Good Girl, Bad Blood

‘Photos?’

‘Yes, recent photos of him,’ Pip said, looking between the two of them, the sounds of the large kitchen clock counting the silence. But the ticks felt far too slow, as though she were somehow moving faster than time. A feeling she hadn’t had in a while, one she missed. ‘I suppose you don’t have any photos of him at the memorial, what he was wearing?’

‘No,’ Joanna said, unlocking her phone and flicking through. ‘But I did take lots on Jamie’s birthday last Thursday.’

‘One where his face shows clearly?’

‘Here, have a look through.’ Joanna passed her phone across the table. ‘There’s several if you scroll left.’

Connor moved his chair closer, to look over Pip’s shoulder at the screen. The first photo showed Jamie on his own, on the other side of this kitchen table. His dark blonde hair was pushed to the side and he was grinning, an overly wide grin that stretched into his rosy cheeks, as his chin glowed orange from the lit candles on the caterpillar birthday cake below. In the next photo he was bent low over the cake, cheeks puffed out to blow and the flames stretching away to escape from him. Pip swiped. Now Jamie was looking down at the cake, a long grey knife in his hand with a red plastic band between handle and blade. He was sticking the point of the knife in the caterpillar’s neck, cracking the chocolate outer shell. Next photo and the caterpillar’s head was detached, Jamie looking up, smiling directly at the camera. Then the cake was gone, replaced by a present in Jamie’s hands, the silver-spotted wrapping paper half ripped away.

‘Oh yeah,’ Connor snorted, ‘Jamie’s face when he realized Dad bought him a Fitbit for his birthday.’

It was true; Jamie’s smile did seem tighter, more strained here. Pip swiped again but it was a video next that started to play as her thumb brushed against it. Connor was in the frame now, the two brothers together, Jamie’s arm draped across Connor’s shoulder. The frame was swaying slightly, rustling sounds of breath behind it.

‘Smile boys,’ Joanna was saying, through the phone.

‘We are,’ Jamie mumbled, trying not to disturb his smile for the photo.

‘What’s it doing?’ Joanna’s voice asked.

‘For goodness sake,’ Connor said, ‘she’s accidentally taking a bloody video again. Aren’t you?’

‘Oh Mum.’ Jamie laughed. ‘Again?’

‘I’m not,’ Joanna’s voice insisted, ‘I didn’t press that, it’s this stupid phone.’

‘Always the phone’s fault, isn’t it?’

Jamie and Connor looked at each other, their laughs spiking into high-pitched giggles as Joanna grew more insistent that she hadn’t pressed that. Arthur’s voice saying, ‘Let me see, Jo.’ Then Jamie tightened his arm around Connor’s neck, bringing his little brother’s head down to his chest where he messed up his hair with his other hand, Connor protesting through giggles. The frame dropped and the video ended.

‘Sorry,’ Pip said, noticing how Connor had tensed in his chair, and Joanna’s eyes were so full she’d dropped them to the floor. ‘Can you please email me all of these, Connor? And any other recent photos?’

He coughed. ‘Yep, will do.’

‘Alright.’ Pip stood up, packing her laptop and microphones into her bag.

‘Are you going?’ asked Connor.

‘One last thing to do before I go,’ she said. ‘I need to search Jamie’s room. Is that OK?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course,’ Joanna said, standing up. ‘Can we come too?’

‘Sure,’ Pip said, waiting for Connor to open the door and lead them upstairs. ‘Have you already looked through it?’

‘Not really,’ Joanna said, following them up the stairs, tensing as they all heard Arthur cough in the living room. ‘I went in there earlier when we first realized he was gone. I did a quick look to see if he’d slept here last night and left early in the morning. But no, curtains were still open. Jamie’s not the sort of person who opens his curtains in the morning or makes his bed.’ They paused outside the door of Jamie’s darkened bedroom, which was slightly ajar. ‘Jamie’s a little untidy,’ she said tentatively. ‘It’s a bit messy in there.’

