Pip felt the steering wheel escape from her, slipping through her hands.
They were skidding.
She tried to turn into it, to correct it.
But the car was going too fast and it went. Someone was yelling but she couldn’t tell who over the screaming of the wheels. They slid, left then right, before spinning in a full circle.
They were all yelling as the car skidded to a stop, coming to rest facing the wrong way, the bonnet half embedded in the brambles that bordered the road.
‘Fuck,’ Pip said, hitting her fist against the steering wheel, the car horn blaring for a split second. ‘Is everyone OK?’
‘Yeah,’ Connor said, his breath heavy and his face flushed.
Ravi looked over his shoulder, exchanging a look with a shaken Cara before passing it on to Pip. And she knew what was in their eyes, the secret the three of them knew that Connor never could: that Cara’s sister and Max Hastings had been involved in a car accident when they were this age, Max convincing his friends to leave a severely injured man on the road. And that had really been the start of it all, how Ravi’s brother was eventually murdered.
And they’d just come recklessly close to something like that.
‘That was stupid,’ Pip said, that thing in her gut stretching out to take more of her with it. It was guilt, wasn’t it? Or shame. She wasn’t supposed to be like this this time, losing herself again. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s my fault.’ Ravi tucked his fingers around hers. ‘I told you to go faster. I’m sorry.’
‘Did anyone see the number plate?’ Connor asked. ‘All I saw was the first letter and it was either an N or an H.’
‘Didn’t see,’ Cara said. ‘But it was a sports car. A white sports car.’
‘A BMW,’ Ravi added, and Pip tensed, right down to the fingers gripping his hand. He turned to her. ‘What?’
‘I . . . I know someone with that car,’ she said quietly.
‘Well, yeah, so do I,’ he replied. ‘More than one someone probably.’
‘Yeah,’ Pip exhaled. ‘But the one I know is Nat da Silva’s new boyfriend.’
THURSDAY
6 DAYS MISSING
Twenty-Seven
A yawn split her face as she stared down at the toast in front of her. Not hungry.
‘Why are you so tired this morning?’ her mum asked, watching her over a mug of tea.
Pip shrugged, flicking the toast around her plate. Josh was sitting opposite her, humming as he shovelled Coco Pops into his mouth, swinging his legs out under the table and kicking her accidentally on purpose. She didn’t react, pulling her knees up to sit cross-legged on the chair instead. The radio was on in the background, tuned to BBC Three Counties, as always. The song was just ending, the hosts talking over the fading drums.
‘Are you taking too much on with this Jamie thing?’ her mum said.
‘It’s not a thing, Mum,’ Pip said, and she could feel herself growing irritable, wearing it like a layer beneath her skin, warm and unstable. ‘It’s his life. I can be tired for that.’
‘OK, OK,’ her mum said, taking the empty bowl away from Josh. ‘I’m allowed to worry about you.’
Pip wished she wouldn’t. She didn’t need anyone’s worry; Jamie did.
A text lit up Pip’s phone, from Ravi. Just leaving for court to wait for deliberation. How are you? X
Pip stood and scooped up her phone, grabbing her plate with the other hand and sliding the toast into the bin. She felt her mum’s eyes on her. ‘Not hungry yet,’ she explained. ‘I’ll take a cereal bar into school.’
She had only taken a few steps down the hall when her mum called her back.
‘I’m just going to the toilet!’ she replied.
‘Pip, get in here now!’ her mum shouted. And it was a real shout, a sound Pip rarely heard from her, rough and panicked.
Pip felt instantly cold, all feeling draining from her face. She spun back, socks sliding on the oak floor as she sprinted into the kitchen.
‘What, what, what?’ she said quickly, eyes darting from a confused-looking Josh to her mum, who was reaching over to the radio, turning up the volume.
‘Listen,’ she said.
‘. . . a dog walker discovered the body at about six a.m. yesterday morning in the woodland beside the A413, between Little Kilton and Amersham. Officers are still at the scene. The deceased is as yet unidentified but has been described as a white male in his early twenties. The cause of death is currently unknown. A spokesperson for Thames Valley Police has said –’
‘No.’ The word must have come from her, but she didn’t remember saying it. Didn’t remember moving her lips, nor the scrape of the word against her narrowing throat. ‘No no nonono.’ She didn’t feel anything except numb, her feet a solid weight sinking into the ground, her hands detaching from her finger by finger.
‘P . . . i . . . p?’
Everything around her moved too slowly, like the room was floating, because it was right there with her in the eye of the panic.
‘Pip!’
And everything snapped back into focus, into time, and she could hear her heart battering in her ears. She looked up at her mum, who mirrored back her terrified eyes.
‘Go,’ her mum said, hurrying over and turning Pip by her shoulders. ‘Go! I’ll call school and tell them you’ll be in late.’
‘Up next, one of my favourite songs from the eighties, we have Sweet Dreams . . . ’
‘He, he c-can’t be—’
‘Go,’ her mum said, pushing her down the hall, just as Pip’s phone started buzzing with an incoming call from Connor.
It was Connor who opened the door to her, his eyes rubbed red and a twitch in his upper lip.
Pip stepped inside without a word. She gripped his arm, above the elbow, for a long, silent second. And then she let go, saying, ‘Where’s your mum?’
‘Here.’ His voice was just a croak as he led Pip into the cold living room. The daylight was wrong in here, too harsh, too bright, too alive. And Joanna was huddled against it, wrapped in an old blanket on the sofa, her face buried inside a tissue.
‘Pip’s here,’ Connor said in barely more than a whisper.
Joanna glanced up. Her eyes were swollen and she looked different, like something beneath her face had broken.
She didn’t speak, just held out her arms, and Pip stumbled forward to lower herself on to the sofa. Joanna wrapped her arms around her and Pip held her back, feeling Joanna’s racing heart in her own chest.
‘We need to call Detective Hawkins at the police station in Amersham,’ Pip said, pulling back. ‘Ask if they’ve identified the –’
‘Arthur’s on the phone to them now.’ Joanna shuffled over to clear a space between them for Connor. And once Connor had settled, his leg pressing into hers, Pip could hear the sound of Arthur’s voice, growing louder as he left the kitchen and walked towards them.
‘Yes,’ he said, entering the room with the phone to his ear, blinking as his gaze settled on Pip. His face looked grey, mouth in a tense line. ‘Jamie Reynolds. No, Reynolds, with an R. Yes. Case number? Um . . .’ His eyes darted over to Joanna. She began to push up from the sofa but Pip cut in.