreement. ‘Massive red flag that was.’

‘I pacifically think you’re better off without him,’ said Pip.

‘I atlantically think so too,’ added Cara.

Lauren gave a wet snort of laughter and Cara winked at Pip; an unspoken victory. They knew that, working together, it wouldn’t take them long to get Lauren laughing again.

‘Thanks for coming, guys,’ Lauren said tearfully. ‘I didn’t know if you would. I’ve probably neglected you for half a year to hang out with Tom. And now I’ll be third-wheeling two best friends.’

‘You’re talking crap,’ Cara said. ‘We are all best friends, aren’t we?’

‘Yeah,’ Pip nodded, ‘us and those three boys we deign to share in our delightful company.’

The others laughed. The boys – Ant, Zach and Connor – were all currently away on summer holidays.

But of her friends, Pip had known Cara the longest and, yes, they were closer. An unsaid thing. They’d been inseparable ever since six-year-old Cara had hugged a small, friendless Pip and asked, ‘Do you like bunnies too?’ They were each other’s crutch to lean on when life got too much to carry alone. Pip, though only ten at the time, had helped support Cara through her mum’s diagnosis and death. And she’d been her constant two years ago, as a steady smile and a phone call into the small hours when Cara came out. Cara’s wasn’t the face of a best friend; it was the face of a sister. It was home.

Cara’s family were Pip’s second. Elliot – or Mr Ward as she had to call him at school – was her history teacher as well as tertiary father figure, behind Victor and the ghost of her first dad. Pip was at the Ward house so often she had her own named mug and pair of slippers to match Cara’s and her big sister Naomi’s.

‘Right.’ Cara lunged for the TV remote. ‘Rom-coms or films where boys get violently murdered?’

It took roughly one and a half soppy films from the Netflix backlog for Lauren to wade through denial and extend a cautionary toe towards the acceptance stage.

‘I should get a haircut,’ she said. ‘That’s what you’re supposed to do.’

‘I’ve always said you’d look good with short hair,’ said Cara.

‘And do you think I should get my nose pierced?’

‘Ooh, yeah.’ Cara nodded.

‘I don’t see the logic in putting a nose-hole in your nose-hole,’ said Pip.

‘Another fabulous Pip quotation for the books.’ Cara feigned writing it down in mid-air. ‘What was the one that cracked me up the other day?’

‘The sausage one,’ Pip sighed.

‘Oh yeah,’ Cara snorted. ‘So, Loz, I was asking Pip which pyjamas she wanted to wear and she just casually says: “It’s sausage to me.” And then didn’t realise why that might be a strange answer to my question.’