‘Look, I’ll show you how it works. Call me with 141 at the front to block your number.’
‘OK.’ She watched Ravi pull out his phone and tap away at the screen. It was sudden and unexpected, the feeling that stirred in her chest, watching him. A feeling that dawdled there, took its sweet time. A slow burn. It was just an unexpected nice thing, to know that he knew her number by heart. That some parts of her lived inside him too. Team Ravi and Pip.
He would look for her if she disappeared, wouldn’t he? He might even find her.
The feeling was interrupted by her phone buzzing in her hands. No Caller ID. She held it up to show Ravi.
‘So what I do is I press this button twice to decline the call,’ she said, demonstrating. Her phone returned to its lock screen, but only for half a second before it lit up with another call. And this time, Ravi’s phone number scrolled along the top. ‘See, it diverts it to CallTrapper, where the number is unmasked and then they redirect the call back to me. And the caller has no idea on their end,’ she said, pressing the red button.
‘Can’t believe you just hung up on me.’
She put down her phone. ‘See, I have technology on my side now.’
Her first victory in the game, but not one to linger over: she was already way behind.
‘OK, I’m not going to go as far as to say that that’s good,’ Ravi said. ‘Not referring to anything as good after reading Billy’s police interview and realizing that a serial killer the whole world thinks has been locked up for six years might actually be hanging around, threatening to brutally murder my girlfriend, but it’s something.’ He wandered over to her bed, sat down inelegantly on the duvet. ‘What I don’t get, really, is how this person has your phone number.’
‘Everyone has my phone number.’
‘I should hope not,’ he replied quickly, appalled.
‘No, I mean, from the posters.’ She couldn’t help but laugh at his face. ‘We put up missing posters for Jamie all over town with my phone number on them. Anyone in Kilton could have my phone number. Anyone.’
‘Oh right,’ he said, chewing his lip. ‘We weren’t thinking about future-stalkers-slash-serial-killers at the time, were we?’
‘Hadn’t crossed our minds.’
Ravi sighed, dropped his face into his cupped hands.
‘What?’ she asked him, swivelling in her chair.
‘Just, don’t you think you should go back to Hawkins? Show him that DT article with the pigeons, and Billy’s interview. This is too big for us.’
It was Pip’s turn to sigh now. ‘Ravi, I’m not going back there,’ she said. ‘I love you, and you are perfect in all of the ways you aren’t like me, and I would do anything to make you happy, but I can’t go back there.’ She slotted one hand through the other, tightened them into a knot of criss-crossing fingers. ‘Hawkins basically called me crazy to my face last time, told me I was imagining it all. What’s he going to do if I go back and tell him that, actually, my stalker – who he doesn’t think is real in the first place – is an infamous serial killer who has been in prison for six years, who both confessed and pleaded guilty, except he might not actually have done it. He’d probably put me in a straitjacket right then and there.’ She paused. ‘They won’t believe me. They never believe me.’
Ravi peeled his fingers away, uncovered his face to look at her. ‘You know, I’ve always thought you were the bravest person I’ve ever met. Fearless. I don’t know how you do it sometimes. And whenever I’m feeling nervous about anything, I always think to myself, what would Pip do in this situation? But,’ he exhaled, ‘I don’t know if this is the time to be brave, to do what Pip would do. The risk is too high. I think… I think, maybe, you’re being reckless and…’ He trailed off into a wordless shrug.
‘OK, look,’ she said, opening up her hands. ‘At the moment, the only evidence we have is a bad feeling. When I get a name, some concrete evidence, a phone number even,’ she said, picking up her phone to wave it at him, ‘then I will go back to Hawkins, I promise. And if he doesn’t believe me, then I’ll go public with the information. I don’t care about any more lawsuits. I’ll put it out all over social media, on the podcast, and then they will listen. No one’s going to try to hurt me if I’ve told hundreds of thousands of people who they are and what they’re planning to do. That’s our defence.’