‘I don’t understand,’ Pip said, and that wasn’t true because she knew exactly why they were there, how they got there. But she couldn’t find any other words because her mind was busy, the plan shattering into a million pieces, cascading behind her eyes.
‘You said you use your headphones daily? All the time,’ he quoted her. ‘Yet you haven’t had contact with Jason Bell since April. So how did your headphones get there?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, shuffling in her seat. No, don’t shuffle, that makes you look guilty. Stay still, stare back. ‘I use them all the time, but I haven’t seen them lately –’
‘Define lately?’
‘I don’t know, maybe a week or more,’ she said. ‘Maybe I left them somewhere… I can’t really remember.’
‘No?’ Hawkins said lightly.
‘No.’ Pip stared him down, but her eyes were weaker than his. Blood on her hands, gun in her heart, bile at the back of her throat and a cage tightening around her, squeezing the skin on her arms. Biting, like the duct tape had. ‘I’m as confused as you are.’
‘You have no explanation?’ Hawkins said.
‘No, none,’ Pip said. ‘I didn’t realize they were missing.’
‘So, they can’t have been gone long?’ he asked. ‘Maybe nine or ten days? Could you have lost them on the same day you lost your phone?’
Pip knew then. He didn’t believe her. He wouldn’t follow the path she’d created for him. She wasn’t a peripheral outsider to the case any more, there was a direct line between her and Jason. Hawkins had found her, the real her, not the one she’d planted for him to find. He’d won.
‘I really don’t know,’ Pip said, and the terror was back, that cliff-edge inside her own head, breaths coming faster, throat narrowing. ‘I guess I can ask my family, see if they remember when they last saw me with the headphones. But I can’t think how this happened.’
‘Right,’ Hawkins said.
She needed to leave, get out before the panic took over her face and she couldn’t hide it any more. She had to leave – and she could, this interview was voluntary. They couldn’t arrest her. Not yet. The headphones were only circumstantial; they’d need more.
‘In fact, I probably need to get going. My mum’s taking me shopping for university supplies in a bit. I’m going this weekend and I’m not organized yet. Leaving everything to the last minute as she’d say. I’ll ask my family if they remember when I last had those headphones, and I’ll get back to you on that.’
She stood up.
‘Interview terminated 11:57.’ Hawkins clicked stop on the tape and stood as well, picking up the evidence bag. ‘I’ll walk you out,’ he said.
‘No,’ Pip said from the door. ‘No, don’t worry. Been here enough times, I know the way.’
Back out into that corridor, in the bad, bad place, blood on her hands, blood on her hands, blood on her face and everywhere, marking her out in red as she stumbled outside.
Flipped her laptop over. Panicked fingers, almost dropped it. A screwdriver from her dad’s toolkit. Pip could remove the hard drive, she knew exactly how, put it in the microwave and watch it explode. If they got a warrant and took her computer, they couldn’t see that she’d been looking into Green Scene before Jason died, or Andie’s second email account, or any connection to Jason or the DT Killer. The time of death was nine thirty to midnight and she had an alibi, she had an alibi, the headphones were just circumstantial and she had an alibi.
She got one screw out before she realized the truth, before it crashed into her, solid and indisputable, stuck through the middle of her chest. She was in denial but the voice at the back of her mind knew, guided her out, slowly, slowly.
It was over.
Pip dropped everything and cried into her hands. But her alibi; the plan had worked, one last part of her protested. No, no. She couldn’t think like that any more, she couldn’t fight, she couldn’t see this through to the end. She could have, if it were just her, but she wasn’t the only one at risk here. Ravi, and Cara and Naomi, and Jamie and Connor and Nat. They’d helped her because she’d asked, because they loved her and she loved them.
And there it was. She loved them, a simple and powerful truth. Pip loved them all and she couldn’t let them fall when she did.
That was the promise.
And if this was it, the beginning of the end, there was only one way Pip knew to protect them all now. She had to make sure they were removed from the narrative before it was uncovered. She had to create a new one, a new story, a new plan.