Pip had lain there, eyes growing scratchy and dry as she stared up at the black ceiling. If she was being honest with herself, truly honest, she could hardly even call that a confession at all. Yes, the words had come out of Billy’s mouth. Yes, he’d said, I was the one who hurt those women, but the context changed everything. The lead-up and the aftermath. It stripped the meaning right out of those words.
Maria hadn’t been exaggerating, hadn’t been twisting the truth because she’d read the transcript through a mother’s eyes. She was right: the confession did seem coerced. The detective had trapped Billy into a corner by talking in circles, catching him in lies he never meant to tell. No one had seen Billy with Tara Yates the night before, that wasn’t true. And yet Billy had believed it of himself, believed a made-up person over his own memory. DCI Nolan had fed him everything, all the details of the murders. Billy didn’t even know how he’d killed his own victims before being told.
There was a chance it was all an act. A clever ploy by a manipulative killer. She’d tried to comfort herself with that thought. But that was overshadowed when placed beside the other possibility: that Billy Karras was an innocent man. Now she’d read his confession, it was no longer just possible, no longer a weak maybe. In her gut she could feel it tilting, abandoning maybe to reach for other words. Likely. Plausible.
And there must be something wrong with her, because part of her had felt relieved. No, that wasn’t the right word, it was more like… excited. Her skin prickling, the world shifting into half-speed around her. This was it, her other drug. A twisted and writhing knot for her to untie. But she couldn’t believe that part without accepting the other, the one that came with it, hand in hand.
Two halves of the same truth: if Billy Karras was innocent, then the DT Killer was still out there. Out here. He was back. And Pip had one week left before he made her disappear.
So, she would just have to find him first. Find whoever was doing this to her, whether it was the DT Killer or someone pretending to be.
The key was Green Scene Ltd, so that’s where she would begin. Had already begun. Last night as the clock on her dashboard ticked past 4 a.m. and on, Pip had scrolled through her old documents. Searching through files and folders until she found the document she needed. The one that had snuck up on her brain like an itch, reminding her of its existence, of its importance, as she’d tried to think through everything she knew about Jason Bell’s company.
Back into My documents and the folder labelled Schoolwork. Into Year 13, and the folder sat halfway between her A-Level subjects.
EPQ.
Pip clicked into it, revealing the rows and rows of Word documents and sound files she’d made one year ago. Jpgs and photos: the pages of Andie Bell’s academic planner spread open on her desk and an annotated map of Little Kilton Pip had drawn herself, following Andie’s last known movements. She’d scrolled down through all the Production Log documents until she found the one. The itch. Production Log – Entry 20 （Interview with Jess Walker）。
Yes, that was it. Pip had re-read it, her heart kicking up as she realized its relevance. How strange, that a throwaway detail back then could be so vital now. Almost like all of this had been inevitable, since the very beginning. A path Pip didn’t know she’d been following all along.
Next, she’d researched where Green Scene and Clean Scene Ltd were based: a yard and office complex in Knotty Green, a twenty-minute drive from Little Kilton. She’d even visited, through Street View on Google Maps while she sat on her bed, virtually driving up and down the road outside. The complex was off a small country road, surrounded by tall trees, captured here on some past cloudy day. She couldn’t see much from the road, apart from a couple of industriallooking buildings, parked cars and vans, all encased within a tall metal fence painted forest-green. There was a sign on the front gate with the colourful logos for both sister companies. Up and down she’d gone, haunting the pixelated place like a ghost out of time. She could stare at it all she wanted, but it wouldn’t give her the answers she needed. There was only one place she’d get those. Not in Knotty Green, but in Little Kilton.
Right here, in fact, as she glanced up and realized she’d almost arrived. And something else too. There was a woman walking towards her, a face she knew. Dawn Bell, Andie and Becca’s mum. She must have just left the house, an empty Sainsburys bag swinging from her arm. Her dark blonde hair was pulled back from her face and her hands were lost in the arms of her oversized jumper. She looked tired too. Maybe that’s just what this town did to people.