‘That’s fine,’ Pip said, nodding for Connor to go ahead. He pushed open the door, the room full of dark shapes until Connor flicked on the light, and the shapes became an unmade bed, a cluttered desk under the window, and an open wardrobe disgorging clothes on to the floor, piles like islands against the sea-blue carpet.

Untidy was one word for it.

‘Can I, um . . . ?’

‘Yeah, do whatever you have to. Right, Mum?’ said Connor.

‘Right,’ Joanna said quietly, staring around the place from which her son was most missing.

Pip made a beeline for the desk, stepping over and between the small mountains of T-shirts and boxers. She ran her finger over the lid of the closed laptop in the middle of the desk, over the Iron Man sticker, peeling at the edges. Gently, she pulled open the lid and clicked the on button.

‘Do either of you know Jamie’s password?’ she asked as the machine purred into life, the blue Windows login screen jumping up.

Connor shrugged and Joanna shook her head.

Pip bent down to type password1 into the input box.

Incorrect Password.

12345678

Incorrect Password.

‘What was your first cat called?’ asked Pip. ‘That ginger one?’

‘PeterPan,’ said Connor. ‘All one word.’

Pip tried it. Incorrect.

She’d entered it wrong three times and now the password hint popped up beneath. In it, Jamie had written: Get off my computer, Con.

Connor sniffed, reading it.

‘It’s really important we get in,’ Pip said. ‘Right now this is our strongest link to Jamie, and what he’s been up to.’

‘My maiden name?’ Joanna said. ‘Try Murphy.’

Incorrect Password.

‘Football team?’ asked Pip.

‘Liverpool.’

Incorrect. Even with numbers replacing some vowels and trying one and two at the end.

‘Can you keep trying?’ Joanna asked. ‘It won’t shut you out?’

‘No, there’s no limit on Windows. But guessing the exact password with correct placement of numbers and capitals is going to be tricky.’

‘Can’t we get around it some other way?’ said Connor. ‘Like reset the computer?’

‘If we reboot the system, we lose all the files. And most importantly, the cookies and saved passwords on his browser, for his email and social media accounts. Those are what we really need to get into. No chance you know the password to the email account Jamie’s Windows is linked to?’

‘No, I’m sorry.’ Joanna’s voice cracked. ‘I should know these things about him. Why don’t I know these things? He needs me and I’m no help to him.’

‘It’s OK.’ Pip turned to her. ‘We’ll keep trying until we get in. Failing that, I can try contact a computer expert who might be able to brute-force it.’

Joanna seemed to shrink again, hugging her own shoulders.

‘Joanna,’ said Pip, standing up, ‘why don’t you keep trying passwords while I carry on searching? Try think of Jamie’s favourite places, favourite foods, holidays you’ve been on. Anything like that. And try variations of each one, lower case, capitals, replacing letters with numbers, a one or two at the end.’

‘OK.’ Her face seemed to brighten just a little, at having something to do.

Pip moved on, checking the two desk drawers either side. One just had pens and a very old dried up glue-stick. The other, a pad of A4 paper and a faded folder labelled Uni Work.

‘Anything?’ Connor asked.

She shook her head, dropping to her knees so she could reach the bin beneath the desk, leaning across Joanna’s legs and pulling it out. ‘Help me with this,’ she said to Connor, fishing out the contents of the bin one by one. An empty can of deodorant. A crumpled receipt: Pip unfolded it and saw it was for a chicken mayo sandwich on Tuesday 24th at 14:23 from the Co-op along the high street. Beneath that was a packet of Monster Munch: pickled onion flavour. Sticking to the grease on the outside of the packaging was a small slip of lined paper. Pip unpeeled it and spread it open. Written on it in a blue ballpoint pen were the words: Hillary F Weiseman left 11

She held it up to Connor. ‘Is this Jamie’s handwriting?’ Connor nodded. ‘Hillary Weiseman,’ Pip said. ‘Do you know her?’

‘No,’ Connor and Joanna said at the same time. ‘Never heard that name,’ Joanna added.

‘Well, Jamie must know her. Looks like this note was quite recent.’

