A Good Girl's Guide to Murder(72)

‘Sal died because of your small lie.’ Pip’s stomach twisted with a rage quieted with sadness.

‘We don’t know that,’ Max said. ‘Sal might still have been involved in what happened to Andie.’

‘He didn’t have time to be,’ said Pip.

‘What are you going to do with the photo?’ he said quietly.

Pip looked over at Naomi, her red puffy face etched with pain. Cara was holding her hand, staring at Pip, tears trickling down her cheeks.

‘Max,’ Pip said. ‘Did you kill Andie?’

‘What?’ He stood up, scraping the messy hair out of his face. ‘No, I was at my house the whole night.’

‘You could have left when Naomi and Millie went to bed.’

‘Well, I didn’t, OK?’

‘Do you know what happened to Andie?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Pip,’ Cara spoke up now. ‘Please don’t go to the police with that photo. Please. I can’t have my sister taken away as well as Mum.’ Her bottom lip trembled and she scrunched her face, trying to hold back the sobs. Naomi wrapped her arms round her.

Pip’s throat ached with a helpless, hollow feeling, watching them both in so much pain. What should she do? What could she do? She didn’t know whether the police would take this photo seriously anyway. But if they did, Cara would be left all alone and it would be Pip’s fault. She couldn’t do that to her. But what about Ravi? Sal was innocent and there was no question of her abandoning him now. There was only one way through this, she realized.

‘I won’t go to the police,’ she said.

Max heaved a sigh and Pip eyed him, disgusted, as he tried to hide a faint smile crossing his mouth.

‘Not for you, Max,’ she said. ‘For Naomi. And everything your mistakes have done to her. I doubt the guilt has played much on your mind, but I hope you pay in some way.’

‘They’re my mistakes too,’ Naomi said quietly. ‘I did this too.’

Cara walked over to Pip and hugged her from the side, tears soaking into her jumper.

Max left then, without another word. He packed up his laptop and notes, swung his bag on his shoulder and took off towards the front door.

The kitchen was silent as Cara went to splash her face in the sink and filled up a glass of water for her sister. Naomi was the first to break the silence.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

‘I know,’ Pip said. ‘I know you are. I won’t go to the police with the photo. It would be far easier, but I don’t need Sal’s alibi to prove his innocence. I’ll find another way.’

‘What do you mean?’ Naomi sniffed.

‘You’re asking me to cover for you and what you did. And I will. But I will not cover up the truth about Sal.’ She swallowed and it grated all the way down her tight and scratchy throat. ‘I’m going to find who really did all this, the person who killed Andie and Sal. That’s the only way to clear Sal’s name and protect you at the same time.’

Naomi hugged her, burying her tear-stained face in Pip’s shoulder. ‘Please do,’ she said quietly. ‘He’s innocent and it’s killed me every day since.’

She stroked Naomi’s hair and looked over at Cara, her best friend, her sister. Pip’s shoulders slumped as a weight settled there. The world felt heavier than it had ever been before.





Pippa Fitz-Amobi EPQ 16/10/2017





Production Log – Entry 31


He’s innocent.

All day at school those two words have ticker-taped around my head. This project is no longer the hopeful conjecture it started life as. It’s no longer me indulging my gut instinct because Sal was kind to me when I was small and hurting. It’s no longer Ravi hoping against hope that he really knew the brother he loved. It’s real, no shred of maybe/possibly/allegedly left. Sal Singh did not kill Andie Bell. And he did not kill himself.

An innocent life was taken and everyone in this town turned it ugly in their mouths, turned him into a villain. But if a villain can be made, then they can be unmade. Two teenagers were murdered in Little Kilton five and a half years ago. And we hold the clues to finding the killer: me and Ravi and this ever-expanding Word document.

I went to meet Ravi after school – I’ve only just got home. We went to the park and talked for over three hours, well into darkness. He was angry when I told him why Sal’s alibi had been taken away. A quiet kind of angry. He said it wasn’t fair that Naomi and Max Hastings got to walk away from everything without punishment when Sal, who never hurt anyone, was killed and framed as a murderer. Of course it’s not fair; nothing about any of this is fair. But Naomi never meant to hurt Sal, it’s clear from her face, clear from the way she’s tiptoed through life since. She acted out of fear and I can understand that. Ravi does too, though he’s not sure he can forgive her.

His face fell when I said I didn’t know whether the photo was enough for the police to reopen the case; I’d bluffed to get Max and Naomi to talk. The police might think I doctored the image and refuse to apply for a warrant to check Max’s profile. He’s deleted the photo already, of course. Ravi thinks I’d have more credibility with the police than him, but I’m not so sure; a teenage girl rabbiting on about photo angles and tiny white numbers on a phone screen, especially when the evidence against Sal is so solid. Not to mention Daniel da Silva on the force, shutting me down.