‘Not much,’ Luke said, running a hand over his close-shaved head. ‘I got out the car, called Layla’s name, and it’s Jamie instead who walks out of the trees.’

‘And?’ Pip said. ‘What happened, did you talk?’

‘Not really. He was acting all weird, like scared, which he should’ve been, fucking with me.’ Luke licked his teeth again. ‘Had both his hands in his pockets. And he only said two words to me.’

‘What?’ Pip and Ravi said together again.

‘I can’t even remember exactly what it was, something strange. It was like “child broomstick” or “child brown sick”, I dunno, couldn’t really hear the second part. And after Jamie said it, it was like he was watching me, waiting for a reaction,’ Luke said. ‘So obviously I was like, “What the fuck?” and when I said that, Jamie turned and bolted, without another word. I chased after him, woulda killed him if I caught him, but it was dark, I lost him in the trees.’

‘And?’ Pip pressed.

‘And nothing.’ Luke straightened up, cracking the bones in his grey-patterned neck. ‘Didn’t find him. I went home. Jamie goes missing. So, I’m thinking someone else he was fucking with got to him after. Whatever happened to him, he deserved it. Fucking fat loser.’

‘But Jamie went to the abandoned farmhouse, right after meeting you,’ Pip said. ‘I know you use that place to pick up your, erm, business items. Why would Jamie go there?’

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there that night. But it’s isolated, secluded, best place in town for conducting any private business. Except now I have to find a new drop-off point, thanks to you,’ he growled.

‘Are . . .’ Pip said, but the rest of the sentence died before she even knew what it was.

‘That’s all I know about Layla Mead, about Jamie.’ Luke dipped his head and then raised his arm, pointing down the corridor behind them. ‘You can go now.’

They didn’t move.

‘Now,’ he said, louder. ‘I’m busy.’

‘OK,’ Pip said, turning to go, telling Ravi to do the same with her eyes.

‘A week today,’ Luke called after them. ‘I want my cash by next Friday and I don’t like to be kept waiting.’

‘Got it,’ Pip said, two steps away. But then the thought floating broken around her head rearranged, reached its end, and Pip doubled back. ‘Luke, are you twenty-nine?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’ His eyebrows lowered, reaching for each other across the gap of his nose.

‘And do you turn thirty soon?’

‘Couple months. Why?’

‘No reason.’ She shook her head. ‘Thursday. I’ll have your money.’ And she walked back down the corridor and out through the front door Ravi was holding open for her, an urgent look in his eyes.

‘What was that?’ Ravi said, when the door was firmly shut behind them. ‘Where are you going to get nine hundred pounds from, Pip? He’s clearly a dangerous guy, you can’t just go around and –’

‘Guess I’m accepting one of those sponsorship deals. ASAP,’ Pip said, turning back to look at the lines of sun skimming across Luke’s white car.

‘You’re gonna give me a heart attack one day,’ Ravi said, taking her hand, leading her around the corner. ‘Jamie can’t be Layla, right? Right?’

‘No,’ Pip replied before she’d even thought about it. And then, after she had: ‘No, he can’t be. I’ve read the messages between the two of them. And the whole Stella Chapman thing. And Jamie was on the phone to Layla outside the calamity party; he had to have been on the phone to a real person.’

‘What, so, maybe Layla sent Jamie there, to meet Luke?’ he said.

‘Yeah, maybe. Maybe that’s what they were talking about on the phone. And Jamie must have had the knife with him when he met Luke, probably in his hoodie pocket.’

‘Why?’ Lines of confusion drew across Ravi’s forehead. ‘None of this makes sense. And what the hell is “child broomstick”? Is Luke messing with us?’

‘Doesn’t seem the kind to mess around. And remember, George heard Jamie on the phone saying something about a “child” too.’

They headed towards the train station, where Pip had parked her car earlier, so her mum wouldn’t see it if she was driving up and down High Street.

‘Why’d you ask his age?’ Ravi said. ‘Looking to trade me in for an older model?’

‘It’s too many now to be a coincidence,’ she said, more to herself than Ravi. ‘Adam Clark, Daniel da Silva, Luke Eaton, and even Jamie too – only because he lied about his age – but every single person Layla has spoken to is twenty-nine or recently thirty. And more than that, they’re all white guys, with brownish colour hair, living in the same town.’

‘Yeah,’ Ravi said, ‘so Layla has a type. A very, very specific type.’

‘I don’t know.’ Pip looked down at her trainers, still damp from last night. ‘All those similarities, asking lots of questions. It’s like Layla’s been looking for someone. Someone specific, but she doesn’t know who.’

Pip looked over to Ravi, but her eyes escaped from her, breaking away to the side, to someone standing right there on the other side of the road. Outside the new Costa that had opened there. Neat black jacket, messy blonde hair falling into his eyes. Sharp, angled cheekbones.

He was back.

Max Hastings.

Standing with two guys Pip didn’t recognize, talking and laughing in the street.

Pip emptied out and refilled with a feeling that was black and cold and red and burning. She stopped walking and stared.

How dare he? How dare he stand there, laughing, in this town? Out where anyone could see him?

Her hands tightened into fists, nails digging into Ravi’s palm.

‘Ouch.’ Ravi escaped her grip and looked at her. ‘Pip, wha—?’ Then he followed her eyes across the road.

Max must have felt it, her gaze, because at that exact moment, he looked up, over the street and the idling cars. Right at her. Into her. His mouth settled into a line, pulling up at one end. He raised one arm, his hand open palm-out in a small wave, and the line of his mouth was a smile.

Pip felt it growing inside her, sparking, but Ravi exploded first.

‘Don’t you look at her!’ he screamed at Max, over the top of the cars. ‘Don’t you dare look at her, you hear me?’

Heads turned in the street. Mutters. Faces in windows. Max lowered his arm, but the smile never once left his face.

‘Come on,’ Ravi said, retaking Pip’s hand. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

Ravi lay on Pip’s bed, throwing a pair of her balled-up socks in the air and catching them. Throwing always helped him think.

Pip was at her desk, her laptop asleep before her, digging her finger through her small pot of pins, letting them jab her.

‘One more time,’ Ravi said, his eyes following the socks up to the ceiling and down to his hand.

Pip cleared her throat. ‘Jamie walks to the car park in Lodge Wood. He’s carrying the knife from home. He’s nervous, scared, his heart rate tells us that. Layla has potentially set this up, told Luke to be there. We don’t know why. Jamie says two words to Luke, studies him for a reaction and then runs off. He then goes to the abandoned farmhouse. His heart spikes higher. He’s even more scared, and the knife somehow ends up in the grass by the trees. And Jamie’s Fitbit is removed, or it breaks or . . .’