‘No, I know, course you didn’t,’ he said. ‘Can I help with whatever it is?’

‘We were asking about this girl.’ Pip held up the paper. ‘Whether she stayed here five years ago.’

‘And what did my grandma say?’

‘She thought she’d seen her recently, just weeks ago,’ she swallowed. ‘But this girl died in 2012.’

‘She does that quite often now,’ he said, looking between the two of them. ‘Gets confused about times and when things happened. Sometimes still thinks my grandad is alive. She’s probably just recognizing your girl from five years ago, if that’s when you think she was here.’

‘Yeah,’ Pip said, ‘I guess.’

‘Sorry I can’t be of more help. I can’t tell you who stayed here five years ago; we haven’t kept the old records. But if she recognized her, I guess that gives you your answer?’

Pip nodded. ‘It does. Sorry for upsetting her.’

‘Will she be OK?’ said Ravi.

‘She’ll be fine,’ Henry said gently. ‘Cup of tea will do the trick.’

They strolled out of Kilton station, the town just dimming as it ticked into the hour of six and the sun slumped off to the west.

Pip’s mind was a centrifuge, spinning over the shifting pieces of Andie, separating them and putting them back together in different combinations.

‘Weighing it up,’ she said, ‘I think we can confirm that Andie stayed at the Ivy House Hotel.’ She thought the bathroom tiles and the woman’s time-confused recognition were proof enough of that. But this confirmation loosened and rearranged certain pieces.

They turned right into the car park, heading for Pip’s car down at the far end, speaking in harmonized if s and so s as they walked.

‘If Andie was going to that hotel,’ Ravi said, ‘must be because that’s where she met Secret Older Guy and they were both trying to avoid getting caught.’

Pip nodded in agreement. ‘So,’ she said, ‘that means that whoever Secret Older Guy was, he couldn’t have Andie over at his house. And the most likely reason for that would be that he lived with his family or a wife.’

This changed things.

Pip carried on. ‘Daniel da Silva lived with his new wife in 2012 and Max Hastings was living with his parents who knew Sal well. Both of them would have needed to be away from home to carry on a secret relationship with Andie. And, let’s not forget, Max has a naked photo of Andie taken inside the Ivy House Hotel, a photo he supposedly “found”,’ she said, using fingered air quotes.

‘Yeah,’ Ravi said, ‘but Howie Bowers lived alone then. If it was him Andie was secretly seeing, they wouldn’t have needed to stay in a hotel.’

‘That’s what I was thinking,’ Pip said. ‘Which means, we can now rule Howie out as a candidate for Secret Older Guy. Although that doesn’t mean he can’t still be the killer.’

‘True,’ Ravi agreed, ‘but at least it starts to clear the picture a little. It wasn’t Howie who Andie was seeing behind Sal’s back in March, and it wasn’t him she spoke of ruining.’

They had deduced all the way over to her car. Pip fiddled in her pocket and blipped the key. She opened the driver door and shoved her rucksack inside, Ravi taking it on his lap in the passenger seat. But as she started to climb in she looked up and noticed a man leaning against the far fence, about sixty feet away, in a green parka coat with bright orange lining. Howie Bowers, furred hood up, obscuring his face, nodding at the man beside him.

A man whose hands were gesticulating wildly as he mouthed silent and angry-looking words. A man in a smart wool coat with floppy blonde hair.

Max Hastings.

Pip’s face drained. She dropped into her seat.

‘What’s wrong, Sarge?’

She pointed out of his window to the fence where the two men stood. ‘Look.’

Max Hastings, who had lied to her yet again, saying he never bought drugs in Kilton after Andie disappeared, that he had no clue who her dealer was. And here he was, shouting at that very drug dealer, the words lost and blown apart in the distance between them all.

‘Oh,’ Ravi said.

Pip started the engine and pulled out, driving away before either Max or Howie could spot them, before her hands started to shake too much.

Max and Howie knew each other.

Yet another tectonic shift in the world of Andie Bell.

Pippa Fitz-Amobi

EPQ 12/10/2017

Production Log – Entry 27

Max Hastings. If anyone should go on the persons of interest list in bold, it’s him. Jason Bell has been downgraded as number-one suspect and Max has now stepped up to take the title. He’s lied twice now in Andie-related matters. You don’t lie unless you have something to hide.

Let’s recap: he’s an older guy, he has a naked picture of Andie taken in a hotel he could very well have been meeting her in in March 2012, he was close to both Sal and Andie, he regularly bought Rohypnol from Andie and he knows Howie Bowers pretty well from the looks of it.

This also opens up the possibility of another pair who could have colluded together in Andie’s murder: Max and Howie.

I think it’s time to pick up the Rohypnol trail and run with it. I mean, it’s no normal nineteen-year-old that buys roofies for school parties, is it? It’s the thing that links this messy Max/Howie/Andie triangle.