‘Oh, and the wine’s kept under that plate of chicken?’ Pip said, walking past, shouldering her bag.

‘Yes. I’ll have to heroically eat my way to it,’ he replied. ‘What time will you be home?’

‘Half eleven-ish,’ Pip said, calling bye to her mum and Josh, her mum telling her not to stay out too late because they were heading to Legoland in the morning, and there was a small whoop of excitement from Josh. Pip said she wouldn’t, the normalness of the scene like a punch in her gut, doubling her over, making it hard to even look at her family. Would she ever belong in a scene like this again, after what she did? Normal was all she’d wanted, what all of this was for, but was it now out of reach forever? It definitely would be, if she went down for Jason’s murder.

Pip closed the front door behind her and exhaled. She didn’t have time for these questions; she needed to focus. There was a body ten miles away, and she was in a race against it.

It was 8:27 p.m. now, already behind schedule.

Pip unlocked her car and climbed inside, placing the rucksack on the passenger seat. She turned the key in the ignition and pulled away, her leg shaking against the pedal, stage one complete behind her.

On to the next.

The dark red door peeled open in front of Pip, the shadow of a face in the small crack.

‘I told you already,’ said the shadow, registering who it was at the door. ‘I don’t have them yet.’

Luke Eaton pulled the door fully open, dark hallway behind him, the street lamps outside lighting up the tattoos that climbed his neck like a net, holding his flesh together.

‘Doesn’t matter how many times you text, from how many different phones, I don’t have it,’ he said, a hint of impatience in his voice. ‘And you aren’t supposed to just show up like –’

‘Give me the stronger stuff,’ Pip said, cutting him off.

‘What?’ He stared at her, one hand running through his close-shaved head.

‘The stronger stuff,’ Pip repeated. ‘The Rohypnol. I need it. Now.’ Her face was blank, like a shield, or a mask, the girl back from the dead hiding behind it. But her hands might give her away, fidgeting nervously in the pocket of her hoodie. If he didn’t have it, if he’d already sold his whole stash to Max Hastings himself, then it was all over. Not one part of the plan could fail or it all did, a stack of cards, precariously balanced on her back. And her whole life was right there, in Luke’s grey-tattooed hands.

‘Huh?’ he said, studying her, but he wouldn’t get through the mask. ‘You sure?’

Pip’s shoulders relaxed, the cards still balanced. He must have it, then.

‘Yes,’ she said, harder than she meant, the word hissing against her teeth. ‘Yes, I need it. I need... I have to sleep tonight. I have to be able to sleep.’ She sniffed, wiped her nose on her sleeve.

‘Yeah,’ Luke eyed her. ‘You don’t look great. It’s more expensive than your usual, though.’

‘I don’t care, however much it is. I need it.’ Pip pulled out the small stack of notes from her hoodie pocket. She had eighty pounds here, and she folded all of them into Luke’s outstretched hand. ‘Whatever this will get me,’ she said. ‘As much.’

Luke looked down at the money folded into his hand, a muscle twitching in his cheek as he chewed on some unknown thought. Pip watched him, urging him on, planting invisible marionette strings inside his head, pulling on them like her life depended on it.

‘OK, stay there,’ he said, pushing the door almost closed, his bare footsteps carrying him away down the dark hallway.

The relief was bright but short-lived. Pip still had a long night ahead of her, and a thousand chances for something to go wrong. She might be alive, but tonight she was fighting for her life all the same, just as hard as she had wrapped up in that tape.

‘Here,’ Luke said, returning, opening the door to only a sliver again, eyes glinting behind it. He held out a paper bag through the gap and Pip took it from him.

She opened it and glanced inside: two small, clear baggies with four of those moss-green pills inside.

‘Thank you,’ Pip said, scrunching up the bag and stuffing it into her pocket.

‘Yeah, alright,’ Luke said, stepping away. But before the door closed, he came back, face hanging in the gap. ‘Sorry about the other day. Didn’t see you on the crossing there.’

Pip nodded at him, arranging her mouth in a closed-lip smile to give none of herself away. ‘That’s OK, I’m sure you didn’t mean to.’

‘Yeah,’ Luke nodded, sucking on his teeth. ‘Um, listen. Don’t take too much of that, OK? It’s a lot stronger than what you’re used to. One will be enough to knock you out.’

‘Got it, thanks,’ she said, catching the look on his face, almost like he was concerned about her. The most unlikely of places for it, the most unlikely of people. She really must look terrible.

Pip heard the door closing gently behind her as she made her way back to her car, walking past Luke’s bright white BMW, her reflection following her in its dark windows.

Inside the car, she removed the paper bag from her pocket. Pulled out the clear plastic bags and looked at them in the glow from the street lamps. Eight pills, inscribed with 1mg on one side. Luke said one would be enough to knock her out, but she wasn’t the one who needed to be unconscious. And she had to make sure it worked, quickly, but not enough to cause an overdose. That would make her a two-time killer in the same day.

Pip opened both of the small bags and pulled out two of the pills from one of them. She dropped one pill into the other bag, five in there now. Then she snapped the last pill in two, dropping one half into each bag. Two and a half milligrams. She didn’t know what she was doing, but that seemed like it would do it.

Pip replaced the baggie with more pills into the paper bag and stuffed it into her rucksack. She’d get rid of them later, along with everything else. Didn’t trust herself to keep them.

But the other bag, with two and a half, she made sure the top was sealed up tight, and then she dropped the bag into the footwell, just in front of the pedals. Pip guided her foot over the bag and pressed down against the pills with her heel, hearing them crack. She ground her heel down hard, working at every lump, pushing and grinding until they were crushed.

She picked up the bag and held it out in front of her eyes. The pills were gone, replaced by a fine green dust. Pip shook it to make sure there were no remaining chunks.

‘Good,’ she said, under her breath, tucking the bag of powder into her pocket and patting it to know it was still there.

Pip started the car, her headlights scaring away the darkness outside, but not the other kind that lived in her head.

It was 8:33 p.m., now 8:34, and still three more houses in Kilton to visit tonight.

The Reynoldses’ house on Cedar Way looked like a face. Pip had always thought so, ever since she was little. It still did now, as she walked up the path towards its toothy front door, windows staring down at her. The steadfast guardian of the family inside. The house shouldn’t let her in, it should turn her away. But the people inside wouldn’t, Pip knew it in her gut.

She knocked, hard, watching the outline of someone approach through the stained-glass of the door.