A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

She got home just as her parents were leaving to take a Harry-Pottered Josh out trick-or-treating.

‘Come with us, pickle,’ Victor said as Leanne zipped him into his Ghostbusters Stay Puft Marshmallow Man costume.

‘I should stay in and study,’ she said. ‘And deal with any trick-or-treaters.’

‘Can’t give yourself the night off?’ Leanne asked.

‘Can’t. Sorry.’

‘OK, sweetie. The sweeties are by the door.’ Her mum giggled at her own joke.

‘Got it. See you later.’

Josh stepped outside waving his wand and shouting, ‘Accio candy.’

Victor grabbed his marshmallow head and followed. Leanne paused to kiss the top of Pip’s head and then closed the door behind them.

Pip watched through the glass pane in the front door. When they reached the end of the drive, she pulled out her phone and texted Ravi: COME TO MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW!

He stared down at the mug clasped between his fingers.

‘Mr Ward.’ He shook his head. ‘It can’t be.’

‘It can, though,’ Pip said, her knee rattling against the underside of the table. ‘He doesn’t have an alibi for the night Andie disappeared. I know he doesn’t. One of his daughters was at Max’s house all night and the other one was sleeping round mine.’

Ravi exhaled and it rippled through the surface of his milky tea. It must have been cold by now, like hers.

‘And he has no alibi for the Tuesday when Sal died,’ she said. ‘He called in sick to work that day; he told me himself.’

‘But Sal loved Mr Ward,’ Ravi said in the smallest voice she’d ever heard from him.

‘I know.’

The table suddenly seemed very wide between them.

‘So is he the secret older man Andie was seeing?’ Ravi said after a while. ‘The one she was meeting at the Ivy House?’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Andie spoke of ruining this person; Elliot was a teacher in a position of trust. He would have been in a lot of trouble if she told someone about them. Criminal charges, jail time.’ She looked down at her own untouched tea and the shaky reflection of herself in it. ‘Andie called Elliot an arsehole to her friends in the days before she went missing. Elliot said it was because he found out Andie was a bully and contacted her father about the topless video. Maybe that’s not what it was about.’

‘How did he find out about the hit-and-run? Did Naomi tell him?’

‘I don’t think so. She said she’s never told anyone. I don’t know how he knew.’

‘There are still some gaps here,’ Ravi said.

‘I know. But he’s the one who threatened me and killed Barney. It’s him, Ravi.’

‘OK.’ Ravi locked his wide and drained eyes on hers. ‘So how do we prove it?’

Pip moved her mug away and leaned on the table. ‘Elliot tutors three times a week,’ she said. ‘I’d never really thought it was weird until tonight. The Wards don’t need to worry about money; his wife’s life insurance paid out a lot and Isobel’s parents are still alive and are super rich. Plus Elliot is head of department at school; he’s probably on a really good salary. He only started tutoring just over five years ago, in 2012.’

‘OK?’

‘So what if he’s not tutoring three times a week?’ she said. ‘What if he . . . I don’t know, goes to the place where he buried Andie? Visiting her grave as some kind of penance?’

Ravi pulled a face, lines of doubt crossing his forehead and nose. ‘Not three times every week.’

‘Yeah OK,’ she conceded. ‘Well, what if he’s visiting . . . her ?’ She only thought it for the first time as the word formed in her throat. ‘What if Andie is alive and he’s keeping her somewhere? And he goes to see her three times a week.’

Ravi pulled the same face again.

A handful of near-forgotten memories elbowed their way into her head. ‘Disappearing biscuits,’ she muttered.

‘Sorry?’

Her eyes darted left and right, grappling with the thought. ‘Disappearing biscuits,’ she said again louder. ‘Cara keeps finding food missing from their house. Food she just saw her dad buy. Oh my god. He has her and he’s feeding her.’

‘You might be slightly jumping to conclusions here, Sarge.’

‘We have to find out where he goes,’ Pip said, sitting straighter as something prickled up her backbone. ‘Tomorrow’s Wednesday, a tutoring day.’

‘And what if he’s actually tutoring?’

‘And what if he’s not?’

‘You think we should tail him?’ said Ravi.

‘No,’ she said as an idea dragged itself to the fore. ‘I have a better idea. Give me your phone.’

Wordlessly Ravi rummaged in his pocket and pulled out his phone. He slid it across the table to her.

‘Passcode?’ she said.

‘One one two two. What are you doing?’

‘I’m going to enable Find My Friends between our phones.’ She clicked on to the app and sent an invitation to her own phone. She swiped it open and accepted. ‘Now we are sharing our locations indefinitely. And just like that,’ she said, shaking her phone in the air, ‘we have a tracking device.’

‘You scare me a little bit,’ he said.

‘Tomorrow, at the end of school, I need to find a way to leave my phone in his car.’

‘How?’

‘I’ll think of something.’

‘Don’t go anywhere alone with him, Pip.’ He leaned forward, eyes unwavering. ‘I mean it.’

Just then there was a knock on the front door.

Pip jumped up and Ravi followed her down the hall. She picked up the bowl of sweets and opened the door.

‘Trick or treat?!’ a chorus of small voices screeched.

‘Oh, wow,’ Pip said, recognizing two vampires as the Yardley children from three doors down. ‘Don’t you all look scary?’

She lowered the bowl and the six kids swarmed towards her, grabby hands first.

Pip smiled up at the group of adults behind as their kids argued and cherry-picked the sweets. And then she noticed their eyes, dark and glaring, fixed on a point past Pip’s shoulder, where Ravi stood.

Two of the women drew together, staring at him as they muttered small, unheard things behind their hands.