‘Pip?’ Cara called her back. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ she sniffed, wiping her hands on a spare napkin. ‘Fine. Fine. You know what?’ She leaned forward, pointed at Cara’s phone lying face down on the table. ‘We should take some pictures. Videos too.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of us,’ Pip said. ‘Hanging out, looking normal. The meta-data will have a record of the time and be geo-tagged. Come on.’

Pip got up from her chair and moved over to the booth, sidling in beside Cara. She picked up Cara’s phone and flicked it on to the camera. ‘Smile,’ she said, holding the camera out to take a selfie of the three of them, Naomi holding up her McDonalds cup in a mock-cheers.

‘Yeah, that was good, Naomi,’ Pip said, studying the photo. She could tell the smiles weren’t real, none of them. But Hawkins wouldn’t.

Pip had another idea, the hairs rising up her arms as she realized where it had come from. She might just be putting one foot in front of the other, getting through the plan, but her steps weren’t in a line. They were curving back on themselves, right to the start of everything.

‘Naomi,’ she said, holding up the camera again. ‘In the next one, can you be looking down at your phone, angling the screen this way, so we can see it in the photo. On the lock screen, so it displays the time.’

Both of them stared at her for a second, eyes flickering with recognition. And maybe they could feel it too, that all-seeing circle reeling them back along. They knew where the idea came from too. It was exactly how Pip had worked out that Sal Singh’s friends had taken his alibi away from him. A photo taken by Sal, and in the background had been an eighteen-year-old Naomi, looking down at her phone’s lock screen, the time on it giving everything away. Proving that Sal had been there, long after his friends originally said he left. Proving that he had never had enough time to kill Andie Bell.

‘Y-yeah,’ Naomi said shakily. ‘Good idea.’

Pip watched the three of them in the front camera of Cara’s phone, waiting for Naomi to get her positioning right, lining up the shot. She took the photo. Shifted her smile and her eyes and took another, Cara fidgeting beside her.

‘Good,’ she said, studying it, her eyes drawn to the little white numbers on Naomi’s home screen, telling them the photo had been taken at 10:51 p.m. exactly. The numbers that had helped her crack a case once before, and now they were helping her make one. Concrete evidence. Try not believing that, Hawkins.

They took more photos. Videos too. Naomi filming Cara as she attempted to see how many chips she could fit in her mouth at once, spitting them into the bin while the table of drunk men cheered her on. Cara zooming in on Pip’s face while she sipped her Coke, zooming and zooming, until the shot was only of Pip’s nostril, while she innocently asked, ‘Are you filming me?’ A line they had prepared.

It was a performance. Hollow, orchestrated. A show for Detective Inspector Hawkins days from now. Weeks, even.

Pip forced down another chicken nugget, her gut protesting, foaming and simmering. And then she felt it, that metallic coating at the back of her tongue.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, standing up abruptly, the others looking up at her. ‘Gotta pee.’

Pip hurried across the concourse, her trainers shrieking against the just-mopped tiles as she headed towards the toilets.

She pushed through the door, almost crashing into someone drying their hands.

‘Sorry,’ Pip just about managed to say, but it was coming, it was coming. Rising up her throat.

She darted into a cubicle, slamming the door behind her but no time to lock it.

She dropped to her knees and leaned over the toilet just in time.

She vomited. A shudder down to the very deepest parts of her as she vomited again. Her body convulsing, trying to rid itself of all that darkness. But didn’t it know, that was all inside her head? She threw up again, undigested bits of food, and again, until it was just discoloured water. Until she was empty, retching with nothing more to come, but the darkness remained.

Pip sat back beside the toilet, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She pulled the flush and sat there for a moment, breathing hard, her neck resting against the cool tiles of the bathroom wall. Sweat trickled down her temples and the insides of her arms. Someone tried to push into her cubicle, but Pip kicked it shut with one foot.

She shouldn’t stay in here too long. She had to hold it together. If she broke down then the plan did too and she wouldn’t survive it. Just a few more hours, a few more boxes to tick in her head, and then she would be clear. Safe. Get up, she told herself, and the Ravi inside her head said it too, so she had to listen.

Pip pushed up to her feet, shakily, and pulled open the cubicle. Two women around her mum’s age stared at her as she walked over to the sink to wash her hands. Wash her face too, but not too hard that it cleared away the foundation covering the tape marks beneath. She swilled cold water around her mouth and spat it out. Took one tentative sip.

Their stares hardened, disgust in the way they held their upper lips.

‘Too many Jägerbombs,’ Pip said, shrugging at them. ‘You’ve got lipstick on your teeth,’ she told one of the women before leaving the bathroom.

‘Alright?’ Naomi asked her as she sat back down.

‘Yeah.’ Pip nodded, but her eyes were still watering. ‘No more for me.’ She pushed the food away and reached for Cara’s phone to check the time. It was 11:21 p.m. They should probably leave in the next ten minutes. ‘How about a McFlurry before we go?’ she said, thinking of that final charge on her card, another breadcrumb in the trail she was leaving for Hawkins.

‘I really couldn’t eat anything else.’ Cara shook her head. ‘I’ll be sick.’

‘Two McFlurries coming up.’ Pip stood, grabbing her purse. She added, under her breath, ‘To go. Or go in the bin when I drop you home.’

She waited in line again, shuffling a few steps forward at a time. She ordered the ice creams, told the cashier she didn’t care which flavour. She tapped her card to pay for them, that beep reassuring her. The machine was on her side, telling the world that she’d been right here, until gone eleven thirty. Machines didn’t lie, only people did.

‘Here we are,’ Pip said, passing the too-cold McFlurries into their hands, glad to be away from the smell of them. ‘Let’s go.’

They didn’t talk much on the way back either, driving the same A-roads in reverse. Pip wasn’t there with them any more, she’d moved forward in time, back to Green Scene Ltd and the river of blood on the concrete. Working through everything she and Ravi still had to do. Memorizing the steps, so nothing got forgotten. Nothing could be forgotten.

‘Bye,’ she said, almost laughing at how ridiculous and small the word sounded, as Cara and Naomi stepped out of her car, untouched ice creams still clutched in their hands. ‘Thank you. I... I can never thank you enough for... but we can never talk about it again. Never mention it. And remember, you don’t need to lie. I came here, made one phone call, then we drove to McDonalds, and I dropped you home after at,’ Pip checked the time on the dashboard, ‘11:51 p.m. That’s all you know. That’s all you say, if anyone ever asks you.’