A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder #1) - Holly Jackson Page 0,107
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.’