A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

‘What have you done?’ Cara said.

‘I don’t know. I tripped coming down the stairs from politics. I think I’ve sprained it.’

Pip fake-limped over to her.

‘I walked to school this morning; I don’t have my car,’ she said. ‘Oh crap, and Mum has a late viewing.’

‘You can get a lift with me and Dad,’ Cara said, slipping her arm under Pip’s to help her to her locker. She took the textbook from Pip’s hand and placed it on the pile inside. ‘Don’t know why you’d willingly choose to walk when you have your own car. I never get to use mine now Naomi’s home.’

‘I just fancied a walk,’ Pip said. ‘I don’t have Barney as an excuse any more.’

Cara gave her a pitying look and closed the locker door. ‘Come on then,’ she said, ‘let’s hobble out to the car park. Lucky for you I’m Muscles McGee; I did nine whole press-ups yesterday.’

‘Nine whole ones?’ Pip smiled.

‘I know. Play your cards right and you might win a ticket to the gun show.’ She flexed and growled.

Pip’s heart broke for her then. She hoped, thinking please please please over and again, that Cara wouldn’t lose her happy, silly self after whatever was to come.

Propped up against her, they staggered up the corridor and out of the side door.

The cold wind bit at her nose and she narrowed her eyes against it. They made their way, slowly, round the back and towards the teachers’ car park, Cara filling the journey with details from her Halloween film night. Pip tensed every time she mentioned her dad.

Elliot was there already, waiting by his car.

‘There you are,’ he said, spotting Cara. ‘What’s happened here?’

‘Pip’s sprained her ankle,’ Cara said, opening the back door. ‘And Leanne’s working late. Can we give her a lift?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Elliot darted forward to take Pip’s arm and help her into the car.

His skin touched hers.

It took all her strength not to recoil from him.

Rucksack settled beside her, Pip watched as Elliot closed her door and climbed in the driver’s seat. When Cara and Pip had clicked in their seat belts, he started the engine.

‘So what happened, Pip?’ he asked, waiting for a group of kids to cross the road before pulling out of the car park and on to the drive.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I think I just landed on it funny.’

‘You don’t need me to take you to A&E, do you?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine in a couple of days.’ She pulled out her phone and checked it was on silent. She’d had it turned off most of the day and the battery was almost full.

Elliot batted Cara’s hand away when she started flicking through the radio stations.

‘My car, my cheesy music,’ he said. ‘Pip?’

She jumped and almost dropped the phone.

‘Is your ankle swollen?’ he said.

‘Um . . .’ She bent forward and reached down to feel it, the phone in her hand. Pretending to knead her ankle, she twisted her wrist and pushed the phone far underneath the back seat. ‘A little bit,’ she said, straightening up, her face flushed with blood. ‘Not too bad.’

‘OK, that’s good,’ he said, winding through the traffic up the high street. ‘You should sit with it raised up this evening.’

‘Yeah, I will,’ she said and caught his eye in the rear-view mirror. And then: ‘I’ve just realized it’s a tutoring day. I’m not going to make you late, am I? Where do you have to get to?’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he said, indicating left down Pip’s road. ‘I’ve only got to get over to Old Amersham. It’s no bother.’

‘Phew, OK.’

Cara was asking what was for dinner as Elliot slowed and swung into Pip’s drive.

‘Oh, your mum is home,’ he said, nodding towards Leanne’s car as he pulled to a stop.

‘Is she?’ Pip felt her heart doubling, scared that the air around her was visibly throbbing. ‘Her viewing must have been cancelled last minute. I should have checked, sorry.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ Elliot turned round to her. ‘Do you need help to the door?’

‘No,’ she said quickly, grabbing her rucksack. ‘No, thank you, I’ll be fine.’

She pushed open the car door and started to shuffle out.

‘Wait,’ Cara said suddenly.

Pip froze. Please say she hasn’t seen the phone. Please.

‘Will I see you before your exam tomorrow?’

‘Oh,’ Pip said, breathing again. ‘No, I have to register at the office and go to the room first thing.’

‘OK, well, goooooood luuuuuuuck,’ she said, drawing out the words in sing-song bursts. ‘You’ll do amazing, I’m sure. I’ll come find you after.’

‘Yes, best of luck, Pip,’ Elliot smiled. ‘I would say break a leg but I think the timing is a little off for that.’

Pip laughed, so hollow it almost echoed. ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘and thanks for the lift.’ She leaned into the car door and pushed it shut.

Limping up to the house, her ears pricked, listening to the rumble of Elliot’s car as it drove away. She opened her front door and dropped the limp.

‘Hello,’ Leanne called from the kitchen. ‘Do you want the kettle on?’

‘Um, no thanks,’ she said, loitering in the doorway. ‘Ravi’s coming over for a bit to help me study for my exam.’

Her mum gave her a look.

‘What?’

‘Don’t think I don’t know my own daughter,’ she said, washing mushrooms in the colander. ‘She only works alone and has a reputation for making other children cry in group projects. Studying, indeed.’ She gave her the look again. ‘Keep your door open.’

‘Jeez, I will.’

Just as she was starting up the stairs a Ravi-shaped blur knocked at the front door.

Pip let him in and he called, ‘Hello,’ to her mum as he followed her upstairs to her room.

