A Good Girl's Guide to Murder(104)

The black cat came in then, strutting over with its tail up, rubbing its head into Pip’s ankles until Becca shooed it away.

‘How are your parents doing?’ Pip asked.

‘Not great,’ Becca said. ‘After we confirmed she wasn’t Andie, my mum booked herself into rehab for emotional trauma. And my dad wants to sue everyone.’

‘Do they know who the girl is yet?’ Pip said into the rim of her mug.

‘Yeah, they called my dad this morning. She was on the missing persons register: Isla Jordan, twenty-three, from Milton Keynes. They said she has a learning disability and the mental age of a twelve-year-old. She came from an abusive home and had a history of running away and possession of drugs.’ Becca fiddled with her short hair. ‘They said she’s very confused; she lived like that for so long – being Andie because it’s what pleased Mr Ward – that she actually believes she’s a girl called Andie Bell from Little Kilton.’

Pip took a large gulp, filling the silence while the words in her head shivered and readjusted. Her mouth felt dry and there was an awful tremor in her throat, echoing back her doubled heartbeat. She raised the mug and finished off the tea.

‘She did look like her,’ Pip finally said. ‘I thought she was Andie for a few seconds. And I saw in your parents’ faces that hope that maybe it would be Andie after all. That me and the police could be wrong. But you already knew, didn’t you?’

Becca put her own mug down and stared at her.

‘Your face wasn’t like theirs, Becca. You looked confused. You looked scared. You knew for sure it couldn’t be your sister. Because you killed her, didn’t you?’

Becca didn’t move. The cat jumped up on the table beside her and she didn’t move.

‘In March 2012,’ Pip said, ‘you went to a calamity party with your friend, Jess Walker. And while you were there, something happened to you. You don’t remember but you woke up and you knew something felt wrong. You asked Jess to go and get the morning-after pill with you and when she asked who you’d slept with, you didn’t tell her. It wasn’t, as Jess presumed, because you were embarrassed, it’s because you didn’t know. You didn’t know what happened or with who. You had anterograde amnesia because someone had slipped Rohypnol into your drink and then assaulted you.’

Becca just sat there, inhumanly still, like a small fleshed-out mannequin too scared to move in case she ruffled the dark side of her sister’s shadow. And then she started to cry. Tears like silent minnows chased down her cheeks, the muscles twitching in her chin. Something hurt inside Pip, something congealed and cold that closed round her heart as she looked into Becca’s eyes and saw the truth in them. Because the truth was no victory here; it was just sadness, deep and decaying.

‘I can’t imagine how horrible and lonely it was for you,’ Pip said, feeling unsteady. ‘Not being able to remember but just knowing that something bad had happened. You must have felt like no one could help you. You did nothing wrong and you had nothing to be ashamed of. But I don’t think you felt that way at first and you ended up in hospital. And then what happened? Did you decide to find out what had happened to you? Who was responsible?’

Becca’s nod was almost imperceptible.

‘I think you realized someone had drugged you, so is that where you started looking? Started asking around about who bought drugs at calamities and who from. And the questions led you back to your own sister. Becca, what happened on Friday the twentieth of April? What happened when Andie walked back from Mr Ward’s house?’

‘All I’d found out was someone bought weed and MDMA off her once,’ Becca said, looking down and catching her tears. ‘So when she went out and left me alone I looked in her room. I found the place where she hid her other phone and the drugs. I looked through the phone: all the contacts were saved with just one letter names, but I read through some messages and I found the person who bought Rohypnol from her. She’d used his name in one of the texts.’

‘Max Hastings,’ said Pip.

‘And I thought,’ she cried, ‘I thought that now I knew, we would be able to fix everything and put it right. And I thought that when Andie got home, I’d tell her and she’d let me cry on her and tell me she was so sorry and that we, me and her, were going to set this right and make him pay. All I wanted was my big sister. And just the freedom of finally telling someone.’

Pip wiped her eyes, feeling shaky and drained.

‘And then Andie came home,’ Becca said.

‘With a head injury?’

‘No, I didn’t know that at the time,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see anything. She was just here, in the kitchen and I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to tell her. And –’ Becca’s voice broke – ‘when I did she just looked at me and said she didn’t care. I tried to explain and she wouldn’t listen. She just said I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone or I’d get her in trouble. She tried to leave the room and I stood in her way. Then she said I should be grateful that someone had actually wanted me, because I was just the fat, ugly version of her. And she tried to push me out of the way. I just couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe she could be so cruel. I pushed her back and tried to explain again and we were both shouting and shoving and then . . . it was so fast.