Good. Everything was going to plan. Except, not quite. She was already late for meeting Ravi. She hoped he wasn’t sitting there, panicking, although she knew him better than hope. Pip just had to wait a few minutes more. For her mum to fall asleep.
She double-checked her rucksack again, repacking everything in the order she thought she’d need them. She looped another hair tie around her ponytail, tying it into a loose bun, and then pulled one of the beanie hats over her head to secure it all, tucking in any flyaway bits of hair. Then she pulled on the rucksack straps and waited by her bedroom door. Cracking it open, moving it a half inch at a time so it made no noise, Pip peeked her head out and stared down the landing. Watching the weak yellow light in the gap beneath her parents’ door, cast from her mum’s bedside lamp. She could already hear the soft rumbling of her dad’s snores, using the in-and-out to measure the time slipping away from her.
The light cut out, leaving only darkness behind, and Pip gave it a few minutes more. Then she closed her bedroom door and walked across the hall, steps careful and quiet. Down the stairs, remembering this time to step over the one that creaked, third up from the bottom.
Out the front door into the cold again, leaning into the door slowly, so the only sound it made was the click of the lock sliding into the mechanism. Her mum was a heavy sleeper anyway, had to be, considering the grunting, snoring man she slept next to.
Pip walked down her drive, past her parked car, and on to Martinsend Way, turning right. Even though it was late, and dark, and she was walking alone, she didn’t feel afraid. Or if she did, it was a dull kind of afraid, an ordinary kind of fear, near-unremarkable when placed beside that terror she’d felt just hours ago, its mark still all over her.
Pip spotted the car first; a black Audi, waiting on the corner, the intersection where Pip’s road met Max’s road.
Ravi must have seen her, the headlights in Max’s car blinking on, carving two white funnels through the black of midnight. Gone-midnight. Quite-a-lot-past-midnight. Ravi would have been panicking about the time, she was sure, but she was here now.
Pip used her sleeve to open the door and dropped into the passenger seat.
‘It’s eighteen minutes past.’ Ravi turned to her, eyes wide with dread just as she thought they’d be. ‘I’ve been waiting. I thought something bad had happened to you.’
‘Sorry,’ she said, using her sleeve to close the door again. ‘Nothing bad. Just running a bit late.’
‘A “bit late” is like six minutes,’ he said, eyes refusing to back down. ‘That’s how late I was, took longer to walk through the woods to Max’s house than I thought. Eighteen minutes is a lot late.’
‘How did everything go with you?’ Pip asked, leaning forward to press her forehead against his, in the way he always did to her. To take on half her headaches, or half her nerves, he said. And here, Pip took on half his fear, because it was the ordinary kind, and she could handle it.
It worked, Ravi’s face relaxing a little as she pulled away.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, everything good my end. Went to the ATM, and the petrol station. Paid for everything on my card. Yeah, good. Rahul commented that I seemed distracted, but he just thought I’d had an argument with you or something. All fine. Mum and Dad think I’m asleep. What about your end? How did everything go?’
She nodded. ‘I don’t know how, but everything went OK, somehow. Got everything I needed from Max’s. Did you pick up the car OK?’
‘Clearly,’ he said, indicating around the dark car with his eyes. ‘Course he has a fucking nice car too. It seemed quiet inside the house still. Dark. Did it take him long to pass out?’
‘Fifteen, twenty minutes,’ she replied. ‘Nat had to hit him to buy me more time, but I think that will work better with the narrative.’
Ravi thought about that for a moment. ‘Yes, and maybe Max will think that’s why he has a stonking headache in the morning. And his phone?’
‘Connor and Jamie planted it just before 9:40-ish. I made the call to Epps right after.’
‘And your alibi?’ he asked.
‘I’m covered. From 9:41 to just after midnight, lots of cameras. Mum heard me go to bed.’
Ravi nodded to himself, staring through the windscreen, at the air floating through the piercing headlights. ‘Let’s hope we’ve managed to push the time of death by three hours at least, then.’
‘Speaking of,’ Pip said, reaching into her rucksack, ‘we need to get back quickly and turn him again. He’s already been on one side a while.’ She pulled out a handful of latex gloves, passing a pair over to Ravi, as well as her other beanie hat.