‘Thanks,’ he said, pulling the hat on, Pip helping him to tuck in any stray hairs. Then he removed the purple mittens he’d already been wearing, stretching his hands inside the clear gloves. ‘These were all I could find at home, my mum’s.’ He passed the purple mittens to Pip, who shoved them in her rucksack. ‘Guess I know what I’m getting her for her birthday.’ He started the car, the engine humming quietly, vibrating under Pip’s legs. ‘Back roads?’ he said.

‘Back roads,’ Pip replied. ‘Let’s go.’

The gates of Green Scene Ltd glared at them, open but not welcoming, throwing the harsh light of the headlights back in their eyes.

Ravi pulled up just outside them, flicking the car off, and when it was quiet they could hear the sound of another engine idling through the night. Jason Bell’s car up ahead, beyond the gates, keeping their body cold for them.

Pip stepped out, shutting the door behind her, the sound like a clap of thunder in the night. But if no one could hear her screams, no one would hear that either.

‘Hold on,’ she told Ravi, as he climbed out and headed towards the open gate. ‘The phone,’ she reminded him, walking along the boulders that lined the drive, connecting road to gate. She stopped at the large rock closest to the road, and stepped around it, crouching low. A sigh of relief. There, waiting for her, was Max’s phone in the sealed-up sandwich bag.

Pip said another thank you in her head, sent it Jamie and Connor’s way as she reached down and picked up the phone. Through her gloves, and the plastic bag, she pressed the side button and the lock screen lit up. Her eyes jumped across it, the white light so bright that Pip saw a ghostly silver halo around it, creeping towards her like a fog. And maybe it was: there were many ghosts here now, Jason added to the five women he’d killed, and the ghost of Pip herself, untethered from time, stalking up and down the road on a computer screen. Pip narrowed her eyes and looked beyond the bright light.

‘Yes,’ she hissed, turning to give Ravi a gloved thumbs up.

‘What’ve we got?’ he asked, hurrying over.

‘One missed call from Christopher Epps at 9:46. A missed call from Mummy at 9:57, and another at 10:09. And, finally, one from Dad at 10:48.’

‘Perfect.’ Ravi’s mouth stretched into a smile, teeth glowing in the night.

‘Perfect,’ Pip agreed, sliding the bagged-up phone safely inside her rucksack.

They thought they were calling Max to tell him the good news; that Pip would be accepting the deal and recanting her statement. But that wasn’t what they’d done; they’d fallen right into the trap Pip and Ravi had planned for them. Those calls to Max’s phone had routed through the local mobile tower here. Which meant they placed Max, and his phone, right here at a crime scene, where the police would find a dead man. At the crime scene, right in the middle of the manipulated time-of-death window.

Because Max Hastings killed Jason Bell, not Pip. And his parents and his lawyer had just helped her pull it off.

Pip stood up and Ravi reached for her hand, intertwined his fingers through hers, the plastic gloves snagging together. He gave it a squeeze.

‘Almost there, Sarge,’ he said, pressing his lips into her eyebrow, sore from where the tape had ripped it. ‘Last push.’

Pip inspected his hat, made sure none of his long dark hair was poking through.

Ravi dropped her hand to clap his together. ‘OK, let’s do it,’ he said.

They walked through the gates, their steps crunching alternately against the gravel. Heading for the deep red eyes glowing in the night; the tail lights of Jason’s car, and the quiet sigh of the running engine.

Pip stared at her reflection in the back passenger window again, this long night etched all over her face, and she opened the door.

It was cold inside, very cold, her fingers prickling with it through the gloves as they crossed the threshold. She leaned in and could even see her own breath, fogging out in front.

Ravi opened the back door opposite her.

‘Fuck, it’s chilly,’ he said, bending down and readying his arms, grabbing Jason’s ankles through the black tarp. He glanced up, watching as Pip positioned her hands under Jason’s shoulders. ‘Ready?’ he asked. ‘Three, two, one, go.’

They lifted him up and then Pip raised one knee to brace the body, her foot on the seat.

‘OK,’ she said, her arms weaker now, struggling with the weight, but the promise of survival kept them going. Gently, using her knee to guide them, they twisted the roll of tarp, flipping the body over and then resting him back down on the seat. Face down again, the same way he had died.

‘How’s he looking?’ Ravi asked, as Pip unwrapped one side of the tarp, trying to ignore the mess of the back of Jason’s head. She felt detached from the person who had done that, separate somehow, because she’d lived a hundred lifetimes in the hours since. Pip prodded his neck, feeling the muscles beneath his skin, moving down his shoulders over his bloodstained shirt.

‘Rigor has started,’ she said. ‘It begins in the jaw and neck, but it hasn’t got much further than that.’

Ravi stared at her, a question in his eyes.

‘That’s good,’ Pip said, answering the unasked thing. ‘That means we managed to delay the onset... by quite a bit. It hasn’t even reached his lower arms yet. Rigor mortis is normally complete within six-to-twelve hours. He died over six hours ago now, and it’s still only in the upper part of his body. That’s good,’ she said, trying to convince herself as much as Ravi.

‘OK, good,’ Ravi said, the word escaping his mouth as a wisp of cloud in the cold air. ‘And the other thing?’

‘Lividity,’ Pip said. She gritted her teeth and unwrapped a little more of the tarp. She leaned forward and carefully peeled up the back of Jason’s shirt by an inch, peering in closer at the skin underneath.

It looked bruised; a mottled, purple-red tinge from the blood that had pooled inside.

‘Yeah, it’s started,’ Pip said, stepping one leg inside the footwell of the car to get closer. She reached over and pressed her gloved thumb into the skin of Jason’s back. When she pulled it away, the mark of her thumb stayed behind, one small, white half-circle, an island surrounded by discoloured skin. ‘Yes, it’s not fixed. Still blanchable.’

‘Which means...?’

‘Which means that now we’ve flipped him, the blood will move again, start to settle on the other side. Make it look like he hasn’t already been lying in this position for almost five hours. Buy us time.’

‘Thanks, gravity,’ Ravi said with a thoughtful nod. ‘The real MVP.’

‘Right, well.’ Pip ducked her head and moved back out the car door. ‘Now those two processes are really going to kick into high gear because it’s time to –’

‘Microwave him.’

‘Will you stop saying microwave him?’

‘Just supplying the comic relief,’ Ravi said seriously, holding up his gloved hands. ‘That’s my job in the team.’

‘You undersell yourself,’ Pip said, and then pointed to the ice packs dotted around the inside of the car. ‘Can you grab those?’