And then, the laughter still on his face, Ravi looked up at the sky, the sun on his face, and the laugh became a yell. He roared up into the sky, neck strained, eyes screwed shut.

People eyed him from across the street and curtains twitched in houses. But Pip knew he didn’t care. And neither did she, watching him in this raw, confusing moment of happiness and grief.

Ravi looked down at her and the roar cracked into laughter again. He lifted Pip from her feet and something bright whirred through her. She laughed, tears in her eyes, as he spun her round and round.

‘We did it!’ he said, putting her down so clumsily that she almost fell over. He stepped back from her, looking suddenly embarrassed, wiping his eyes. ‘We actually did it. Is it enough? Can we go to the police with that photo?’

‘I don’t know,’ Pip said. She didn’t want to take this away from him, but she really didn’t know. ‘Maybe it’s enough to convince them to reopen the case, maybe it isn’t. But we need answers first. We need to know why Sal’s friends lied. Why they took his alibi away from him. Come on.’

Ravi took one step and hesitated. ‘You mean, ask Naomi?’

She nodded and he drew back.

‘You should go alone,’ he said. ‘Naomi won’t talk if I’m there. She physically can’t talk. I bumped into her last year and she burst into tears just looking at me.’

‘Are you sure?’ Pip said. ‘But you, out of everyone, deserve to know why.’

‘It’s the way it has to be, trust me. Be careful, Sarge.’

‘OK. I’ll ring you straight after.’

Pip wasn’t quite sure how to leave him. She touched his arm and then walked past and away, carrying that look on Ravi’s face with her.

Twenty-Seven

Pip walked back towards her car on Romer Close, her tread much lighter on this, the return journey. Lighter because now she knew for sure. And she could say it in her head. Sal Singh did not kill Andie Bell. A mantra to the beat of her steps.

She dialled Cara’s number.

‘Well, hello, sugar,’ Cara answered.

‘What are you doing now?’ Pip asked.

‘I’m actually doing homework club with Naomi and Max. They’re doing job applications and I’m cracking on with my own EPQ. You know I can’t focus alone.’

Pip’s chest tightened. ‘Both Max and Naomi are there now?’

‘Yep.’

‘Is your dad in?’

‘Nah, he’s over at my Auntie Lila’s for the afternoon.’

‘OK, I’m coming over,’ Pip said. ‘Be there in ten.’

‘Wicked. I can leech some of your focus.’

Pip said goodbye and hung up. She felt an ache of guilt for Cara, that she was there and would now be involved in whatever was about to come out. Because Pip wasn’t bringing focus to the homework club. She was bringing an ambush.

Cara opened the front door to her, wearing her penguin pyjamas and bear-claw slippers.

‘Chica ,’ she said, rubbing Pip’s already messy hair. ‘Happy Sunday. Mi club de homeworko es su club de homeworko .’

Pip closed the front door and followed Cara towards the kitchen.

‘We’ve banned talking,’ Cara said, holding the door open for her. ‘And no typing too loudly, like Max does.’

Pip stepped into the kitchen. Max and Naomi were sitting next to each other at the table, laptops and papers splayed out in front of them. Steaming mugs of just-made tea in their hands. Cara’s place was on the other side: a mess of paper, notebooks and pens strewn across her keyboard.

‘Hey, Pip,’ Naomi smiled. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Fine thanks,’ Pip said, her voice suddenly gruff and raw.

When Pip looked at Max, he turned his gaze away immediately, staring down at the surface of his taupe-coloured tea.

‘Hi, Max,’ she said pointedly, forcing him to look back at her.

He raised a small closed-mouth smile, which might have looked like a greeting to Cara and Naomi, but she knew it was meant as a grimace.

Pip walked over to the table and dropped her rucksack on to it, just across from Max. It thumped against the surface, making the lids of all three laptops wobble on their hinges.

‘Pip loves homework,’ Cara explained to Max. ‘Aggressively so.’

Cara slid back into her chair and wiggled the mousepad to bring her computer back to life. ‘Well, sit,’ she said, using her foot to pull a chair out from under the table. Its feet scraped and shrieked against the floor.

‘What’s up, Pip?’ Naomi said. ‘Do you want a tea?’

‘What are you looking at?’ Max cut in.

‘Max!’ Naomi hit him roughly on the arm with a pad of paper.

Pip could see Cara’s confused face in her periphery. But she didn’t take her eyes away from Naomi and Max. She could feel the anger pulsing through her, her nostrils flaring with its surge. She hadn’t known until she saw their faces that this was how she would feel. She thought she would be relieved. Relieved that it was all over, that she and Ravi had done what they set out to do. But their faces made her seethe. These weren’t just small deceits and innocent gaps in memory any more. This was a calculated, life-changing lie. A momentous treachery unburied from the pixels. And she would not look away or sit until she knew why.