‘Yes,’ Joanna said, ‘we have a cleaner, comes every fortnight. She’s coming on Wednesday so everything in that bin is from the last ten, eleven days.’

‘Let’s look up this Hillary, she might know something about Jamie.’ Pip pulled out her phone. On the screen was a text from Cara: Ready for stranger things soon?? Shit. Pip quickly fired back: I’m so sorry, I can’t tonight, I’m at Connor’s house. Jamie’s gone missing. I’ll explain tomorrow. Sorry xxx. Pip pressed send and tried to ignore the guilt, clicking on the browser and bringing up 192.com to search the electoral register. She typed in Hillary Weiseman and Little Kilton and searched.

‘Bingo,’ she said, when it came up. ‘We have a Hillary F. Weiseman who lives in Little Kilton. Has been on the electoral roll here . . . oh . . . from 1974 until 2006. Hold on.’ Pip opened another tab, googled the name along with Little Kilton and obituary. The first result from the Kilton Mail gave her the answer she was looking for. ‘No, that can’t be the right Hillary. She died in 2006 aged eighty-four. Must be someone else. I’ll look into that later.’

Pip spread the bit of paper out in her fingers and took a photo of it on her phone.

‘You think it’s a clue?’ Connor asked.

‘Everything’s a clue until we discount it,’ she replied.

There was just one last thing left in the bin: an empty brown paper bag, scrunched up into a ball.

‘Connor, without disturbing anything too much, can you search the pockets in all of Jamie’s clothes?’

‘For what?’

‘Anything.’ Pip crossed to the other side of the room. She stopped and looked at the bed with its blue-patterned duvet, and her foot nudged into something on the floor. It was a mug, the sugar encrusted remains of tea coating the very bottom. But it wasn’t yet mouldy. The handle had broken off, lying a few inches away. Pip picked them up to show Joanna.

‘Not just a bit untidy,’ Joanna said, quiet affection in her voice. ‘Very untidy.’

Pip placed the mug, handle inside, on the bedside table, where it had probably been knocked from in the first place.

‘Just tissues and spare change,’ Connor reported back to her.

‘No luck here,’ Joanna said, typing away at the keyboard, the clack of the enter key louder and more desperate each time she tried.

On the bedside table, now in addition to the broken mug, was a lamp, a battered copy of Stephen King’s The Stand, and the cord of an iPhone charger. There was one drawer below, before the table split into four rickety legs, and Pip knew that it would probably be where Jamie kept his more private items. She turned her back to block Connor and Joanna from seeing what she was doing, just in case, and pulled the drawer open. She was surprised to find there were no condoms, nor anything like that. There was Jamie’s passport, a set of tangled white earphones, a tub of multivitamins ‘with added iron’, a bookmark shaped like a giraffe and a watch. Pip’s attention was immediately drawn to the last item, for one reason only: it couldn’t have belonged to Jamie.

The delicate leather straps were in a blush pink colour and the case was shiny rose gold, with a cuff of metallic flowers climbing up the left side of the face. Pip ran her finger over them, the petals spiking into her finger.

‘What’s that?’ asked Connor.

‘A ladies’ watch.’ She spun around. ‘Is this yours, Joanna? Or Zoe’s?’

Joanna came over to inspect the watch. ‘No, neither of ours. I’ve never seen that before. Do you think Jamie bought it for someone?’

Pip could tell Joanna was thinking of Nat, but if ever there was a watch less suited to Nat da Silva, it was this one. ‘No,’ Pip said. ‘It’s not new, look – there’s scratches along the case.’

‘Well, whose watch is it, then? That Hillary’s?’ said Connor.

‘Don’t know,’ Pip said, placing the watch carefully back in the drawer. ‘It could be significant, could mean nothing. We just have to see. I think we’re done, for now.’ She straightened up.

‘OK, what next?’ Connor said, eyes falling restlessly on hers.

