Pip:
Right.
DCI Nolan:
I know, it doesn’t make much sense to you or me, to normal people. But it’s one of the things we were already on the lookout for in this investigation. It’s quite funny actually [laughs] but this was already on our mind because we had an officer, a Thames Valley police officer, who kept asking lots and lots of questions about the case. He wasn’t involved in the investigation, he was a newly trained officer as I remember, and he was based at a different station, not at Wycombe, but he was showing a little too much interest in what had happened and what we were doing, if you know what I mean. He was new and just very curious I’m sure, but it certainly raised a couple of red flags. Before Billy came along that is. That’s why we were sort of primed and ready for some kind of insertion from the perpetrator.
Pip:
Oh really? Where was this officer based?
DCI Nolan:
I think it must have been Amersham station. The DT Killer case was with us in Wycombe as we were sort of in the middle of the dump sites and where the women were from. But, obviously, Julia Hunter was from Amersham, so we worked with the guys over there a bit. One of my old colleagues who I think you know, DI Hawkins. Good man. But, yeah, that’s an amusing little anecdote for your show there. A keen newbie police officer and we thought the worst. [Laughs.]
Pip:
This officer… was his name Daniel Da Silva?
DCI Nolan:
[Coughs.] Well, of course, I can’t tell you the officer’s name. And you wouldn’t be able to air it on your show anyway, data protection and all that. How many more questions do you have? I’m afraid I might have to go soo—
Pip:
But it was Daniel da Silva, right?
No head. The dead pigeon in her hands has no head. But it’s too spongy, giving way, her fingers indenting in its sides. That’s because it’s the duvet twisted up in her fist, not a dead bird, and Pip was awake now. In bed.
She’d fallen asleep. She’d actually fallen asleep. It was dead-of-night dark and she’d been asleep.
Why was she awake now, then? She woke up like this all the time, sleep so shallow that she dipped in and out. But this felt different. Something had pulled her out.
A noise.
It was there now.
What was that?
Pip sat up, duvet falling to her waist.
A hissing sound, but a gentle one.
She rubbed her eyes.
A sputt-sputt-sputt, like a slow-moving train, nudging her back to sleep.
No, not a train.
Pip blinked again, the room taking shape with a ghostly glow. She got out of bed, the air stinging her bare feet.
The hiss was coming from over there, by her desk.
Pip stopped, focused her gaze.
It was her printer.
Something was coming out of the wireless printer on her desk, LEDs blinking from its panel.
Sputt-sputt-sputt.
A piece of paper emerged from the bottom, fresh black ink printed upon it.
But…
That was impossible. She hadn’t sent anything to print today.
Her sleep-fogged head could not follow. Was she still dreaming?
No, the pigeon was the dream. This was real.
The printer finished, spitting out the piece of paper with a final clunk.
Pip hesitated.
Something pushed her forward. A ghost at her back. Maybe Andie Bell.
She walked over to the printer and reached out, like she was taking someone’s hand. Or someone taking hers.
The page was printed upside down; she couldn’t read it from here.
Her fingers closed around it, and the page fluttered in her grip like the wings of a headless pigeon.
She turned it around, the words righting themselves.
And part of her knew before she read them. Part of her knew.
Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears?
PS. I learned this trick from you, season 1 episode 5. Ready for my next trick?
The page was covered in Stanley’s not-there blood, leaking from Pip’s not-there hands. No, the hands were there. But her heart had gone, throwing itself down the ladder of her spine, curdling in the acid of her gut.
Nononononononononononono.
How?
Pip swung around, her eyes wild, her breath wilder, taking in every shadow. Each one was DT before it was not. She was alone. He wasn’t here. But how…
Her frantic gaze landed back on the printer. Wireless printer. Anyone within range could send something through.
Which meant he had to be close by.
DT.
He was here.
Outside or inside the house?
Pip checked the screwed-up page in her hand. Ready for my next trick? What did he mean by that? What was the trick – make her disappear?