Pip moved forward a few more silent steps, Ravi following close behind her, holding his breath.
‘I reckon I can fit, like, twenty-seven of them in my mouth at once,’ one of the voices said.
‘Oh, Robin, don’t.’
Pip hesitated. Robin? Was this the Robin she knew – the one in the year below who played football with Ant? The one she’d spied buying drugs from Howie Bowers last year?
She stepped into the living room. Three people were sitting on the upturned bins and it was light enough in here that they weren’t just silhouettes detaching from the darkness; a torch was resting in the top drawer of a warped wooden sideboard, pointing its bright silver light at the ceiling. And there were three bright yellow pinpricks at the ends of their lit cigarettes.
‘Robin Caine,’ Pip said, making all three of them jump. She didn’t recognize the other two, but the girl shrieked and almost fell from her bin, and the other boy dropped his cigarette. ‘Careful, you don’t want to cause a fire,’ she said, watching the boy scramble to retrieve it whilst also pulling up his hood to hide his face.
Robin’s eyes finally focused on her and he said, ‘Urgh, not fucking you.’
‘It is fucking me, I’m afraid,’ Pip said. ‘And co.,’ as the others piled into the room behind her.
‘What are you doing here?’ Robin took a long drag on his joint. Too long, in fact, and his face reddened as he fought not to cough.
‘What are you doing here?’ Pip returned the question.
Robin held up the joint.
‘I got that bit. Do you . . . come here often?’ she said.
‘Is that a pick-up line?’ Robin asked, shrinking back immediately as Ravi straightened up to full height beside Pip.
‘The crap you’ve left behind answers my question anyway.’ Pip gestured to the collection of wrappers and empty beer bottles. ‘You know you’re leaving traces of yourselves all over a potential crime scene, right?’
‘Andie Bell wasn’t killed in here,’ he said, returning his attention to his joint. His friends were deadly quiet, trying to look anywhere but at them.
‘That’s not what I’m talking about.’ Pip shifted her stance. ‘Jamie Reynolds has been missing for five days. He came here right before he disappeared. You guys know anything about that?’
‘No,’ Robin said, quickly followed by the others.
‘Were you here on Friday night?’
‘No.’ Robin glanced down at the time on his phone. ‘Listen, you’ve really gotta go. Someone’s turning up soon and you really can’t be here when he does.’
‘Who’s that, then?’
‘Obviously not going to tell you that,’ Robin scoffed.
‘What if I refuse to leave until you do?’ Pip said, kicking an empty Pringles can so that it skittered between the trio.
‘You especially don’t want to be here,’ Robin said. ‘He probably hates you more than most people because you basically put Howie Bowers in prison.’
The dots connected in Pip’s head.
‘Ah,’ she said, drawing out the sound. ‘So, this is a drug thing. Are you dealing now, then?’ she said, noticing the large black, overstuffed bag leaning against Robin’s leg.
‘No, I don’t deal.’ He wrinkled his nose.
‘Well that looks like a lot more than personal use in there.’ She pointed at the bag that Robin was now trying to hide from her, tucking it behind his legs.
‘I don’t deal, OK? I just pick it up from some guys from London and bring it here.’
‘So, you’re, like, a mule,’ Ravi offered.
‘They give me weed for free,’ Robin’s voice rose defensively.
‘Wow, you’re quite the businessman,’ Pip said. ‘So, someone’s groomed you into carrying drugs across county lines.’
‘No, fuck off, I’m not groomed.’ He looked down at his phone again, the panic reaching his eyes, swirling in the dark of his pupils. ‘Please, he’ll be here any minute. He’s already pissed off this week ’cause someone skipped out on him; nine hundred pounds he’ll never get back or something. You have to go.’
And as soon as the last word left Robin’s throat, they all heard it: the sound of wheels crackling against the gravel, the low hum of a car pulling in and cutting out, the after-tick of its engine puncturing the night.
‘Someone’s here,’ Connor said needlessly.
‘Ah shit,’ Robin said, stubbing out his joint on the bin beneath him. But Pip was already turning, passing between Connor and Cara, down the hall to the gaping front door. She stood there at the threshold, one foot curled over the ledge and into the night. She squinted, trying to sculpt the darkness into recognizable shapes. A car had pulled up in front of Robin’s, a lighter coloured car but –
And then Pip couldn’t see anything at all, blinded by the fierce white of the car’s full beams.
She covered her eyes with her hands as the engine revved – and then the car sped off down Sycamore Road, disappearing in a cloud of dust and scattering pebbles.
‘Guys!’ Pip called to the others. ‘My car. Now. Run!’
She was already moving, flying across the grass and into the swirling dust of the road. Ravi overtook her on the corner.
‘Keys,’ he shouted, and Pip dug them out of her jacket pocket, throwing them into Ravi’s hand. He unlocked the Beetle and threw himself into the passenger side. When Pip slammed into the driver’s side, climbing in, Ravi already had the keys in the ignition waiting for her. She turned them and flicked on the headlights, lighting up Cara and Connor as they sprinted over.
They flung themselves inside and Pip pulled away, accelerating before Cara had even slammed the door behind her.
‘What did you see?’ Ravi asked as Pip rounded the corner, chasing after the car.
‘Nothing.’ She pressed down on the pedal, hearing gravel kick up, dinging off the sides of her car. ‘But he must have spotted me in the doorway. And now he’s running.’
‘Why would he run?’ Connor asked, his hands gripped around Ravi’s headrest.
‘Don’t know.’ Pip sped up as the road dropped down a hill. ‘But running is something that guilty people do. Are those his tail lights?’ She squinted into the distance.
‘Yeah,’ Ravi said. ‘God he’s going fast, you need to speed up.’
‘I’m already doing forty-five,’ Pip said, biting her lip and pushing her foot down a little harder.
‘Left, he turned left there.’ Ravi pointed.
Pip swung around the corner, into another narrow country lane.
‘Go, go, go,’ said Connor.
And Pip was gaining on him, the white body of his car now visible against the dark hedgerows at the side of the road.
‘Need to get close enough to read his number plate,’ Pip said.
‘He’s speeding up again,’ Cara said, face wedged between Pip and Ravi’s seats.
Pip accelerated, the speedometer needling over fifty and up and up, closing the gap between the cars.
‘Right!’ Ravi said. ‘He went right.’
The turn was sharp. Pip took her foot off the pedal and pulled at the steering wheel. They flew around the corner, but something was wrong.