I know who the DT Killer is.

Or the Slough Strangler. Whatever the name, I know who he is.

And I wish I could actually send this email. Send in an anonymous tip to the police with his name – don’t even know if police stations have email addresses. I could never call. I could never say it. I’m so scared. Every single second that I’m awake, and when I’m asleep too. It’s getting harder to pretend when he’s inside the house, talking with us all like everything is normal, around the dinner table. But I know I can’t send this. How could I ever send this? Who would believe me? The police won’t. And if he found out what I said, he would kill me, just like he killed them. Of course he’d find out. He’s practically one of them.

This is just a practice, and maybe it will make me feel better, knowing that I could send this, even though I can’t. Talking it through with myself, outside of my head.

I know who the DT Killer is.

I saw him. I saw him with Julia Hunter. I know it was her, 100%. They were holding hands. I saw him kiss her cheek too. He doesn’t know I saw them. And I wasn’t that surprised to see them together. But then, six days later, she’s dead. He killed her. I know he did. I knew it as soon as I saw her face on the news. Everything fits now, all of those other details. I should have worked it out before this.

I don’t know why I contacted HH. I thought maybe she might know too, or have suspicions about who killed her sister, and I could have someone to talk about it with. Work out what to do together. But she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything. And, I don’t know why, but I feel like I have a responsibility to her, to make sure she’s OK. Because I know who killed her sister and I don’t know how to tell her. If someone touched Becca, I would be broken.

I can’t tell Sal. He probably already thinks I’m fucked up enough. There’s so much I have to hide from him, because he’s one of the only good things I have left, and he has to be protected. He can never come over, just in case.

I have this overwhelming sense of dread all the time, that if I don’t escape this town, it’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill me. He’s already started looking at me differently, or maybe that started years ago. I hope he doesn’t look at Becca like that. But I have a plan, have had a plan for a while now, just need to keep my head down. I’ve been saving up all the cash from Howie for almost a year. It’s hidden, no one will find it. I fucked up school though, so fucking stupid of me. That would have been the easiest way to escape, a university far away. No one would suspect a thing. But the only one I got into is here, and I’d have to stay in Kilton. I can’t stay at home.

Sal got into Oxford. I wish I could go with him. It’s not so far away, but it’s far enough. Maybe there’s something I can do to go too. If it’s not too late. I have to do anything to get out of here. Anything. I know Mr Ward helped him get his place, maybe he can help me too. Anything. At all costs.

And when I’m away and I’m safe, I’ll come back for Becca. She has to finish school first, she has to, she’s smart. But if I’m set up somewhere far away from here, she can come live with me, and when we are away and safe, maybe that’s when I tell the police who he is. Maybe that’s when I finally send this email, from anon, when he can no longer get to us, doesn’t know where we are.

That’s the plan at least. I have no one to talk it through with, except myself, but it’s the best I can do. I’ll have to delete this now, just in case.

This feels too big for me, but I think I can do it. Save us. Keep Becca safe. Survive.

I just have to m

Ravi scrolled it up and down again, shaking his head, and Pip could see the reflection of Andie’s words in the dark of his eyes. Even clearer now that they were filling with tears. The weight of her ghost inside him too, not just in her. A dead girl shared, a dead girl halved; they were the only two people in the world who knew. These weren’t Andie Bell’s final words, but they sure felt like it.

‘I don’t believe it,’ he said finally, cupping his hands around his face. ‘I can’t believe it. Andie, she... This changes everything. Everything.’

Pip sighed. There was an unutterable sadness in her gut, and still she was sinking through the floor, dragging Andie’s ghost with her. But she took Ravi’s hand, holding tight to anchor them all together. ‘I mean, it changes everything, and it changes nothing,’ she said. ‘Andie didn’t survive. It wasn’t DT who killed her, but it was everything she tried to do to escape him that did. Howie Bowers. Max Hastings. Elliot Ward. Becca. This is why it all happened. Everything. Full circle,’ she added quietly. The beginning was the end and the end the beginning, and DT was both.

Ravi wiped his eyes on his sleeve. ‘I just...’ His voice croaked, stifling his next words. ‘I don’t know how I feel about this. It’s... it’s too sad. And we, we’ve all been wrong about her. I couldn’t really understand what Sal saw in her before but... oh god, she must have been so terrified. So alone.’ He glanced up at Pip. ‘And this is it, isn’t it? The 21st February: it was right after this that she first approached Mr Ward, and...’

‘At all costs,’ Pip said, echoing Andie’s words, and she felt that uncanny closeness to her again. Five years apart and they’d never met, yet here she was, carrying Andie around in her chest. Two dead girls walking, more alike than Pip could ever have realized. ‘She was desperate. I never really understood why, but I never would have guessed this. Poor Andie.’

Such an inadequate thing to say, but what else was there?

‘She was brave,’ Ravi said in a small voice. ‘Reminds me of you a little bit.’ A small smile to match the small voice. ‘The Singh brothers clearly have a type.’

But Pip’s mind had left her, spinning back to last year. To Elliot Ward standing across from her, the police on their way. ‘Elliot said something to me last year, and I never really understood it until now.’ She paused, replaying the scene in her head. ‘He told me that when Andie went round to his house – before he pushed her off and she hit her head – she told him that she had to get away from home, from Little Kilton, because it was killing her. The signs were there... I-I didn’t see them.’

‘And it did,’ Ravi said, his eyes back on the screen, on the final trace of Andie Bell, her last mystery laid bare. ‘It did kill her.’

‘Before he did,’ she said.

‘Who is he?’ Ravi said, running an unclicked pen down the laptop screen. ‘There’s no name, but there’s a lot of information, Pip. There must be a smoking gun here. So, it’s someone the whole Bell family knew, including Andie and Becca. Which makes sense with the connection to Jason’s company, Green Scene, right?’

‘Someone who used to go over to their house, even have dinner with them,’ Pip said, underscoring the line with her finger. She clicked her tongue, as another old thought stirred, came back to life.

‘What?’ Ravi asked.

‘Last year, I went to speak to Becca at the Kilton Mail office. This was back when Max and Daniel da Silva were my main suspects for Andie. We talked about Dan, because I found out he was one of the officers who did the initial search of their house when Andie went missing. And Becca told me Daniel was close with her dad. Jason got him a job at Green Scene, then promoted him to the office, and also was the one who suggested Dan apply to be a police officer.’ Pip was untethered again, floating through time, from then to now, the start to the end. ‘She said that Daniel was often coming round theirs after work, sometimes stayed for dinner.’