The Xanax hadn’t kicked in yet though; her heart was still hummingbird fast in her chest, no matter what bargain she tried to make with it. She could go for a run. She should go for a run. It might help her think, help her work out what Andie’s connection to Harriet Hunter and DT was.
She wandered over to her bed and the window behind it, glancing through the glass at the afternoon sky beyond. It was a slow, churning grey, and there were spots on the driveway from another bout of rain. Never mind, she liked running in the rain. And there were worse things someone could find on their driveway, like five headless stick figures, coming for her. There’d been no more; Pip checked every time she left home.
But there was something else out there now, a flash of movement pulling at Pip’s gaze. A person, jogging on the pavement past their house, past their driveway. It was only three seconds before they were gone, out of sight again, but three seconds were all Pip needed to know exactly who it was. Blue water bottle gripped in one hand. Blonde hair pushed back from his angular face. One quick glance over his shoulder at her house. He knew. He knew this was where she lived.
Pip saw red again, an eruption of violence behind her eyes as her mind showed her all the ways she might kill Max Hastings. None of them were bad enough; he deserved much worse. She cycled through them all, her thoughts chasing him down the road, until a sound brought her back to the room.
Her phone, vibrating against the desk.
She stared at it.
Fuck.
Was it No Caller ID? DT? Was this it, the moment she found out who was doing this to her? The CallTrapper app ready and waiting to go, to turn the disembodied breath into a real person, into a name. She didn’t need to learn what Andie Bell’s connection to all this was; the final answer would be in front of her.
Quick. She’d hesitated too long already, darting across the room to pick up the phone.
No, it wasn’t No Caller ID. There was a sequence of numbers scrolling above the incoming call: a mobile number she didn’t recognize.
‘Hello?’ she said, holding the phone too tight against her ear.
‘Hello,’ said a deep, crackling voice down the line. ‘Hi, Pip. It’s me, Detective Inspector Richard Hawkins.’
Pip’s chest loosened around her too-fast heart. Not DT.
‘O-oh,’ she said, recovering, ‘DI Hawkins.’
‘You were expecting someone else,’ he said with a sniff.
‘I was.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to disturb you.’ Now a cough. Another sniff. ‘It’s just that, well, I have some news, and I thought it best to call you right away. I know you’d want to know.’
News? About the stalker he didn’t believe in? Had they made the connection to DT at their end too? She felt a new lightness then, starting from her gut and working up, bare heels lifting from the carpet. He believed her, he believed her, he believed – ‘It’s about Charlie Green,’ he said, filling the silence.
Oh. She sank again.
‘Wh-what…’ Pip began.
‘We’ve got him,’ Hawkins said. ‘He was just arrested. He had managed to make it to France. Interpol have him now. But we’ve got him. He’ll be extradited back and officially charged tomorrow.’
She was still sinking. How was she still sinking? There was only so deep she could go, until she fell right through the ground into nothing.
‘I-I,’ she stuttered. Sinking. Shrinking. Watching her feet so they couldn’t disappear down through the carpet.
‘You don’t have to worry any more. We’ve got him,’ Hawkins said again, his voice softening. ‘Are you OK?’
No, she wasn’t. She didn’t understand what he wanted from her. Did he want her to thank him? No, this wasn’t what she wanted. Charlie didn’t belong in a cage; how could he help her from a cage, tell her what was right and wrong, what to do to fix it all? Why would she want this? Should she want this? Was that how a normal person would be feeling right now instead of this black hole inside and her bones caving in around it?
‘Pip? There’s nothing to be scared of any more. He can’t get to you.’
She wanted to scream at him, tell him that Charlie Green was never a danger to her, but Hawkins wouldn’t believe her. He never believed her. But maybe it wouldn’t matter, maybe there was still a way here to fix herself, to safely step off this spiral before it reached its end. Because that was where this was all heading, she could feel it, and yet she couldn’t stop herself. But maybe Charlie could.