They were about to pass each other. Pip smiled and dipped her head, not knowing whether to say hello or not, or to tell her she was just about to knock on her door to speak to her husband. Dawn’s mouth flickered, as did her eyes, but she didn’t stop, looking instead at the sky while she slid her fingers beneath the gold chain of her necklace, fiddling the round pendant back and forth so it caught the morning light. They passed each other and carried on. Pip checked over her shoulder as she went, and so did Dawn, their eyes meeting for one awkward moment.
But the moment went out of her head as she reached her destination, staring up at the house, her eyes following the crooked roofline to each of its three chimneys. Old, stippled bricks overwhelmed by shivering ivy, and a chrome wind chime mounted beside the front door.
The Bells’ house.
Pip held her breath as she crossed the road towards the house, glancing at the green SUV parked on the drive, beside a smaller red car. Good, Jason must be here then, not already on his way to work. There was a strange feeling at the base of her spine, uncanny and otherworldly, like she wasn’t really here, but in the body of herself from one year ago. Displaced, out of her own time, as everything came back full circle. Here, at the Bell house once more, because there was only one person who had the answers she needed.
She wrapped her knuckles against the glass on the front door.
A shape emerged in the frosted glass, a blurred head, as a chain scraped beside the front door and it was pulled open. Jason Bell stood in the threshold, buttoning up the top of his shirt, smoothing down its creases.
‘Hi, Jason,’ Pip said brightly, her smile feeling tight and rubbery. ‘Sorry to disturb your morning. H-how are you?’
Jason blinked at her, registering who it was standing on his doorstep.
‘What, er, what do you want?’ he asked, dropping his gaze to do up the buttons on his cuffs too, leaning against the door frame.
‘I know you’re heading off to work,’ Pip said, her voice jolting nervously. She fiddled her hands together, but that was a bad idea because they were sweating, and now she had to look down to check it wasn’t blood. ‘I, um, well, I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions. About your company, Green Scene.’
Jason ran his tongue over his teeth; Pip could see the bulge of it through the skin of his top lip. ‘What about it?’ he said, eyes narrowing now.
‘About a couple of your ex-employees.’ She swallowed. ‘One of those being Billy Karras.’
Jason looked taken aback, his neck receding into his shirt. His mouth formed around his next words before he finally spoke them. ‘You mean the DT Killer?’ he said. ‘Is that your next thing, is it? Your next cry for attention.’
‘Something like that,’ she said with a fake smile.
‘I obviously have no comment on Billy Karras,’ Jason said, something stirring at the corners of his mouth. ‘I’ve done everything I can to try and distance the company from the things he did.’
‘But they are intrinsically connected,’ Pip countered. ‘The official narrative is that Billy got the duct tape and the blue rope from work.’
‘Listen to me,’ Jason said, raising his hand, but Pip spoke over him before he could derail the conversation. She needed answers, whether he liked it or not.
‘Last year, I spoke to one of Becca’s friends from high school, Jess Walker, and she told me that on the 20th of April 2012 – the night Andie went missing – you and Dawn were at a dinner party. But you had to leave at some point because the security alarm was going off at Green Scene; you had an alert on your phone, I assume.’
Jason stared blankly at her.
‘That was the very same night the DT Killer murdered his fifth and final victim, Tara Yates.’ Pip didn’t stop to breathe. ‘So, I was wondering whether that was it: DT breaking into your offices to take the supplies and accidentally setting off the burglar alarm. Did you ever find out who it was? Did you see anyone there when you went to check it out and turn off the alarm? Do you have CCTV cameras?’
‘I didn’t see…’ Jason trailed off. He glanced up at the sky behind her for a moment, and when he looked back at her, his face had changed – angry lines arranging themselves around his eyes. He shook his head. ‘Listen to me,’ he spat. ‘That is enough. Enough. I don’t know who you think you are, but this is unacceptable. You need to learn… Don’t you think you’ve interfered enough in people’s lives, in our lives?’ he said, slapping one hand into his chest, wrinkling his shirt. ‘Both of my daughters are gone now. Reporters are back, lurking around my house, trying to get quotes for their stories. My second wife left me. I’m back in this town, in this house. You’ve done enough. More than enough, believe me.’