Pip could tell Daniel. She could warn him about the information that might come out about Jason soon, his links to the DT Killer. But she looked at the sad smile on his face, the red skin by his eyes, and she couldn’t, she didn’t want to be the one to take that away from him. She’d taken enough.
‘Yeah,’ Daniel said absently, watching the entrance as someone walked through it, the doors hissing against their frames.
It was DI Hawkins. ‘Daniel,’ he said, ‘could you…？’ He gestured back towards the station with his thumb.
‘Yes sir,’ Daniel said, with a quick shake of his head, picking up his feet and disappearing inside through the automatic doors.
Hawkins walked over to her.
‘You OK?’ he asked again. ‘Do I need to call in any medical assistance? Your head…？’ He narrowed his eyes at her.
‘No, it’s fine. I’m fine,’ she insisted.
‘I’m sorry,’ he coughed awkwardly. ‘That was my fault. He wasn’t resisting before then. I didn’t expect him to… I should have been paying attention. My fault.’
‘That’s OK.’ Pip gave him a tense closed-mouth smile. ‘No worries.’
The silence between them was thick and teeming.
‘What are you doing here?’ Hawkins asked her.
‘Oh, I came to talk to you about something.’
‘Right?’ He looked at her.
‘I know you’re busy, clearly.’ She glanced at the doors into the station. ‘But I think we should talk inside. I have some things I need to show you, something I’ve found in my research. It’s important, I think.’
Hawkins’ eyes alighted on hers. Pip stared back, she wouldn’t be the one to break it.
‘Yeah, sure, OK,’ he said, looking quickly behind him. ‘Can you give me ten minutes?’
‘Yes, that’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait out here.’
Hawkins bowed his head as he turned away from her.
‘So, he did it, then?’ Pip directed the question to the back of Hawkins’ head. ‘Max killed Jason Bell?’
He halted, turned back around, his polished black shoes hissing against the concrete.
A small movement of his head, not quite a nod. ‘The evidence is overwhelming,’ he said. His eyes flicked back to hers, circling, like he was studying her for a reaction. She didn’t give him one, her face stayed the same. What was he expecting her to do: smile? Remind him that she had been right from the start, ahead of him once again?
‘That’s good, then,’ she said. ‘The evidence, I mean. No doubt…’
‘There’ll be a press conference, later today,’ he said.
‘OK.’
Hawkins sniffed. ‘I need to…’ He took one step back towards the automatic doors, tripping the sensors.
‘Sure, I’ll just wait here,’ she said.
Hawkins took another step, then paused, shaking his head with a tiny outward laugh.
‘I suppose if you were ever involved in anything like this,’ he said, the after-laugh smile still on his face, ‘you’d know exactly how to get away with it.’
He watched her and something fell, down into Pip’s stomach, but it kept going, further and further, dragging her down with it. Hairs standing up across the back of her neck.
A flicker of a smile on her face, to match his. ‘Well,’ she said with a shrug, ‘I have listened to a lot of true crime podcasts.’
‘Right,’ Hawkins laughed quickly, looking down at his shoes again. ‘Right.’ A nod. ‘I’ll come find you when I’m done.’
He walked back inside the station and Pip watched him go, and was that the hiss of the closing doors or was the sound coming from inside her own head?
His voice was all Pip heard, for the second night in a row, staring up at the dark shadows on her ceiling, moulding them into shapes with her mind while Hawkins spoke. Eyes wide open, so they couldn’t be taped shut. The gun firing in her heart.
I suppose if you were ever involved in anything like this, you’d know exactly how to get away with it.
In her head, Pip lifted and dipped the words, just as he had, laid the same pressure on the same syllables.
Hawkins hadn’t brought it up again, when he and Pip sat in Interview Room 1 and she showed him her research into Jason, handed over the photos and the log-in details for Andie’s email account. He told her, indirectly, that they had already found this connection to the DT Killer and it was being looked into, but that her information was helpful, thank you. He’d shaken her hand before seeing her out. Had his hand lingered over hers just a little too long, though? Like he was trying to feel for something?