A Good Girl's Guide to Murder(96)

She knocked. Three loud thumps against the door.

Something clattered inside. And nothing.

She knocked again, hitting the door over and over with the soft side of her fist.

A light flicked on behind the door and in the now yellow-lit frosted glass she saw a blurred figure walking towards her.

A chain scraped against the door, a sliding lock, and it was pulled open with a damp clacking sound.

Elliot stared at her. Dressed in the same pastel green shirt from school, a pair of dark oven mitts slung over his shoulder.

‘Pip?’ he said in a voice breathy with fear. ‘What are you . . . what are you doing here?’

She looked into his lens-magnified eyes.

‘I’m just . . .’ he said. ‘I’m just . . .’

Pip shook her head. ‘The police are going to be here in about ten minutes,’ she said. ‘You have that time to explain it to me.’ She stepped one foot up over the threshold. ‘Explain it to me so I can help your daughters through this. So the Singhs can finally know the truth after all this time.’

All the blood left Elliot’s face. He staggered back a few steps, colliding into the wall. Then he pressed his fingers into his eyes and blew out all of his air. ‘It’s over,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s finally over.’

‘Time’s running out, Elliot.’ Her voice was much braver than she felt.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK, do you want to come in?’

She hesitated, her stomach recoiling inside to push back against her spine. But the police were on their way; she could do this. She had to do this. ‘We’ll leave the front door open, for the police,’ she said, then she followed him in and down the hall, keeping a three-step distance.

He led her right and into a kitchen. There was no furniture in it, none at all, but the counters were laden with food packets and cooking instruments, even a spice rack. There was a small glinting key on the counter beside a packet of dried pasta. Elliot bent to turn off the hob and Pip walked to the other side of the room, putting as much space between them as she could.

‘Stand away from the knives,’ she said.

‘Pip, I’m not going to –’

‘Stand away from them.’

Elliot moved away, stopping by the wall opposite her.

‘She’s here, isn’t she?’ Pip said. ‘Andie’s here and she’s alive?’

‘Yes.’

She shivered inside her warm coat.

‘You and Andie Bell were seeing each other in March 2012,’ she said. ‘Start at the beginning, Elliot; we don’t have long.’

‘It wasn’t like th-th–’ he stuttered. ‘It . . .’ He moaned and held his head.

‘Elliot!’

He sniffed and straightened. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘It was late February. Andie started . . . paying attention to me at school. I wasn’t teaching her; she didn’t take history. But she’d follow me in the halls and ask me about my day. And, I don’t know, I guess the attention felt . . . nice. I’d been so lonely since Isobel died. And then Andie starts asking to have my phone number. Nothing had happened at this point, we hadn’t kissed or anything, but she kept asking. I told her that that would be inappropriate. And yet, soon enough, I found myself in the phone shop, buying another SIM card so I could talk to her and no one would find out. I don’t know why I did it; I suppose it felt like a distraction from missing Isobel. I just wanted someone to talk to. I only put the SIM in at night, so Naomi would never see anything, and we started texting. She was nice to me; let me talk about Isobel and how I worried about Naomi and Cara.’

‘You’re running out of time,’ Pip said coldly.

‘Yes,’ he sniffed, ‘and then Andie started suggesting we meet somewhere outside of school. Like a hotel. I told her absolutely not. But in a moment of madness, a moment of weakness, I found myself booking one. She could be very persuasive. We agreed a time and date, but I had to cancel last minute because Cara had chickenpox. I tried to end it, whatever it was we had at this point, but then she asked again. And I booked the hotel for the next week.’

‘The Ivy House Hotel in Chalfont,’ said Pip.

He nodded. ‘That’s when it happened the first time.’ His voice was quiet with shame. ‘We didn’t stay the night; I couldn’t leave the girls for a whole night. We stayed just a couple of hours.’

‘And you slept with her?’

Elliot didn’t say anything.

‘She was seventeen!’ Pip said. ‘The same age as your daughter. You were a teacher. Andie was vulnerable and you took advantage of that. You were the adult and should have known better.’

‘There’s nothing you can say that will make me more disgusted at myself than I already am. I said it couldn’t happen again and tried to call it off. Andie wouldn’t let me. She started threatening to turn me in. She interrupted one of my lessons, came over and whispered to me that she’d left a naked picture of herself hidden in the classroom somewhere and that I should find it before someone else did. Trying to scare me. So, I went back to the Ivy House the next week, because I didn’t know what she’d do if I didn’t. I thought she would tire of whatever this was soon enough.’

He stopped to rub the back of his neck.