‘Door open,’ Pip said when Ravi went to close it.

She sat cross-legged on her bed and Ravi pulled the desk chair over to sit in front of her.

‘All good?’ he said.

‘Yep, it’s under the back seat.’

‘OK.’

He unlocked his phone and opened the Find My Friends app. Pip leaned in closer and, heads almost touching, they stared down at the map on screen.

Pip’s little orange avatar was parked outside the Wards’ house on Hogg Hill. Ravi clicked refresh but there it stayed.

‘He hasn’t left yet,’ Pip said.

Shuffled footsteps drew along the corridor and Pip looked up to see Josh standing in her doorway.

‘Pippo,’ he said, fiddling with his springy hair, ‘can Ravi come down and play FIFA with me?’

Ravi and Pip turned to look at each other.

‘Um, not now, Josh,’ she said. ‘We’re quite busy.’

‘I’ll come down and play later, OK, bud?’ Ravi said.

‘OK.’ Josh dropped his arm in defeat and padded away.

‘He’s on the move,’ Ravi said, refreshing the map.

‘Where?’

‘Just down Hogg Hill at the moment, before the roundabout.’

The avatar did not move in real time; they had to keep pressing refresh and wait for the orange circle to jump across its route. It stopped just at the roundabout.

‘Refresh it,’ Pip said impatiently. ‘If he doesn’t turn left, then he’s not heading to Amersham.’

The refresh button spun with fading lines. Loading. Loading. It refreshed and the orange avatar disappeared.

‘Where’s it gone?’ said Pip.

Ravi scrolled around the map to see where Elliot had jumped to.

‘Stop.’ Pip spotted it. ‘There. He’s heading north up the A413.’

They gazed at each other.

‘He’s not going to Amersham,’ Ravi said.

‘No, he is not.’

Their eyes followed for the next eleven minutes as Elliot drove up the road, jumping incrementally whenever Ravi pressed his thumb on the refresh arrow.

‘He’s near Wendover,’ Ravi said and then, seeing Pip’s face, ‘What?’

‘The Wards used to live in Wendover before they moved to a bigger house in Kilton. Before we met them.’

‘He’s turned,’ Ravi said and Pip leaned in again. ‘Down somewhere called Mill End Road.’

Pip watched the orange dot motionless on the white pixel road. ‘Refresh,’ she said.

‘I am,’ said Ravi, ‘it’s stuck.’ He pressed refresh again; the loading spool spun for a second and stopped, leaving the orange dot in the same place. He pressed it again and it still didn’t move.

‘He’s stopped,’ Pip said, clutching Ravi’s wrist and turning it to get a better look at the map. She stood up, grabbed Ravi’s laptop from her desk and settled it on her lap. ‘Let’s see where he is.’

She opened the browser and pulled up Google Maps. She searched for Mill End Road, Wendover and clicked on to the satellite mode.

‘How far down the road would you say he is? Here?’ she pointed at the screen.

‘I’d say a bit more to the left.’

‘OK.’ Pip dropped the little orange man on to the road and the street view popped up.

The narrow country road was enclosed by trees and tall shrubbery that glittered in the sun as Pip clicked and dragged the screen to get a full view. The houses were just on one side, set back a little from the road.

‘You think he’s at this house?’ She pointed at a small brick house with a white garage door, barely visible behind the trees and telephone pole that bordered it.

‘Hmm . . .’ Ravi looked from his phone to his laptop screen. ‘It’s either that one or the one to the left of it.’

Pip looked up the street numbers. ‘So he’s either at number forty-two or forty-four.’

‘Is that where they used to live?’ Ravi asked. Pip didn’t know. She shrugged, and he said, ‘But you can find out from Cara?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a lot of practise with pretending and lies.’ Her gut churned and her throat tightened. ‘She’s my best friend and this is going to destroy her. It’s going to destroy everyone, everything.’

Ravi slipped his hand into hers. ‘It’s nearly over, Pip,’ he said.

‘It’s over now,’ she said. ‘We need to go there tonight and see what Elliot’s hiding. Andie could be alive in there.’

‘That’s just a guess.’

‘This whole thing has been guesswork.’ She took her hand away so she could hold her aching head. ‘I need this to be over.’

‘OK,’ Ravi said gently. ‘We are going to end this. But not tonight. Tomorrow. You find out from Cara which address he’s going to, if it’s their old house. And after you finish school tomorrow, we can go there at night, when Elliot’s not there, and see what he’s up to. Or we call the police with an anonymous tip and send them to that address, OK? But not now, Pip. You can’t upend your whole life tonight, I won’t let you. I won’t let you throw away Cambridge. Right now, you are going to study for your exam and you are going to get some bloody sleep. OK?’

‘But –’

‘No buts, Sarge.’ He stared at her, his eyes suddenly sharp. ‘Mr Ward has already ruined too many lives. He’s not ruining yours as well. OK?’

‘OK,’ she said quietly.

‘Good.’ He took her hand, pulled her off the bed and into her chair. He wheeled her over to the desk and put a pen in her hand. ‘You are going to forget about Andie Bell and Sal for the next eighteen hours. And I want you in bed and sleeping by ten thirty.’

She looked up at Ravi, at his kind eyes and his serious face, and she didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to feel. She was on a high cliff edge somewhere between laughing and crying and screaming.