‘I didn’t want you to do that, Ravi,’ she cried. ‘I didn’t want you to ever talk to him, ever have to use your alibi.’

‘But you’re safe,’ he said, eyes flashing at her in the dark. ‘Now you don’t have to go.’

‘But you aren’t!’ she said. ‘You’ve just directly implicated yourself in the whole thing. Before we could keep you separate, you were separate from it all, but now... what if Dawn Bell was home on the 12th? What if she tells them you’re lying?’

‘I can’t lose you,’ Ravi said. ‘I wasn’t going to let you do this. I sat on my bed after you called and I did that thing I do when I’m nervous or scared or unsure about something. I asked myself, what would Pip do? What would she do in this situation? So, that’s what I did. I came up with a plan. Was it reckless? Probably. Bravery to the point of stupidity, that’s you. But I thought it through and I didn’t overthink it. I acted, like you do. It’s what you would have done, Pip.’ He breathed, shoulders rising and falling with it. ‘It’s what you would have done, and you would have done it for me, you know you would. We’re a team, remember. You and me. And no one’s taking you away from me, not even you.’

‘Fuck!’ Pip shouted into the wind, because he was right and he was wrong and she was happy and she was devastated.

‘It’s going to be OK.’ Ravi wrapped her up into him, inside his jacket, warm even when he had no business being so. ‘It was my choice and I chose you. You’re not going anywhere,’ he said, his breath in her hair, along her scalp.

Pip held on, watching the dark road over Ravi’s shoulder. Blinking slowly, the black hole in her chest trying to catch up. She didn’t have to go. She didn’t have to be that woman in her fifties, looking up at her old family home after decades, thinking it was somehow smaller than she remembered, because she had forgotten it, or it had forgotten her. She didn’t have to watch everyone she cared about live a life without her, catching her up across a metal table every few weeks, visits growing fewer and further between as their lives got in the way and her edges got fainter and fainter until she disappeared at last.

A life, a real one, a normal one: it was still possible. Ravi had saved her, he had, and by doing so he had damned himself.

Now there was no choice, no backing down.

She had to bare her teeth and see this through to the end.

No doubt.

No mercy.

Blood on her hands and a gun in her heart and the plan.

Four corners. Her and Ravi standing in one. The DT Killer in another. Max Hastings opposite them and DI Hawkins opposite him.

One last fight, somewhere in the middle, and they had to win. They had to, now that Ravi was on the line too.

Pip pushed herself into him, closer, harder, her ear to his chest to listen to his heart, because she was still here, and she still could.

She closed her eyes and made a new silent promise to him, because he had chosen her and she had chosen him: they were going to get away with it.

The town buzzed with talk, fizzled with it. The hushed kind, but the kind of hush meant to be overheard, particularly loud in Pip’s ears.

Isn’t it just terrible?

– Gail Yardley, walking her dog.

There’s something very wrong with this town. I can’t

wait to leave.

– Adam Clark, near the station.

Have there been any arrests yet? Your cousin knows someone at the police, doesn’t he?

– Mrs Morgan, outside the library.

Dawn Bell came into the shop last week and she doesn’t seem too upset... You don’t think she had anything to do with it?

– Leslie from the Co-Op.

Pip had two hushed conversations of her own, not out in the open for everyone to hear. Behind closed doors and whispered all the same.

The first was Nat, on the Wednesday, both sitting on Pip’s bed.

‘Someone from the police called me. DI Hawkins. In relation to their inquiries into the death of Jason Bell. He asked me if I’d knocked on Max Hastings’ house on the night of the 15th. If I’d hit him in the face.’

‘And?’ Pip asked.

‘I told him I had no idea what he was talking about, and why on earth he would insinuate that I would willingly go to the house of someone who assaulted me, put myself in a situation where I was alone with him.’

‘Good, that’s good.’

‘I told him I was at my brother’s house from around eightish that night. Dan was already pissed and basically asleep on the sofa, so he will verify that too.’

‘Good.’ It was good. That meant Hawkins must have interviewed Max at least once already, probably again after securing his mobile phone data, asking once more for him to explain his whereabouts on the evening Jason died. Max told him he was home alone all night, fell asleep early, and that Nat da Silva had knocked on his door. But Hawkins already had the data from his phone, could see that Max wasn’t at home, could see the calls that pinged a cell tower placing him at the scene, and now he’d caught Max in a lie, several of them.

There was another unsaid thing hovering between Pip and Nat. And that was a dead Jason Bell. Nat could never ask and Pip could never tell, but Nat must know, the look in her eyes told Pip that. And yet she didn’t look away, she didn’t, she held Pip’s eyes and Pip held hers and though it could never be said, it was understood. Max killed Jason, not her. Another secret bond that held the two of them together.

Her second conversation was with Cara the next day, sitting at the table in the Wards’ kitchen after Pip had received a text: can you come over?

‘The detective, he asked me and Naomi where we were on the night of the 15th, if we were with you. So, we told him yes, and what times we left and arrived, where we went. That it was just a normal night, and we were hungry, that was it. Showed him the photos and videos on my phone too. He asked me to send them in.’

‘Thank you,’ Pip said, the words inadequate and frail. There was that same look in Cara’s eyes too. She must have known, when the news broke about Jason, what else could it be? She and Naomi must have looked at each other and known, whether they said it out loud or not. But there was something unshakeable in Cara’s eyes too, a trust between them, and even if this tested it, it had not broken it. Cara Ward, more a sister than a friend, her constant, her crutch, and that familiar look on her face helped loosen the knot in Pip’s gut. She didn’t know if she could have taken it, if Cara had looked at her any differently.

And that was another good thing. Hawkins was now looking into her alibi, verifying it. He’d checked with the witnesses, and he must be following up, requesting the traffic-camera footage, searching for the journey her car had made that night. Maybe he’d already seen the tapes from McDonalds, seen the charges on her card and the times they were made. See, Hawkins, she was exactly where she said she was, miles and miles away at the time Jason was killed.

Another conversation – which was probably more of an argument than a conversation – with her parents.

‘What do you mean you’re not going on Sunday?’ Her mum’s mouth gaped open.

‘I mean I’m not going. I can skip the first week of university, lectures don’t start until the week after. I can’t go yet, I have to see this through. I’m on to something here.’