‘I didn’t see...’ Jason trailed off. He glanced up at the sky behind her for a moment, and when he looked back at her, his face had changed – angry lines arranging themselves around his eyes. He shook his head. ‘Listen to me,’ he spat. ‘That is enough. Enough. I don’t know who you think you are, but this is unacceptable. You need to learn... Don’t you think you’ve interfered enough in people’s lives, in our lives?’ he said, slapping one hand into his chest, wrinkling his shirt. ‘Both of my daughters are gone now. Reporters are back, lurking around my house, trying to get quotes for their stories. My second wife left me. I’m back in this town, in this house. You’ve done enough. More than enough, believe me.’

‘But, Jason, I –’

‘Never try to contact me again,’ he said, gripping the edge of the door, his skin overstretched across the whites of his knuckles. ‘Or anyone in my family. That’s enough.’

‘But –’

Jason closed the door on her. Not a slam, he did it slowly, his eyes holding Pip’s until the door broke them apart. Detached them. The click of the lock. But he was still there, standing at the door; Pip could see the shape of him through the frosted glass. She imagined she could feel the heat of his eyes on hers, though she couldn’t see them any more. And still his outline hadn’t moved.

He wanted her to leave first, to watch her walk away, she realized. And so she did, hoicking up the straps on her bronze rucksack, her trainers scraping on the front path.

It might have been wishful thinking to have brought her microphones, her laptop, and her headphones. She should have expected that reaction, really, given what Hawkins had told her. She didn’t blame Jason; she wouldn’t be welcome on a lot of doorsteps in this town. But she really needed those answers. Who had set off the alarm at Green Scene Ltd that night? Was it Billy, or was it someone else? Her heart was still going too fast, much too fast, and now the beat sounded to her like a timer, ticking down to its own end.

Halfway down the road, Pip checked over her shoulder, looking back at the Bells’ house. Jason’s silhouette was still there in the doorway. Did he really need to watch until she was out of sight? She got the message; she would never go back there. It had been a mistake.

She rounded the corner on to the high street and her phone started vibrating in her front pocket. Was it Ravi? He should be on the train at this time. She slid her hand into her jeans and pulled out the buzzing phone.

No Caller ID.

Pip stopped walking, stared at the screen. Another one. A second one. It might just be a call about PPI, but it wasn’t, she knew. But what should she do? Well, she had only two options here: red button or green.

She pressed green and held the phone up to her ear.

The line was silent.

‘Hello?’ she said, her voice coming out too strong, crackling at the edges. ‘Who is this?’

Nothing.

‘DT?’ she said, eyeing some children squabbling across the street, in the same navy uniform Josh wore. ‘Are you the DT Killer?’

A sound. It might have been the car driving past her, or it might have been a breath in her ear.

‘Will you tell me who you are?’ she said, scared she would drop the phone because her hands were suddenly slick with Stanley’s blood. ‘What do you want from me?’

Pip stepped out into the road, on the crossing, holding her breath so that she could hear his instead.

‘Do you know me?’ she said. ‘Do I know you?’

The line crackled and then it cut out. Three loud beeps in her ear, her heart spiking at each one. He was gone.

Pip lowered the phone and stared down at it, two steps from the kerb. The outside world blurred, disappeared for her as she stared at her empty lock screen, where he had just been moments ago. There was no mistaking who the calls were from now.

Her against him.

Save yourself to save yourself.

Pip heard the crackling of the engine too late.

The screaming wheels behind her.

She didn’t need to see to know what was happening. But in that half-second, instinct grabbed hold of her, launched her legs forward, reaching for the pavement.

A screeching sound filled her ears and filled her bones and her teeth as the car swerved away from her. One foot landed and skidded out under her.

She crashed to her knee, catching herself with one elbow, the phone skittering out of her hand across the concrete.

The screeching broke into a growl, fading as the car turned right and sped away, before she’d even had a chance to look up.

‘Oh my god, Pip!’ called a bodiless, high-pitched voice somewhere in front of her.

Pip blinked.

Blood on her hands.

Actual blood, from a scrape across her palm.

She pushed herself up, one leg still jutted out on to the road, as a set of footsteps hurried towards her.

‘Oh my god.’

A hand came out of nowhere, held out in front of her.

She looked up.

Layla Mead. No, she blinked, not Layla, Layla hadn’t been real. It was Stella Chapman standing over her, Stella-from-school, her almond eyes downturned with concern. ‘Fuck, are you OK?’ she said as Pip took her offered hand and let Stella pull her to her feet.

‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ Pip said, wiping the blood off on to her jeans. This time it left a mark.

‘That dickhead wasn’t even looking,’ Stella said, her voice still high and panicked as she bent down to scoop up Pip’s phone. ‘You were at the crossing, for fuck sake.’

She placed the phone into Pip’s hand, remarkably unscratched.

‘Must have been going at least sixty.’ Stella was still talking, too quickly for Pip to keep up. ‘On the bloody high street. Sports cars think they own the damn road.’ She ran her hand nervously through her long brown hair. ‘So close to running you over.’

Pip could still hear the screeching of the wheels, left behind as a ringing in her ears. Had she hit her head?

‘... going so fast I couldn’t even attempt to read the number plate. It was a white car though, I could see that. Pip? Are you OK? Are you hurt? Should I call someone for you? Ravi?’

Pip shook her head and the ringing in her ears faded. Turned out it was just in her head after all. ‘No, it’s OK. I’m fine. Really,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Stella.’

But as she looked at Stella, at her kind eyes and her tanned skin and the lines of her cheekbones, she became someone else again. A new person but the same person. Layla Mead. The same as Stella in every way, except her brown hair was now a dusty, ashy blonde. And when she spoke next, it was in Charlie Green’s voice.

‘How’ve you been, anyway? I haven’t seen you in months.’

And Pip wanted to scream at Charlie and tell him about the gun he had left behind in her heart. Show him the blood on her hands. But she didn’t want to scream, actually. She wanted to cry and ask him to help her, help her understand everything, understand herself. Beg him to come back and show her how to be OK with who she was again. Tell her, in his calm, soothing voice, that maybe she was losing this fight because she was already lost.

The person in front of her was now asking her when she was off to university. Pip asked the same question back, and they stood there on the street, talking carelessly about a future Pip wasn’t sure she’d have any more. It wasn’t Charlie standing in front of her, talking about leaving home. And it wasn’t Layla Mead. It was Stella. Only Stella. But, even so, it was hard to look at Only Stella.