A Good Girl's Guide to Murder(81)

They heard barking in the woods and Pip’s heart picked up, but it was just a family walking with two beagles and a labradoodle. They said they hadn’t seen a golden retriever lone and wandering but they would look out for one now.

Pip’s voice was hoarse by the time they’d circled the woods for the second time. They knocked on their neighbours’ houses up Martinsend Way; no one had seen a lost dog.

Early afternoon, and Pip’s train whistle text tone blared in the quiet forest.

‘Is that Mum?’ her dad said.

‘No,’ Pip said, reading the message. It was from Ravi. Hey, it said, I’ve just seen missing posters for Barney up in town. Are you OK? Do you need help?

Her fingers were too numb from the cold to type a response.

They stopped briefly for sandwiches and then carried on, her mum and Josh joining them now, traipsing through trees and across private farmland, choral shouts of ‘Barney’ carrying on the wind.

But the world turned on them and darkness fell again.

Back home, drained and quiet, Pip picked through the Thai takeaway Victor had collected from town. Her mum had put a Disney film on in the background to lighten the mood, but Pip was just staring down at the noodles, wrapped like tightening worms round her fork.

She dropped the fork when a train whistle sounded, vibrating in her pocket.

She placed her plate on the coffee table and pulled out her phone. The screen glared up at her.

Pip tried her hardest to blink the terror from her eyes, to force her jaw closed. She fought a blank look on to her face and put the phone face down on the sofa.

‘Who’s that?’ her mum asked.

‘Just Cara.’

It wasn’t. It was Unknown: Want to see your dog again?





Thirty-Five



The next text didn’t come until eleven in the morning.

Victor was working from home. He came into Pip’s bedroom at around eight and told her that they were going off on another search and would be back at lunchtime.

‘You should stay here and get on with your revision,’ he said. ‘This exam is very important. Leave Barney to us.’

Pip nodded. She was relieved in a way. She didn’t think she could walk alongside her family, calling out his name, knowing that he wasn’t there to be found. Because he wasn’t lost, he was taken. By Andie Bell’s killer.

But there was no time to waste hating herself, asking why she hadn’t listened to the threats. Why she’d been stupid enough to think herself invincible. She just had to get Barney back. That was all that mattered.

Her family had been gone for a couple of hours when her phone screeched, making her flinch and slosh coffee over her duvet. She grabbed the phone and read the text over several times.

Take your computer and any USBs or hard drives that your project is saved on. Bring them to the tennis club car park with you and walk 100 paces into the trees on the right side. Do not tell anyone and come alone. If you follow these instructions, you will get your dog back.

Pip jumped up, spattering more coffee on her bed. She moved fast, before the fear could congeal and paralyse her. She stepped out of her pyjamas and into a jumper and jeans. She grabbed her rucksack, undid the zips and upturned it, spilling her schoolbooks and academic planner on to the floor. She unplugged her laptop and piled both it and the charger into the bag. The two memory sticks she’d saved her project on were in the middle drawer of her desk. She scooped them out and shoved them in on top of the computer.

She ran down the stairs, almost stumbling as she swung the heavy bag up on to her back. She slipped on her walking boots and coat and grabbed her car keys from the side table in the hall. There was no time to think this through. If she stopped to think, she’d falter and lose him forever.

Outside, the wind was cold against her neck and fingers. She ran to the car and climbed in. Her grip was sticky and shaky on the steering wheel as she pulled out of the drive.

It took her five minutes to get there. She would have been quicker if she hadn’t got stuck behind a slow driver, tailgating and flashing them to hurry up out of the way.

She turned into the car park beyond the tennis courts and pulled into the nearest bay. Grabbing her rucksack from the passenger seat, she left her car and headed straight for the trees that bordered the car park.

Before stepping from concrete on to mud, Pip paused for just a moment to look over her shoulder. There was some kids’ club on the tennis courts, shrieking and whacking balls into the fence. A couple of mums with young and squawking toddlers standing beside a car, chatting away. There was no one there with their eyes fixed on her. No car she recognized. No person. If she was being watched, she couldn’t tell.

She turned back to the trees and started to walk. She counted in her head each step she took, panicking that her strides were either too long or too short and she wouldn’t end up where they wanted her to.

At thirty paces her heart throbbed so hard that it jolted her breath.

At sixty-seven the skin on her chest and under her arms prickled as sweat broke the surface.

At ninety-four she started muttering, ‘Please, please, please,’ under her breath.

And then she stopped one hundred steps into the trees. And she waited.

There was nothing around her, nothing but the stippled shade from half-bare trees and leaves from red to pale yellow padding the mud.

A long, high whistling sounded above her, trailing into four short bursts. She looked up to see a red kite flying over her, just a sharp wide-winged outline against the grey sun. The bird flew out of sight and she was alone again.