Warm. Hot. Hotter. So hot that it hurt to step inside under the stream. But it needed to be hot, to feel like it was scouring away the top layer of her skin. How else would she ever feel clean of DT? She scrubbed at herself with shower gel, watching as the pinky blood-dyed water ran off her legs, between her toes and down the drain. She scrubbed and scrubbed again, finishing off the half-full shower gel, cleaning under her fingernails too. She washed her hair, three separate times, the strands feeling thinner, more brittle now. Shampoo stinging the graze on her cheekbone.
When she finally felt clean enough, Pip stepped out into a towel, leaving the water running for a while longer, to wash away any residue of blood on the shower tray. She’d clean that later too.
With the towel tucked under her armpits, she grabbed the flip-lid bathroom bin nestled beside the toilet and pulled out the plastic bucket liner from inside. There were just two empty toilet rolls in it, and Pip removed these, stacking them on the windowsill instead. In the cabinet under the sink she found the toilet bleach, unscrewed the lid and poured some into the plastic bucket. More. All of it. She straightened up and filled the bucket halfway with warm water from the tap, diluting the bleach, the smell strong and noxious.
She’d have to make two journeys to her bedroom, but her family were all downstairs, it should be clear. Pip hoisted up the bucket, heavy now, holding it with one arm against her chest as she unlocked the bathroom door. She staggered out, across the landing, and into her bedroom, placing the bucket down in the middle, water sloshing dangerously close to the upper rim.
More eerie sounds of a TV audience applauding her as Pip returned to the bathroom, grabbing the pile of bloodied clothes and her rucksack.
‘Pip?’ came her mum’s voice from the stairs.
Fuck.
‘Just showered! I’ll be down in a minute!’ Pip called back, hurrying into her room and closing the door behind her.
She dropped the pile of clothes beside the bucket, and then, on her knees, she turned to the discarded pile, and gently, one by one, lowered them into the bleach mixture, stuffing them down. Her trainers too, bobbing half in at the top.
From her rucksack, she added the lengths of duct tape that had bound her face and her hands and her ankles, pushing them down into the diluted bleach. She pulled out Jason’s burner phone, sliding the back off to remove the SIM card. She snapped the little card in half and dropped the disassembled phone into the water. Then the underwear she’d used to wipe the blood from her face, and the spare T-shirt she’d sat on. Finally, the branded Green Scene gloves she and Ravi had used – perhaps most incriminating – she pushed them right to the bottom. The bleach would deal with the visible bloodstains, and probably the dye of the fabrics too, but it was just a precaution: everything in here would be gone forever by this time tomorrow. Another job for later.
For now, Pip dragged the bucket across the carpet and hid it inside her wardrobe, poking her trainers back in. The smell of bleach was strong, but no one would be coming into her bedroom.
Pip dried herself and dressed, in a black hoodie and black leggings, and then turned to the mirror to deal with her face. Her hair hung down in feeble, wet strands, her scalp too sore to run a brush through. She could see a small bald patch on the crown of her head, where she’d ripped out her hair with the tape. She’d have to cover it. Pip dragged her fingers through and secured her hair into a high ponytail, tight and uncomfortable. She layered two more hair ties on her wrist, for later, when she and Ravi returned to Green Scene. Her face still looked raw and blotchy, and then slightly sickly as she piled foundation over to cover it. Concealer on the worst parts. She looked pale and the texture of her skin looked rough, peeling in places, but it would do.
She emptied out her rucksack to repack it, ticking off items from the mental list she and Ravi had assembled, seared into her brain like a mantra. Two beanie hats, five pairs of socks. Three of the burner phones from her desk drawer, turning them all on. The small pile of cash she kept in that secret compartment too, taking it all, just in case. In the pocket of her smartest jacket, hanging in her wardrobe over the bucket of bleach, she found the embossed card she hadn’t touched since that mediation meeting, and placed it carefully in the front pocket of her bag. Darting quietly into her mum and dad’s en suite, she grabbed a handful of the latex gloves her mum used to dye her hair, at least three pairs each. She repacked her purse on top of everything, checking her debit card was inside; she would need it for her alibi. And her car keys.
That was it, everything from upstairs. She ran it through again, double-checking she had everything needed for the plan. There were a few more items to get from downstairs, somehow avoiding the watchful gaze of her family, and a younger brother who made everyone’s business his own.