it meant that Andie had returned home with an injured head before leaving again. And if that had been the case, Becca would have told the police those details. So Becca was no longer the last person to see Andie alive, Elliot was.
But then . . . Pip chewed the end of the pen, thinking. Elliot said that Andie hadn’t driven to his house; he thought she’d walked. And, looking at the map, Pip saw why that made sense. The Bells’ and the Wards’ houses were very close; on foot you just had to cut through the church and over the pedestrian bridge. It was probably a quicker walk than a drive. Pip scratched her head. But that didn’t fit: Andie’s car was picked up by CCTV so she must have driven. Maybe she’d parked somewhere near Elliot’s but not near enough for him to notice.
So how did Andie go from that point into non-existence? From Hogg Hill to her blood in the boot of her car ditched near Howie’s house?
Pip tapped the end of the pen against the map, her eyes flitting from Howie to Max to Nat to Daniel to Jason. There had been two different killers in Little Kilton: one who thought he’d killed Andie and then murdered Sal to cover it up, and another who’d actually killed Andie Bell. And which of these faces staring up at her could it be?
Two killers, and yet only one of them had tried to get Pip to stop which meant that . . .
Wait.
Pip held her face as she closed her eyes to think, thoughts firing off and then coming back altered and new and smoking. And one image: Elliot’s face, just as the police stepped in. His face when Pip said she’d never forgive him for killing Barney. It had crumpled, his brows tensed. But, picturing it now, it hadn’t been remorse on his face. No, it was confusion.
And the words he’d spoken, Pip finished them off for him now: Pip, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t – kill Barney.
Pip swore under her breath, scrabbling over to the slumped bin bag. She pulled out the discarded pages and hunted through them, scattering paper all around her. And then they were in her hands; the notes from the camping trip and her locker in one hand, the printed texts from Unknown in the other.
They were from two different people. It was so obvious now, looking at them.
The differences weren’t only in form, it was in their tone. In the printed notes, Elliot had referred to her as Pippa and the threats were subtle, implied. Even the one typed into her EPQ log. But Unknown had called her a ‘Stupid bitch,’ and the threats weren’t just implied: they’d made her smash her laptop up and then they’d killed her dog.
She sat back and let out her too-full breath. Two different people. Elliot wasn’t Unknown and he hadn’t killed Barney. No, that had been Andie’s real killer.
‘Pip, come on! They’ll have already lit the bonfire,’ her dad called upstairs.
She bounded over to her door and opened it a crack. ‘Um, you guys go on ahead. I’ll find you there.’
‘What? No. Get down here, Pipsy.’
‘I’m just . . . I just want to try to call Cara a few more times, Dad. I really need to speak to her. I won’t be long. Please. I’ll find you there.’
‘OK, pickle,’ he called.
‘I’ll leave in twenty minutes, I promise,’ she said.
‘OK, call me if you can’t find us.’
As the front door crashed shut Pip sat back beside the murder board, the texts from Unknown shaking in her hands. She scanned through her log entries, trying to work out when in her investigation she had received them. The first had come just after she found Howie Bowers, after she and Ravi had spoken to him and learned about Andie’s dealing, about Max buying Rohypnol. And then Barney had been taken in half-term week. A lot had happened just before that: she’d bumped into Stanley Forbes twice, she’d gone to see Becca, and she’d spoken to Daniel at the police meeting.
She scrunched up the pieces of paper and threw them across the room with a growl she’d never heard from herself. There were just too many suspects still. And now that Elliot’s secrets were out and Sal was to be exonerated, would the killer be looking for revenge? Would they make good on their threats? Should Pip really be in the house on