A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

‘Naomi’s been a bit jumpy since . . . you know,’ Cara said, walking Pip down the corridor to her locker. There was still something awkward between them, a solid thing only just starting to melt around the edges, though they both pretended it wasn’t there.

Pip didn’t know what to say.

‘Well, she’s always been a bit jumpy but even more now,’ Cara continued anyway. ‘Yesterday, Dad called her from the other room and she jumped so hard that she threw her phone across the kitchen. Completely smashed it up. Had to send it off this morning to get fixed.’

‘Oh,’ Pip said, opening up her locker and stacking her books inside. ‘Um, does she need a spare phone? My mum just upgraded and still has the old one.’

‘Nah, it’s fine. She found an old one of hers from years ago. Her SIM didn’t fit but we found an old pay-as-you-go one with some credit left. That’ll do her for now.’

‘Is she OK?’ Pip said.

‘I don’t know,’ Cara replied. ‘Don’t think she’s been OK for a long while. Not since Mum died, really. And I’d always thought there was something more she was struggling with.’

Pip closed the locker and followed her. She hoped Cara hadn’t noticed the make-up pasted dark circles under her eyes, or the bloodshot spider legs of veins running through them. Sleep wasn’t really an option any more. Pip had sent off her Cambridge admission essays and started studying for her ELAT entrance exam. But her deadline for keeping Naomi and Cara out of everything was ticking down every second. And when she did sleep there was a dark figure in her dreams just out of sight, watching her.

‘It’ll be OK,’ Pip said. ‘I promise.’

Cara gave her hand a squeeze as they turned their separate ways down the corridor.

A few doors down from her English classroom, Pip stopped sharply, her shoes squeaking against the floor. Someone was trudging down the hall towards her, someone with pixie-cut white hair and black-winged eyes.

‘Nat?’ Pip said with a small wave.

Nat da Silva slowed and came to stop just in front of her. She didn’t smile and she didn’t wave. She barely looked at her.

‘What are you doing in school?’ Pip said, noticing Nat’s electronic ankle tag was a sock-covered bulge above her trainers.

‘I forgot all details of my life were suddenly your business, Penny.’

‘Pippa.’

‘Don’t care,’ she spat, her top lip arching in a sneer. ‘If you must know, for your perverted project, I’ve officially hit rock bottom. My parents are cutting me off and no one will hire me. I just begged that slug of a head teacher for my brother’s old caretaker job. They can’t hire violent criminals, apparently. There’s an after-Andie effect for you to analyse. She really played the long game with me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Pip said.

‘No.’ Nat picked up her feet and strode away, the gust of her sudden departure ruffling Pip’s hair. ‘You’re not.’

After lunch Pip returned to her locker to grab her Russia textbook for double history. She opened the door and the paper was just sitting there on top of her book pile. A folded piece of printer paper that had been pushed through the top slit.

A flash of cold dread dropped through her. She checked over both shoulders that no one was watching her and reached in for the note.

This is your final warning, Pippa. Walk away.

She read the large black printed letters only once, folded the page back up and slipped it inside the cover of her history textbook. She pulled out the book – a two-handed job – and walked away.

It was clear now. Someone wanted her to know that they could get to her at home and at school. They wanted to scare her. And she was; terror chased away her sleep, made her watch out of the dark window these last two nights. But daytime Pip was more rational than the one at night. If this person was really prepared to hurt her or her family, wouldn’t they have done it by now? She couldn’t walk away from this, from Sal and Ravi, from Cara and Naomi. She was in too deep and the only way was down.

There was a killer hiding in Little Kilton. They’d seen her last production log entry and now they were reacting. Which meant that Pip was on the right track somewhere. A warning was all it was, she had to believe that, had to tell herself that when she lay sleepless at night. And although Unknown might be closing in on her, she was also closing in on them.

Pip pushed the classroom door with the spine of her textbook and it swung open much harder than she’d meant.

‘Ouch,’ Elliot said as the door crashed into his elbow.

The door bounded back into Pip and she tripped, dropping her textbook. It landed with a loud thwack.

‘Sorry, El– Mr Ward,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you were right there.’

‘That’s OK,’ he smiled. ‘I’ll interpret it as your eagerness for learning rather than an assassination attempt.’

‘Well, we are learning about 1930s Russia.’

‘Ah, I see,’ he said, bending to pick up her book, ‘so it was a practical demonstration?’

The note slipped out from the cover and glided to the floor. It landed on its crease and came to rest, partly open. Pip lunged for the paper, scrunching it up in her hands.

‘Pip?’

She could see Elliot trying to make eye contact with her. But she stared straight ahead.

‘Pip, are you OK?’ he asked.

‘Yep,’ she nodded, flashing a closed-mouth smile, biting back that feeling you get when someone asks if you’re OK and you’re anything but. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Listen,’ he said gently, ‘if you’re being bullied, the worst thing to do is keep it to yourself.’

‘I’m not,’ she said, turning to him. ‘I’m fine, really.’

‘Pip?’

‘I’m good, Mr Ward,’ she said as the first group of chattering students slipped in the door behind them.

She took her textbook from Elliot’s hands and wandered over to her seat, knowing his eyes were following her as she went.

‘Pips,’ Connor said as he shoved his bag down on the place beside her. ‘Lost you after lunch.’ And then, in a whisper, he added, ‘So why are you and Cara acting all frosty? You fallen out or something?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘we’re all fine. Everything’s fine.’

Pippa Fitz-Amobi

EPQ 21/10/2017

Production Log – Entry 33

I’m not ignoring the fact that I saw Nat da Silva in school just a few hours before I found the note in my locker. Especially considering her history with death threats in lockers. And although her name has now climbed to the top of the suspect list, it is in no way definitive. In a small town like Kilton, sometimes things that seem connected are entirely coincidental, and vice versa. Running into someone in the only high school in town does not a murderer make.

Almost everyone on my suspect list has a connection with that school. Both Max Hastings and Nat da Silva went there, Daniel da Silva used to work there as a caretaker, both of Jason Bell’s daughters went there. I actually don’t know if Howie Bowers went to Kilton Grammar or not; I can’t seem to find any information online about him. But all of these suspects would know I go there; they could have followed me, could have been watching me on Friday morning when I was at my locker with Cara. It’s not like there’s any security at the school; anyone can walk in unchallenged.

So maybe Nat, but maybe the others too. And I’ve just talked myself back round to square one. Who is the killer? Time is running out and I’m still no closer to pointing my finger.

From everything Ravi and I have learned I still consider Andie’s burner phone as the most important lead. It’s missing but if we can find it or the person who has it then our job here is done. The phone is physical, tangible evidence. Exactly what we need if we’re going to find a way to bring the police in on this. A printed photo with blurry details they might sneer at, but no one could ignore the secret second phone of the victim.

Yes, I’ve mused before that maybe the burner phone was on Andie when she died and it’s lost forever with her body. But let’s pretend it wasn’t. Let’s say that Andie was intercepted as she drove away from home. Let’s say that she was killed and disposed of. And then the killer thinks to themselves: oh no, the burner phone could lead to me and what if the police find it in their searches?

So they have to go and get it. There are two people on my list that I’ve confirmed knew about the burner phone: Max and Howie. If Daniel da Silva was Secret Older Guy, then he surely knew about it too. Howie, in particular, knew where it was hidden.

What if one of them went to the Bell house and removed the burner phone after killing Andie, before it could be found? I have some more questions for Becca Bell. I don’t know if she’ll answer them but I have to try.