‘That’s all we can do here for tonight,’ Pip said, looking away from the disappointment creasing Connor’s face. Had he really thought she was going to solve this in just a few hours? ‘I want you two to keep trying to crack that login password. Write down all the possibilities you’ve tried. Try Jamie’s nicknames, favourite books, films, where he was born, anything you can think of. I’ll research a list of typical password elements and combinations, and give that to you tomorrow to help narrow it down.’

‘I will,’ Joanna said. ‘I won’t stop.’

‘And keep checking your phone,’ Pip said. ‘If that message ever delivers to him, I want to know straight away.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Connor asked.

‘I’m going to write down all the info I have so far, do some editing and recording, and draft the announcement for the website. Tomorrow morning, everyone is going to know that Jamie Reynolds is missing.’

They both gave her quick, awkward hugs at the front door, Pip stepping out into the night. She looked over her shoulder as she walked away. Joanna had already gone, heading back to Jamie’s computer, no doubt. But Connor was still there, watching her leave, looking like the scared little boy Pip once knew.

Pip:

I made a promise. To myself. To everyone. I said I would never do this again, never play the detective, never again lose myself to the world of small-town secrets. It wasn’t me, not any more. I would have stuck to it too; I know I would’ve. But something’s happened and now I have to break that promise.

Someone has gone missing. Someone I know. Jamie Reynolds from Little Kilton. He’s the older brother of one of my closest friends, Connor. As I record these words, on Saturday the twenty-eighth of April at 11:27 p.m., Jamie has now been missing for twenty-seven hours. And no one is doing anything about it. The police have classified Jamie as a low-risk misper and can’t spare any manpower to look for him. They think he’s simply absent, not missing. And truthfully, I hope they’re right. I hope this is nothing, that there is no case here. That Jamie has just left home to stay with a friend, neglecting to message his family or return their calls. I hope he’s fine . . . I hope he returns home in a couple of days, wondering what all the fuss is about. But there’s no place for hope, not here, and if no one else will look for him, then I have to.

So, here it is: Welcome to season two of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – The Disappearance of Jamie Reynolds.

SUNDAY

2 DAYS MISSING

Initial thoughts:

• – Jamie’s behaviour in the last several weeks seems significant: the mood changes, sneaking out late twice in the last week. But what has he been up to? It all seems connected in some way to his phone?
• – Not appropriate to record this thought for podcast, but is it suspicious that Arthur Reynolds won’t partake in the investigation? Or is this understandable given Jamie’s history of disappearing without contact? They have a tense relationship and had a big argument just before the memorial. Could this simply be a repeating pattern: argument with dad → run away without contact for a few days.
• – But Connor and Joanna are convinced Jamie has NOT run off. They also don’t believe Jamie would attempt to hurt himself, despite recent mood swings.
• – Joanna’s undelivered text to Jamie at 12:36 a.m. is a key piece of evidence. This means Jamie’s phone has been off since at least that time and has never been turned back on. This itself casts serious doubt on the ‘ran away’ theory: Jamie would need his phone if he were contacting a friend to stay with or getting public transport. So, if something has happened to Jamie, if he’s come to harm in any way, it must have happened by 12:36 a.m.
• – Reynolds family movements post-memorial:
  • – Arthur walked home alone from pub, got in around 11:15 p.m. (my estimate)
  • – Joanna drove home, got in at 12:15 a.m. at the earliest
  • – Connor was dropped home by Zach Chen at approximately 12:00 a.m.

To-Do List:

• Announce 2nd season on website/social media
• Make missing posters
• Get a notice printed in tomorrow’s Kilton Mail
• Interview Nat da Silva
• Research Hillary F. Weiseman
• Record description of Jamie’s bedroom search
• Have The Conversation with Mum and Dad

Wearing a collarless burgundy shirt, jeans and white Puma trainers.

Last seen on Friday 27th April around 8:00 p.m. at the memorial on Little Kilton Common.

URGENT APPEAL: If you have seen Jamie since the memorial or have any information as to his whereabouts, please call 07700900382 or email [email protected]

Please send all photos and videos taken at the memorial on Friday to the above email address, to assist the investigation.