Good Girl, Bad Blood

‘Hello?’

‘Yes, sorry.’ Pip closed her laptop, avoiding her mum’s gaze. ‘I was just saving something.’

‘What do those posters mean?’

Pip shuffled. ‘I think their meaning is pretty clear. Jamie’s gone missing.’

‘Don’t get smart with me,’ her mum said, one hand going to her hip: always a dangerous sign.

Pip’s dad paused putting the shopping away – once the fridge items had been done, of course – and was now leaning against the counter, almost exactly equidistant between Pip and her mum, yet far enough away that he was safe from the battle. He was good at that: making camp in the neutral ground, building a bridge.

‘Yes, it is what you think,’ Pip said, finally meeting her mother’s eyes. ‘Connor and Joanna are really worried. They think something’s happened to Jamie. So yes, I’m investigating his disappearance. And yes, I’m recording the investigation for season two of the show. They asked me to, and I said yes.’

‘But I don’t understand,’ her mum said, even though she understood perfectly well. Another of her tactics. ‘You were done with all this. After everything you went through last time. The danger you put yourself in.’

‘I know –’ Pip began, but her mum cut her off.

‘You ended up in the hospital, Pippa, with an overdose. They had to pump your stomach. You were being threatened by a now convicted killer.’ That was the only way Pip’s mum referred to Elliot Ward now. She couldn’t use the word, what he’d really been: a friend. That was too much. ‘And Barney –’

‘Mum, I know,’ Pip said, her voice rising, cracking as she fought to control it. ‘I know all the terrible things that happened last year because of me, I don’t need your constant reminders. I know, OK? I know I was selfish, I know I was obsessive, I know I was reckless and if I said sorry to you every day it still wouldn’t be enough, OK?’ Pip felt it, the pit in her stomach stirring, opening up to swallow her whole. ‘I’m sorry. I feel guilty all the time, so I don’t need you to tell me. I’m the expert in my own mistakes, I understand.’

‘So why would you choose to put yourself through anything like that again?’ her mum said, softening her voice and dropping the arm from her hip. Pip couldn’t tell what that meant, whether it was a sign of victory or defeat.

A high cartoonish giggling from the living room interrupted them.

‘Joshua.’ Her dad finally spoke. ‘Turn the TV down please!’

‘But it’s SpongeBob and it’s only on fourteen,’ a small voice shouted back.

‘Joshua . . .’

‘OK, OK.’

The noise from the TV quietened until Pip could no longer hear it over the humming in her ears. Dad settled back into his place, gesturing for them to continue.

‘Why?’ Her mum reiterated her last question, drawing a thick underline beneath it.

‘Because I have to,’ Pip said. ‘And if you want to know the truth, I said no. That was my choice. I told Connor I couldn’t do this again. So yesterday, I went to speak to the police to get them to actually investigate Jamie’s disappearance. I thought I could help that way. But they won’t do anything for Jamie, they can’t.’ Pip tucked her hands in under her elbows. ‘The truth is I didn’t really have a choice, once the police said no. I didn’t want to do it. But I can’t not do it. They asked me. They came to me. And what if I’d said no? What if Jamie is never found? What if he’s dead?’

‘Pip, it is not your job to –’

‘It isn’t my job, but it feels like my responsibility,’ she said. ‘I know you’ll both have a thousand arguments why that’s not true, but I’m telling you the way it feels. It is my responsibility because I started something and I can’t now take it back. Whatever it did to me, to all of us, I still solved a double murder case last year. Now I have six hundred thousand subscribers who will listen to me and I’m in a position to use that, to help people. To help Jamie. That’s why I had no choice. I might not be the only one who can help, but I’m the only one here right now. This is Jamie, Mum. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to him and I said no because it was the easier choice. The safer choice. The choice my parents would want me to make. That’s why I’m doing it. Not because I want to, because I have to. I’ve accepted that, and I hope you both can too.’

Pip saw her dad nodding in the corner of her eye, the LED light above drawing yellow streaks across the dark skin of his forehead. Her mum also saw it, turning to frown at him.

‘Victor . . .’ she said.

‘Leanne,’ he replied, stepping forward into no man’s land. ‘Clearly she’s not being reckless; she’s put a lot of consideration into her decision. That’s all we can ask of her, because it is her decision. She’s eighteen now.’ He turned to smile at Pip, his eyes glazing in that way they did. The exact way he looked at her every time he told the story of how they’d met. Pip at four years old, stomping around this very house he was looking to buy, accompanying her mum on the viewing because the childcare had fallen through. She’d followed them into each room, giving him a new animal fact in each one, despite her mother telling her to be quiet so she could inform the nice man about the high-spec kitchen. He always said it was both of them that stole his heart that day.

Pip returned his smile, and that hole in her stomach, it started to shrink just a little, freeing up more space for her around it.

‘And what about the risks, Victor?’ Pip’s mum said, though her tone had changed now, the fight all but gone from it.

‘Everything has risks,’ he said. ‘Even crossing the road. It’s no different than if she were a journalist, or a police officer. And would we keep her from either of those things because of the potential risks? And also: I am very big. If anyone even thinks about hurting my daughter, I will rip off their head.’

Pip laughed, and her mum’s mouth twitched with a smile she didn’t want to give into. The smile lost, for now, though it gave a good fight.

‘Fine,’ her mum said. ‘Pip, I’m not your enemy, I’m your mum. I only care about your safety and your happiness, the two things you lost last time. It’s my job to protect you, whether you like it or not. So fine, I accept your decision. But I will be watching to make sure you don’t become obsessive to the point where it’s unhealthy, and you better believe me when I say there will be no missing school or neglecting your revision,’ she said, counting the points off on her fingers. ‘I’m sure everything is fine, but if there is any sign of danger, even the slightest hint, I want you to come straight to us. Promise me?’

‘Thank you.’ Pip nodded, her chest releasing. ‘It won’t be like last time, I promise.’ She wasn’t that person any more. She’d be good this time. She would. Things would be different, she told that yawning feeling that never left her. ‘But I should warn you: I don’t think everything is fine. Put it this way, I don’t think you’ll see Jamie at work tomorrow morning.’

Her mum’s face flushed, and she dropped her gaze, tightening her lips into a line. Of all her mother’s faces, Pip wasn’t sure what this one meant. ‘Well,’ her mum said quietly, ‘all I’m saying is that Jamie is probably OK and I’m sure this will turn out to be nothing. That’s why I don’t want you to give too much of yourself to it.’

‘Well, I mean hopefully it’s nothing,’ Pip said, taking the packet of satsumas her dad handed her, placing them in the fruit bowl. ‘But there are a couple of red flags. His phone was turned off that night and hasn’t been on since. And he was acting strangely that day – out of character.’

Her mum placed a loaf of bread in the bread bin. ‘I’m just saying, maybe acting strangely isn’t that out of character for Jamie.’

‘Wait, what?’ Pip stalled, pulling back from the box of porridge her dad was handing her.

‘Oh, nothing,’ her mum said, busying herself with the tinned tomatoes. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’

‘Said anything about what?’ Pip said, her heart jumping up to her throat, sensing her mum’s unease. She narrowed her eyes at the back of her mum’s head. ‘Mum? Do you know something about Jamie?’