Pip:

I know you didn’t know she was a catfish at the time, but looking back now, did Layla let anything slip, any clues about her real identity? Her age? Any out-of-date slang she might have used? Did she mention Jamie Reynolds to you? Or any other people she interacts with in real life?

Anonymous:

No, nothing like that. I believed she was exactly who she told me she was. No slips. So, if she’s a catfish, then I guess she’s a pretty damn good one.

Twenty-One

Connor wasn’t eating. He pushed the food around his plate, scoring deep lines through the untouched pasta with the points of his plastic fork.

Zach had noticed too; Pip accidentally caught his eye across the table as she watched Connor sitting there silently in the deafening cafeteria. It was the comments, she knew. Strangers on the internet with their theories and their opinions. Jamie Reynolds must be dead. And: He’s definitely been murdered – seems he kind of deserved it, though. Pip told Connor to ignore them, but it was clear he couldn’t, their words skulking around him, leaving their mark.

Cara was sitting beside her, close enough that her elbow occasionally nudged Pip’s ribs. She’d picked up on Connor’s silence too, hence her attempt to bring up Connor’s favourite topic: Area 51 conspiracies.

The only ones who hadn’t noticed were Ant and Lauren. Ant was supposed to be Connor’s best friend, but he had his back turned to him, side-straddling the bench as he and Lauren huddled and giggled about something. Pip couldn’t say she was surprised. Ant hadn’t seemed all that concerned about Connor yesterday either, only bringing Jamie up once. She knew it was an awkward situation and most people struggled with what to talk about, but you say sorry at least once. It’s just what you do.

Lauren snorted at whatever Ant had whispered and Pip felt a flash of something hot under her skin, but she bit her lip and talked it down. This wasn’t the time to pick a fight. Instead she watched as Cara pulled a KitKat from her bag and slowly slid it across the table, into Connor’s eyeline. It broke his trance and he looked at her, the corners of his mouth twitching in a small, passing smile as he abandoned the fork and reached out to accept her offering.

Cara passed that same smile on to Pip. She looked tired. Three nights had gone by, three nights that Pip had been too busy to call her, to talk her to sleep. Pip knew she must be lying awake; the tint beneath Cara’s eyes told her that. And now they told her something else, widening and gesturing up just as someone behind Pip tapped her on the shoulder. She swivelled and looked up to see Tom Nowak standing there with an awkward wave. Lauren’s ex-boyfriend; they’d broken up last summer.

‘Hi,’ he said, over the din of the cafeteria.

‘Urgh,’ Lauren immediately butted in. Oh, so now she paid attention. ‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing,’ Tom said, shaking his long hair out of his eyes. ‘I just need to talk to Pip about something.’

‘Sure,’ Ant charged in now, sitting up as tall as he could, crossing one arm in front of Lauren to grip the table. ‘Any excuse to come over to our table, right?’

‘No, it’s . . .’ Tom trailed off with a shrug, turning back to Pip. ‘I have some information.’

‘No one wants you here. Go away,’ Ant said, and an amused smile spread across Lauren’s face as she threaded her arm through his.

‘I’m not talking to you,’ Tom said. He looked back at Pip. ‘It’s about Jamie Reynolds.’

Connor’s head jerked up, his eyes blinking away that haunted look as he focused on Pip. She held up her hand and nodded, gesturing for him to stay put.

‘Oh, sure,’ Ant said with a sneer.

‘Wind it in, will you, Ant.’ Pip stood up and shouldered her heavy bag. ‘No one’s impressed, except Lauren.’ She climbed over the plastic bench and told Tom to follow her as she headed towards the doors to the courtyard outside, knowing Connor would be watching them go.

‘Let’s talk over here,’ she said outside, gesturing to the low wall. It had rained that morning and the bricks were still a little wet as she sat down, soaking into her trousers. Tom spread out his jacket before joining her. ‘So, what information do you have about Jamie?’

‘It’s about the night he went missing,’ Tom said with a sniff.

‘Really? Have you listened to the first episode? I released it last night.’

‘No, not yet,’ he said.

‘I only ask because we’ve built up a timeline of Jamie’s movements last Friday. We know he was at the calamity party from 9:16 p.m. and left the area around 10:32 p.m., if that’s where you saw him.’ Tom stared at her blankly. ‘What I mean is, I already have that information, if that’s what you were going to say.’

He shook his head. ‘Er, no, it’s something else. I wasn’t at the calamity party, but I saw him. After that.’

‘You did? After 10:32?’ And suddenly Pip was hyperaware: the shrieking year ten boys playing football, a fly that had just landed on her bag, the wall pressing into her bones.

‘Yes,’ Tom said. ‘It was after that.’

‘How long after?’

‘Um, maybe fifteen minutes, or twenty,’ he screwed up his face in concentration.

‘So, around 10:50 p.m.?’ she asked.

‘Yeah. That sounds about right.’

Pip sat forward, waiting for Tom to carry on.

He didn’t.

‘And?’ she said, starting to grow annoyed despite herself. ‘Where were you? Where did you see him? Was it somewhere near Highmoor, where the party was?’

‘Yeah, it was that road, um, what’s it called . . . oh, Cross Lane,’ he said.

Cross Lane. Pip only knew one person who lived down Cross Lane, with a bright blue door and an angled front path: Nat da Silva and her parents.

‘You saw Jamie on Cross Lane at 10:50 p.m.?’

‘Yeah, I saw him, in a burgundy shirt and white trainers. I pacifically remember that.’

‘That’s what he was wearing, specifically,’ she said, wincing at Tom’s butchering of the word. ‘Why were you there at that time?’

He shrugged. ‘Just going home from a friend’s house.’

‘And what was Jamie doing?’ Pip asked.

‘He was walking. Walked past me.’

‘OK. And was he on the phone when he walked past you?’ she said.

‘No, don’t think so. No phone.’

Pip sighed. Tom wasn’t making this very easy for her.

‘OK, what else did you see? Did it look like he was heading somewhere? Maybe a house?’

‘Yeah,’ Tom nodded.

‘Yeah, what?’

‘A house. He was walking to a house,’ he said. ‘Like maybe halfway up the lane.’

Nat da Silva’s house was about halfway up, Pip’s thoughts intruded, demanding her attention. She felt a thrumming in her neck as her pulse picked up. Palms growing sticky, and not from the rain.

‘How do you know he was heading to a house?’

‘Because I saw him. Go into a house,’ he said.

‘Inside?’ The word came out, louder than she’d intended.