‘You do feel warm. You think it’s a bug?’ she said, her voice as soft as her touch, and Pip was so glad to be alive to hear it again.
‘Maybe. Or maybe something I ate.’
‘What did you eat?’
‘McDonalds,’ Pip said, with a closed-mouth smile.
Her mum widened her eyes in a there you go. She glanced behind her, at the door. ‘I told Josh we’d go to Legoland today,’ she said uncertainly.
‘You guys should still go,’ Pip said. Please go.
‘But you’re not well,’ her mum said. ‘I should stay and take care of you.’
Pip shook her head. ‘Honestly, I haven’t been sick in a while now. I think it’s over. I just want to get some sleep. Really. I want you guys to go.’ She watched her mum’s eyes flicker as she considered. ‘And just think about how annoying Josh will be if you don’t.’
Her mum smiled, tapped Pip under the chin, and Pip hoped she hadn’t felt the way it had quivered. ‘Can’t argue with you there. You sure you’ll be OK, though? Maybe I can get Ravi to come check in on you.’
‘Mum, really, I’m OK. I’m just going to sleep. Day-sleeping. Practising for university.’
‘OK. Well, let me at least get you a glass of water.’
Her dad had to come in as well, of course, after being told she wasn’t well and not coming.
‘Oh no, not my little pickle,’ he said, sitting beside her and making the entire bed sink, Pip almost rolling on to his lap because there was no strength left in her. ‘You look terrible. Soldier down?’
‘Soldier down,’ she replied.
‘Drink lots of water,’ he said. ‘Plain food only, even though it pains me to say that. Plain toast, rice.’
‘Yeah, I know, Dad.’
‘OK. Mum says you lost your phone, and apparently you told me that last night, but I remember no such thing. I’ll call the house phone in a few hours, check you’re still alive.’
He was about to walk out her door.
‘Wait!’ Pip sat up, scrabbling against the duvet. He hesitated at the threshold. ‘Love you, Dad,’ she said quietly, because she couldn’t remember the last time, and she was still alive.
A grin broke his face.
‘What do you want from me?’ he laughed. ‘My wallet’s in the other room.’
‘No, nothing,’ she said. ‘I was just saying.’
‘Ah, well, I’ll just say it too, then. Love you, pickle.’
Pip waited until they left, the sound of the car peeling up the drive, cracking the curtains to watch as they drove away.
Then with the very last of her strength, she pushed herself up and stumbled across the room, feet dragging beneath her. Picked up the damp trainers she’d hidden back in her rucksack, and the two burner phones.
Three boxes left to tick, she could do this, crawling towards that finish line, the Ravi in her head telling her that she could make it. She slipped the back cover off her burner phone. Pulled out the battery and the SIM card. Snapped the small plastic card between her thumbs, through the middle of the chip, just as she’d done with Jason’s. Carried it all downstairs.
Into the garage, to her dad’s toolkit. She replaced his duct-tape roll with another ‘Fucking duct tape,’ under her breath. Then she picked up his drill, pressing the trigger to watch the head spin for a moment, twisting the particles of air. She drove it through the small Nokia phone that used to live in her drawer, right through the screen, shattering it, black plastic scattering around the new hole. And again, to the phone that had belonged to the DT Killer.
One black bin bag for the trainers, tied up tight. Another for the SIM cards and batteries. Another for the small smashed-up burner phones.
Pip grabbed her long coat, hanging on the rack by the front door, slipped on her mum’s shoes, even though they didn’t fit.
It was still early, hardly anyone was out and about town yet. Pip stumbled down the road with the bin bags in one hand, holding the coat tight around her with the other. She could see Mrs Yardley up ahead, walking their dog. Pip turned the other way.
The moon was gone, so Pip had to guide herself, but there was something wrong with her eyes, the world moving strangely around her, stuttering, like it hadn’t loaded properly.
So tired. Her body close to giving up on her. She couldn’t really pick up her feet, only shuffle, tripping on the edges of the pavement.
Up on West Way, Pip picked a random house: number thirteen. On second thought, maybe it wasn’t so random. To the wheelie bins at the end of their drive, the black one, for general rubbish. Pip opened it and checked there were already black sacks inside. Then she pulled the top one out, a waft of something rotten, and placed the bag with the trainers underneath, burying it under the other rubbish.