She started to shiver and climbed into her car, wringing the rain from her hair. The sky had given her no answers. But there was someone who might; someone who knew her better than she knew herself. She pulled out her phone and dialled.
‘Ravi?’
‘Hello, trouble.’ The smile was obvious in his voice. ‘Have you been sleeping? You sound strange.’
She told him; told him everything. Asked for help because he was the only one she knew how to ask.
‘I can’t tell you what decision to make,’ he said.
‘But, could you?’
‘No, I can’t make that decision for you. Only you know, only you can know,’ he said. ‘But what I do know is that whatever you decide will be the right thing. That’s just how you are. And whatever you choose, you know I’ll be here, right behind you. Always. OK?’
‘OK.’
And as she said goodbye, she realized the decision was already made. Maybe it had always been made, maybe she’d never really had a choice, and she’d just been waiting for someone to tell her that that was OK.
It was OK.
She searched for Connor’s name and clicked the green button, her heart dragging its way to her throat.
He picked up on the second ring.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said.
Seven
The Reynoldses’ house on Cedar Way had always looked like a face. The white front door and the wide windows either side were the house’s toothy smile. The mark where the bricks were discoloured, that was its nose. And the two squared windows upstairs were its eyes, staring down at you, sleeping when the curtains were closed at night.
The face usually looked happy. But as she stared at it now, it felt incomplete, like the house itself knew something inside was wrong.
Pip knocked, her heavy rucksack digging into one shoulder.
‘You’re here already?’ Connor said when he opened the door, moving aside to let her in.
‘Yep, stopped by home to pick up my equipment and came straight here. Every second counts with something like this.’
Pip paused to slip her shoes off, almost over-balancing when her bag shifted. ‘Oh, and if my mum asks, you fed me dinner, OK?’
Pip hadn’t told her parents yet. She knew she’d have to, later. Their families were close, ever since Connor first asked Pip round to play in year four. And her mum had seen a lot of Jamie recently; he’d been working at her estate agency the last couple of months. But even so, Pip knew it would be a battle. Her mum would remind her how dangerously obsessed she got last time – as if she needed reminding – and tell her she should be studying instead. There just wasn’t time for that argument now. The first seventy-two hours were crucial when someone went missing, and they’d already lost twenty-three of those.
‘Pip?’ Connor’s mum, Joanna, had appeared in the hallway. Her fair hair was piled on top of her head and she looked somehow older in just one day.
‘Hi, Joanna.’ That was the rule, always had been: Joanna, never Mrs Reynolds.
‘Pip, thank you for . . . for . . .’ she said, trying on a smile that didn’t quite fit. ‘Connor and I had no idea what to do and we just knew you were the person to go to. Connor says you had no luck trying again with the police?’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ Pip said, following Joanna into the kitchen. ‘I tried, but they won’t budge.’
‘They don’t believe us,’ Joanna said, opening one of the top cupboards. It wasn’t a question. ‘Tea?’ But that was.
‘No, thank you.’ Pip dropped her bag on to the kitchen table. She rarely drank it any more, not since fireworks night last year when Becca Bell slipped Andie’s remaining Rohypnol pills into her tea. ‘Shall we get started in here?’ she said, hovering beside a chair.
‘Yes,’ Joanna said, losing her hands in the folds of her oversized jumper. ‘Best do it in here.’
Pip settled into a chair, Connor taking the one beside her as she unzipped her bag and pulled out her computer, the two USB microphones and pop filters, the folder, a pen, and her bulky headphones. Joanna finally sat down, though she couldn’t seem to sit still, shifting every few seconds and changing the positions of her arms.
‘Is your dad here? Your sister?’ Pip directed the questions at Connor, but Joanna was the one who answered.
‘Zoe’s at university. I called her, told her Jamie’s missing, but she’s staying there. She seems to have come down on her father’s side of things.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Arthur is . . .’ Joanna exchanged a quick look with Connor. ‘Arthur doesn’t think Jamie’s missing, thinks he’s just run off again and will be back soon. He seems very angry with the whole thing – with Jamie.’ She shifted again, scratching a point just under her eye. ‘He thinks Connor and I are being ridiculous with all this –’ She gestured to Pip’s equipment. ‘He’s gone to the supermarket but he’ll probably be back soon.’
‘OK,’ Pip said, making a mental note, trying to betray nothing with her face. ‘Do you think he’ll talk to me?’
‘No,’ Connor said firmly. ‘No point even asking.’
The atmosphere in the room was tight and uncomfortable, and Pip’s armpits prickled with sweat. ‘OK, before we do anything, I need to speak honestly with you both, give you . . . I guess, a kind of disclaimer.’
They nodded at her, eyes wholly focused now.
‘If you’re asking me to investigate, to help find Jamie, we have to agree upfront where this could potentially take us and you need to be happy to accept that or I can’t do it.’ Pip cleared her throat. ‘It might lead us to potentially unsavoury things about Jamie, things that might be embarrassing or harmful, for you and him. Secrets he might have kept from you and wouldn’t want exposed. I agree that releasing the investigation for my podcast is the fastest way to get media attention for Jamie’s disappearance, bring in witnesses who might know something. It might even get Jamie’s attention if he really has just left, and bring him back. But with that, you have to accept that your private lives will be laid bare. Nothing will be off-the-record, and that can be hard to deal with.’ Pip knew this better than most. The anonymous death and rape threats still came in weekly, comments and tweets calling her an ugly, hateful bitch. ‘Jamie isn’t here to agree to this, so you need to accept, for him and yourselves, that you’re opening up your lives to be scrutinized and when I start digging, it’s possible you’ll learn things you never would have wanted to know. That’s what happened last time, so I . . . I just want to check you’re ready for that.’ Pip trailed into silence, her throat dry, wishing she’d asked for another drink instead.
‘I accept,’ Joanna said, her voice growing with each syllable. ‘Anything. Anything to get him home.’
Connor nodded. ‘I agree. We have to find him.’
‘OK, good,’ Pip said, though she couldn’t help but wonder if the Reynoldses had just given her permission to blow up their family, like she had with the Wards and the Bells. They’d come to her, invited her in, but they didn’t really understand the destruction that came in with her, hand-in-hand through that front door which looked like a grinning smile.