‘Hey, Sarge,’ he said, pressing the words into her forehead with his lips. His very first nickname for her, now one among dozens.
‘You OK?’ she asked, though she already knew he wasn’t; he’d just over-sprayed deodorant and it was following him around like a fog. That meant he was nervous.
‘Yeah, bit nervous,’ Ravi said. ‘Mum and Dad are already there but I wanted to shower first.’
‘That’s OK, the ceremony doesn’t start until seven thirty,’ Pip said, taking his hand. ‘There are lots of people around the pavilion already, maybe a few hundred.’
‘Already?’
‘Yeah. I walked through on my way home from school and the news vans were already setting up.’
‘Is that why you came in disguise?’ Ravi smiled, tugging at the bottle-green jacket hood pulled over Pip’s head.
‘Just until we get past them.’
It was probably her fault they were here anyway; her podcast had reignited Sal and Andie’s stories on the news cycles. Especially this week, the six-year anniversary of their deaths.
‘How did court go today?’ asked Pip, and then: ‘We can talk about it tomorrow if you don’t want –’
‘No, it’s OK,’ he said. ‘I mean, it wasn’t OK. Today was one of the girls who lived in the same halls as Max at university. They played her 999 call from the morning after.’ Ravi swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘And in cross-examination, Epps went in on her, of course: no DNA profile lifted from the rape kit, no memory, that sort of thing. You know, watching Epps sometimes makes me reconsider if I really want to be a criminal defence solicitor.’
That was The Plan they’d worked out: Ravi would resit his A-Level exams as a private candidate the same time Pip was taking hers. Then he would apply for a six-year law apprenticeship starting in September, when Pip went to university. ‘Quite the power couple,’ Ravi had remarked.
‘Epps is one of the bad ones,’ Pip said. ‘You’ll be a good one.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Are you ready? We can wait here a bit longer if you –’
‘I’m ready,’ he said. ‘Just . . . I . . . will you stay with me?’
‘Of course.’ She pressed her shoulder into his. ‘I won’t let go.’
The sky was already darkening as they left the crunchy gravel behind for the soft grass of the common. To their right, little clusters of people were walking out on to the green from the direction of Gravelly Way, all heading towards the pavilion on the south side of the common. Pip heard the crowd before she saw them; that low, living hum that only happens when you put hundreds of people into one small place. Ravi gripped her hand tighter.
They rounded a tight knot of whispering sycamore trees and the pavilion came into view, glowing a faint yellow; people must have started lighting the candles and tealights laid out around the structure. Ravi’s hand started to sweat against hers.
She recognized a few faces at the back as they approached: Adam Clark, her new history teacher, standing beside Jill from the café, and over there Cara’s grandparents waving at her. They pushed forward and, as eyes turned and met theirs, the crowd parted for Ravi, swallowing them, re-forming behind them to block the way back.
‘Pip, Ravi.’ A voice pulled their attention to the left. It was Naomi, hair pulled back tight, like her smile. She was standing with Jamie Reynolds – the older brother of Pip’s friend Connor – and, Pip realized with a stomach lurch, Nat da Silva. Her hair so white in the thickening twilight that it almost set the air around her aglow. They had all been in the same school year as Sal and Andie.
‘Hi,’ Ravi said, pulling Pip out of her thoughts.
‘Hi Naomi, Jamie,’ she said, nodding to them in turn. ‘Nat, hey,’ she faltered as Nat’s pale-blue eyes fell on her and her gaze hardened. The air around her lost its glow and turned cold.
‘Sorry,’ Pip said. ‘I-I . . . just wanted to say I’m sorry you had to go through that, th-the trial yesterday, but you did amazingly.’
Nothing. Nothing but a twitch in Nat’s cheek.
‘And I know this week and next must be awful for you, but we are going to get him. I know it. And if there’s anything I can do . . .’
Nat’s eyes slid off Pip like she wasn’t really there at all. ‘OK,’ Nat said, a sharp edge to her voice as she faced the other way.
‘OK,’ Pip said quietly, turning back to Naomi and Jamie. ‘We’d better keep moving. See you later.’
They moved on through the crowd, and when they were far enough away, Ravi said in her ear, ‘Yeah, she definitely still hates you.’
‘I know.’ And she deserved it, really; she had considered Nat a murder suspect. Why wouldn’t Nat hate her? Pip felt cold, but she packed away Nat’s eyes into the pit in her stomach, alongside the rest of those feelings.
She spotted Cara’s messy dark blonde top-knot, bobbing above the heads in the crowd, and she manoeuvred herself and Ravi towards it. Cara was standing with Connor, who was nodding his head in quick doubles as she spoke. Beside them, heads almost pressed together, were Ant and Lauren, who were now always Ant-and-Lauren said in one quick breath, because one was never seen without the other. Not now that they were together together, unlike before when they must have been pretend together. Cara said apparently it had started at the calamity party they all went to last October, when Pip had been undercover. No wonder she hadn’t noticed. Zach was standing the other side of them, ignored, fiddling awkwardly with his liquid black hair.
‘Hi,’ Pip said as she and Ravi breached the outer circle of the group.
‘Hey,’ came a quiet chorus of replies.
Cara turned to look up at Ravi, nervously picking at her collar. ‘I, um . . . I’m . . . how are you? Sorry.’
Cara was never lost for words.
‘It’s OK,’ Ravi said, breaking free from Pip’s hand to hug Cara. ‘It really is, I promise.’
‘Thank you,’ Cara said quietly, blinking at Pip over Ravi’s shoulder.
‘Oh, look,’ Lauren hissed, nudging Pip and indicating with a flash of her eyes. ‘It’s Jason and Dawn Bell.’
Andie and Becca’s parents. Pip followed Lauren’s eyes. Jason was wearing a smart wool coat, surely too hot for the evening, leading Dawn towards the pavilion. Dawn’s eyes were down on the ground, on all those bodiless feet, her eyelashes mascara-clumped like she’d already been crying. She looked so small behind Jason as he pulled her along by the hand.
‘Have you heard?’ Lauren said, beckoning for the group to draw in tighter. ‘Apparently Jason and Dawn are back together. My mum says his second wife is divorcing him and apparently Jason has moved back into that house with Dawn.’
That house. The house where Andie Bell died on the kitchen tiles and Becca stood by and watched. If those apparentlys were true, Pip wondered how much choice Dawn had had in that decision. From what she’d heard about Jason during her investigation, she wasn’t sure how much choice anyone around him ever had. He’d certainly not come out of her podcast smelling of roses. In fact, in a twitter poll a listener made of the Most Hateable Person in AGGGTM, Jason Bell had received almost as many votes as Max Hastings and Elliot Ward. Pip herself had come in close fourth place.