a sympathetic look. ‘Well, at least you had your old phone with a SIM that still worked. Lucky you held on to them.’
‘Well, lucky Dad had a spare pay-as-you-go micro SIM kicking around. And bonus: eighteen pounds credit on it. There was just an expired contract one in my phone.’
The knife almost fell from Pip’s hand. A climbing hum in her ears.
‘Your dad’s SIM card?’
‘Yeah,’ Naomi said, scoring the knife along her pumpkin face, her tongue out as she concentrated. ‘Cara found it in his desk. At the bottom of his bits and bobs drawer. You know that drawer every family has, full of old useless chargers and foreign currency and stuff.’
The hum split into a ringing sound, shrieking and shrieking and stuffing her head. She felt sick, the back of her throat filling with a metallic taste.
Elliot’s SIM card.
Elliot’s old phone number scribbled out in Andie’s planner.
Andie calling Mr Ward an arsehole to her friends the week she disappeared.
Elliot.
‘You OK, Pip?’ Cara asked as she dropped the lit candle into her pumpkin and it glowed into life.
‘Yeah.’ Pip nodded too hard. ‘I’m just, um . . . just hungry.’
‘Well, I would offer you a biscuit, but they seem to have disappeared, as always. Toast?’
‘Err . . . no thanks.’
‘I feed you because I love you,’ Cara said.
Pip’s mouth filled, all tacky and sickly. No, it might not mean what she was thinking. Maybe Elliot was just offering to tutor Andie and that’s why she wrote his number down. Maybe. It couldn’t be him. She needed to calm down, try to breathe. This wasn’t proof of anything.
But she had a way to find proof.
‘I think we should have spooky Halloween music on while we do this,’ Pip said. ‘Cara, can I go get your laptop?’
‘Yeah, it’s on my bed.’
Pip closed the kitchen door behind her.
She raced up the stairs and into Cara’s room. With the laptop tucked under her arm she crept back downstairs, her heart thudding, fighting to be louder than the ringing in her ears.
She slipped into Elliot’s study and gently closed the door, staring for a moment at the printer on Elliot’s desk. The rainbow-coloured people from Isobel Ward’s paintings watched her as she put Cara’s laptop down on the oxblood leather chair and pulled open the lid, kneeling on the floor before it.
When it awoke she clicked on to the control panel and into Devices and Printers. Hovering the mouse over Freddie Prints Jr, she right-clicked and, holding her breath, clicked the top item in the drop-down menu: See what’s printing.
A small blue-bordered box popped up. Inside was a table with six columns: Document Name, Status, Owner, Pages, Size and Date Submitted.
It was filled with entries. One yesterday from Cara called Personal Statement second draft. One a few days ago from Elliot Comp: Gluten free cookies recipe. Several in a row from Naomi: CV 2017, Charity Job application, Cover letter, Cover letter 2.
The note was put in Pip’s locker on Friday the 20th October. With her eyes on the Date Submitted column, she scrolled down.
Her fingers drew up. On the 19th October at twenty to midnight, Elliot Comp had printed Microsoft Word – Document 1.
An unnamed, unsaved document.
Her fingers left sweaty tracks on the mousepad as she right-clicked on the document. Another small drop-down menu appeared. Her heart in her throat, she bit down on her tongue and clicked the Restart option.
The printer clacked behind her and she flinched.
Pivoting on the balls of her feet, she turned as it hissed, sucking in the top piece of paper.
She straightened up as it started to sputt-sputt-sputt the page through.
She moved towards it, a step between each sputt.
The paper started to push through, a glimpse of fresh black ink, upside down.
The printer finished and spat it out.
Pip reached for it.
She turned it round.
This is your final warning, Pippa. Walk away.
Forty
Words left her.
She stared down at the paper and shook her head.
It was something primal and wordless, the feeling that took her. Numb rage blackened with terror. And a betrayal that gored through every part of her.
She staggered back and looked away, out of the darkening window.
Elliot Ward was Unknown.
Elliot was the killer. Andie’s killer. Sal’s. Barney’s.
She watched the half-deadened trees beckoning in the wind. And in her reflection in the glass she recreated the scene. Her bumping into Mr Ward in the history classroom, the note gliding to the floor. This note, the one he’d left for her. His deceitful kind face as he asked whether she was being