The police had searched Jason’s house; if they’d found and collected Pip’s headphones, maybe they’d found the trophies from the other victims. Andie’s purple hairbrush, the necklace Dawn wore, Bethany Ingham’s Casio watch, Tara Yates’ keyrings.
And if they hadn’t yet found the trophies, Pip could lead Hawkins to them, she just had to show him this photo, really.
Not only that, she had Andie’s secret email account and that unsent draft. That email – Andie’s words that weren’t her last but felt like it – would be the nail in Jason Bell’s coffin. Lead the police to Andie’s connection with HH too. Pip would need to change the password on the account to something less conspicuous than her temporary DTKiller6. She did that now, swapping it out for TeamAndieAndBecca; she thought Andie would like that best.
The police might have a fingerprint, but Pip could give them everything else, shore up the case against Jason Bell to beyond reasonable doubt. So when Billy’s conviction was overturned, they didn’t take it to a retrial with this new exculpatory evidence but dismissed the charges outright. Let Billy finally go home; Pip owed him that much.
And if everyone knew who Jason Bell really was, Pip would no longer have to listen to people say how fucking awful it was that someone killed him.
Pip practised in the mirror, her voice dry and unused all day. ‘Hi, DI Hawkins, sorry, I know you must be extraordinarily busy. It’s just… well, as you know, I’ve been looking into Jason Bell’s background as part of my research into who might have killed him. Looking into his company, personal relationships, etc. And, I don’t know…’ She paused, an apologetic look on her face, teeth gritted. ‘I’ve found some troubling connections to another case. I didn’t want to bother you with them, but I really think you should take a look.’
The duct tape and rope taken from Green Scene Ltd, and the company’s connection with the dump sites. The recording of her old interview with Jess Walker about a security alarm set off on the premises on the same night Tara Yates and Andie died. The username for Andie’s secret second email address, and the just-reset password. A photo of the school planner on Andie’s desk, the purple paddle hairbrush beside it. And this family photo, with the necklace and the earrings.
‘Becca’s still wearing them. I know because I’ve been visiting her. Maybe it’s just me, but don’t these look exactly like the earrings the DT Killer took from Julia Hunter as a trophy?’
The voice in her head that sounded like Ravi told her not to. The real one would probably agree; that she should try not to bring any more attention to herself. But Pip had to do this, for Billy, for his mum, and so that the other Pip in that other life – the one who made the other choice – wasn’t right.
Pip collected everything she needed to free a man, and she left.
That same journey again, to the police station in Amersham, but this time Pip completed it. And there was no black hole in her chest any more, only determination; only rage and fear and determination. Her final chance to set everything right. Save Billy, take on Hawkins, take down Jason Bell and Max Hastings, save Ravi, save herself, live a normal life. The end was the beginning and both were running out.
She pulled up into an empty space in the car park, checked her eyes in the rear-view mirror and opened the door.
Pip shouldered her rucksack with everything inside, and slammed the door, the sound clapping through the quiet Thursday afternoon.
But it wasn’t quiet, not any more as Pip walked up to the bricked building and the bad, bad place. A rush of tyres on concrete behind her, lots of them, peeling to a stop.
Pip stopped short of the automatic doors, looked over her shoulder.
Three cars had just pulled up outside the entrance. A yellow and blue squad car in front, followed by an unmarked SUV and another squad car at the rear.
Two uniformed officers that Pip didn’t know climbed out of the first vehicle, one speaking into the radio clipped to his shoulder. The doors of the squad car at the back opened, and out stepped officers Daniel da Silva and Soraya Bouzidi. Daniel’s mouth tensed in a grim line as he caught Pip’s eye.
The driver’s side door of the unmarked black car opened, and DI Hawkins emerged, his green padded jacket zipped up to his neck. He didn’t notice Pip standing right there, twenty feet from him, as he stepped to the back door of his car, opened it and leaned in.
Pip saw his legs first, then his feet swinging out on to the concrete, then his hands, cuffed in front of him as Hawkins pulled him out of the car.