A Good Girl's Guide to Murder(80)

Her mum had been right; it was a little too late to be going out on a walk. The woods were darkening already, the sky a churned grey peeking through the gaps between the autumn-speckled trees. It was quarter to six already and her weather app told her that sunset was in two minutes. She wouldn’t stay out long; she just needed a quick jaunt to get her away from her workstation. She needed air. Needed space.

All day she had flitted between studying for her exam next week and staring hard at the names in her suspect list. She would stare for so long that her gaze went cross-eyed, drawing imaginary and thorny lines that budded from the letter-tips of one name to wrap round the others until the list was just a chaotic mess of swaddled names and tangled bonds.

She didn’t know what to do. Perhaps try to talk to Daniel da Silva’s wife; there certainly was palpable friction between the couple. And why, what possible secrets had caused it? Or should she focus back on the burner phone, consider breaking into the homes of those suspects that knew about the phone and searching for it there?

No.

She had come on this walk to forget Andie Bell and to clear her head. She reached into her pocket and unwound her headphones. Tucking them into her ears, she pressed play on her phone, resuming the true crime podcast episode she was on. She had to turn the volume right up, struggling to hear the episode over the crunch of her wellies on the path of fallen leaves.

Listening to the voice in her ears, to the story of another murdered girl, Pip tried to forget her own.

She took the short circuit through the woods, her eyes on the shadows from scraggy branches above, shadows that grew lighter as the world around was growing darker. When the twilight took a turn towards darkness Pip walked off the path, dipping into the trees to get to the road faster. She called Barney when the gate to the road was visible, thirty feet in front of her.

When she reached it she paused her podcast and spooled the headphones back round her phone.

‘Barney, come on,’ she called, slipping it into her pocket.

A car flew by on the road, the full beam of its headlights blinding Pip when she looked into them.

‘Doggo!’ she called, louder and higher this time. ‘Barney, come!’

The trees were dark and still.

Pip wet her lips and whistled.

‘Barney! Here, Barney!’

No sound of paws trampling through the fallen leaves. No golden flash among the trees. Nothing.

Cold fear began to creep up her toes and down her fingers.

‘Bar-ney!’ she shouted and her voice cracked.

She ran back the way she’d come. Back into the dark engulfing trees.

‘Barney,’ she screamed, crashing along the path, the dog lead swinging in wide empty arcs from her hand.





Thirty-Four



‘Mum, Dad!’ She shoved open the front door, tripping on the doormat and falling to her knees. The tears stung, pooling at the crack between her lips. ‘Dad!’

Victor appeared at the kitchen door.

‘Pickle?’ he said. And then he saw her. ‘Pippa, what is it? What happened?’

He hurried forward as she picked herself up from the floor.

‘Barney’s gone,’ she said. ‘He didn’t come when I called. I went around the whole woods, calling him. He’s gone. I don’t know what to do. I’ve lost him, Dad.’

Her mum and Josh were in the hallway now too, watching her silently.

Victor squeezed her arm. ‘It’s OK, pickle,’ he said in his bright and warm voice. ‘We’ll find him; don’t you worry.’

Her dad grabbed his thick padded coat from the understairs cupboard and two torches. He made Pip put on a pair of gloves before he handed one of them to her.

The night was dark and heavy by the time they were back in the woods. Pip walked her dad round the path she’d taken. The two white torch beams cut through the darkness.

‘Barney!’ her dad called in his booming voice, thrown forward and sideways as echoes through the trees.

It was two hours later and two hours colder that Victor said it was time to go home.

‘We can’t go home until we find him!’ she sniffed.

‘Listen.’ He turned to her, the torch lighting them from below. ‘It’s too dark now. We will find him in the morning. He’s wandered off somewhere and he’ll be OK for one night.’

Pip went straight up to bed after their late and silent dinner. Her parents both came up to her room and sat on her bedspread. Her mum stroked her hair as she tried not to cry.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault, sweetie,’ Leanne said. ‘Don’t worry. He’ll find his way home. Now try to get some sleep.’

She didn’t. Not much at least. One thought crept into her head and burrowed there: what if this really was her fault? What if this was because she’d ignored her final warning? What if Barney wasn’t just lost, what if he’d been taken? Why had she not been paying attention?

They sat in the kitchen, eating an early breakfast none of them were hungry for. Victor, who looked like he hadn’t slept much either, had already called in to work to take the day off. He listed their plan of action between cereal bites: he and Pip would go back to the woods. Then they would widen the search and start knocking on doors, asking after Barney. Mum and Josh would stay back and make some missing posters. They would go and put them up in the high street and pass them out. When they were done, they would all meet up and search the other woodland areas near town.