Pip nodded.

‘Strange time to call him, don’t you think? That late on a Saturday evening?’

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘He told me to call him any time. I’d been thinking about it all day and finally made the decision, I didn’t see a reason to delay any further. For all I knew he was going to file the lawsuit first thing on Monday morning.’

Hawkins nodded along with her words, making a note on the page that Pip couldn’t read upside down.

‘Why are you asking me about a conversation I had with Max Hastings’ lawyer?’ she asked, wrinkling her eyes in confusion. ‘Does that mean you have started to look into Max as a person of interest?’

Hawkins didn’t say anything, but Pip didn’t need him to. She knew. Hawkins wouldn’t know about Pip’s call with Epps if he didn’t first know about Epps’ call to Max just a few minutes later. And the only way he’d know about that was if he’d already looked into Max’s telephone records. He probably hadn’t even needed a warrant; Max probably gave up his phone voluntarily, on Epps’ advice, thinking he had nothing to hide.

Hawkins could already place Max at the scene at the time Epps had called him and the later calls from his mum and dad; surely that was probable cause to get a search warrant of Max’s house, his car? To take samples of his DNA to test against those they found at the scene? Unless the time Max was there didn’t match Jason’s time of death. That last unknown.

Pip tried not to let it cloud her face, staring ahead at Hawkins, a hint of interest in her narrowed eyes, but not too much.

‘How well did you know Jason Bell?’ Hawkins asked, folding his arms across his chest.

‘Not as well as you did,’ she said. ‘I knew a lot about him, rather than knowing him, if that makes sense. We’d never really had a full conversation but, of course, when I was looking into what happened to Andie, I did a lot of looking into his life. Our paths have crossed but we didn’t really know each other.’

‘And yet you seem determined to find out who killed him, for your podcast?’

‘It’s what I do,’ Pip said. ‘Didn’t have to know him well to think he deserves justice. Cases in Little Kilton don’t seem to get solved until I get involved.’

Hawkins laughed, a bark across the table, running his hand over his stubble.

‘You know, Jason complained to me after you released the first season of your podcast. Said he was being harassed, by the press, online. Would you think it’s fair to say he didn’t like you? Because of that.’

‘I have no idea,’ Pip said, ‘and I’m not sure how that’s relevant. Even if he didn’t like me, he still deserves justice, and I’ll help any way I can.’

‘So, have you had any recent contact with Jason Bell?’ Hawkins asked.

‘Recent?’ Pip looked up at the ceiling, as though searching through her memory. Of course she didn’t have to look far; it had only been ten days since she’d dragged his body through the trees. And before that, she’d knocked on Jason’s door to ask him about Green Scene and the DT Killer. But Hawkins could never know about that conversation. Pip was already connected to the case indirectly, twice. Recent contact with Jason was far too risky, might even give them probable cause to get a warrant for her DNA sample, especially with the way Hawkins was looking at her now, studying her. ‘No. Haven’t spoken to him, let alone seen him around town in, well, it must be months,’ she said. ‘I think the last time our paths crossed would have been at the six-year memorial for Andie and Sal, remember? You were there. The night Jamie Reynolds went missing.’

‘So, that’s the last time you remember coming across Jason?’ Hawkins asked. ‘Back at the end of April?’

‘Correct.’

Another note on the lined paper in front of him, the pen scratching, the sound travelling all the way up the back of her neck. What was he writing about? And in that moment, Pip couldn’t shake this uncanny feeling, that it wasn’t Hawkins sitting across from her, questioning her. It was herself, from a year ago. The seventeen-year-old who thought the truth was the only thing that mattered, no matter the context, no mind to that suffocating grey area. The truth was the goal and the journey, just as it was for DI Hawkins. That’s who was sitting across from her: her old self set against whoever she’d become now. And this new person, she had to win.

‘The phone number you used to call Christopher Epps,’ Hawkins said, running his finger down a printed sheet of paper, ‘that’s not your mobile number. Or your home phone number.’

‘No,’ Pip said. ‘I called him from the home phone at my friend’s house.’

‘Why is that?’

‘That’s where I was,’ Pip said, ‘and I’d lost my phone earlier that day, my mobile, that is.’

Hawkins leaned forward, his lips in a tight fold as he considered what she just said. ‘You lost your mobile phone that day? On Saturday the 15th?’

Pip nodded, and then said, ‘Yes,’ for the recorder, prompted by Hawkins’ eyes. ‘I went jogging in the afternoon, and I think it must have bounced out of my pocket. I couldn’t find it. I’ve replaced it now.’

Another note on the page, another shiver up Pip’s spine. What was he writing about? She was supposed to be in control, she should know.

‘Pip,’ Hawkins paused, his eyes circling her face. ‘Could you tell me where you were, between 9:30 p.m. and midnight on Saturday the 15th of September?’

And there it was. The last unknown.

Something released in Pip’s chest, a little more breathing room around her gun-beat heart. A lightening in her shoulders, a loosening in her clenched jaw. Blood on her hands that was only sweat.

They’d done it.

It was over.

She kept her face neutral, but there was a fizzing by the sides of her mouth, an invisible smile and a silent sigh.

He was asking her where she was between 9:30 p.m. and midnight because that was the estimated time of death. They’d done it. They’d pushed it back by more than three hours and she was safe. She’d survived. And Ravi, and everyone she’d turned to for help, they would be OK too. Because Pip couldn’t possibly have killed Jason Bell; she’d been somewhere else entirely.

She couldn’t be too eager to tell him, or too rehearsed.

‘That’s the night Jason Bell was killed?’ she asked, checking.

‘Yes, it was.’

‘Erm, well, I went over to my friend’s house –’

‘Which friend?’

‘Cara Ward, and Naomi Ward,’ Pip said, watching as he took a note. ‘They live on Hogg Hill. That’s where I was when I made the phone call to Christopher Epps at... what time did you say?’

‘9:41 p.m.,’ Hawkins said, the answer ready on the tip of his tongue.

‘Right, 9:40-ish, and I arrived at their house several minutes before then, so I guess at 9:30 I would have been driving to theirs, across town.’

‘OK,’ he said, ‘and how long were you at the Wards’ house?’

‘Not long,’ Pip said.

‘No?’ He studied her.

‘No, we were only there for a little while before we decided we were all hungry. So, I drove the three of us to go get some food.’