As Good as Dead: The Finale to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

He was dead.

Jason Bell, the DT Killer: one and the same and he was dead.

Pip didn’t need to check the swell of his chest or feel for a pulse to know that. It was clear just looking at him, at what was left of his head.

She’d killed him. Broken the circle. He’d never hurt her and he’d never hurt anyone.

It wasn’t real and she wasn’t real, tucked against the wall by her overturned shelves, hugging her legs to her chest. Her warped reflection in the discarded hammer as she rocked back and forth. It was real, he was right there in front of her, and she was here. He was dead and she’d killed him.

How long had she been sat there now, going backward and forward over this? What was she doing, waiting to see if he’d take a breath and stand back up? She didn’t want that. It had been her or him. Not self-defence but a choice, a choice she made. He was dead and that was good. Right. Supposed to be.

So, what was supposed to happen now?

There hadn’t been a plan. Nothing beyond breaking the circle, beyond surviving, and killing him was how she survived. So, now that it was done, how did she keep on surviving? She repeated the question, asking the Ravi who lived in her head. Asking him for help because he was the only person she knew how to ask. But he’d gone quiet. No other people in there, just a ringing in her ears. Why had he left her? She still needed him.

But he wasn’t the real Ravi, only her thoughts wrapped up in his voice, her lifeline at the very brink. She wasn’t at the brink any more. She had lived, and she would see him again. And she needed to, right now. This was too much for her alone.

Pip picked herself up from the ground, trying not to look at the flecks of blood up her sleeves. And on her hands too. Real this time. Earned. She wiped them off on her dark leggings.

She’d spotted it from across the room, a rectangular shape in Jason’s back pocket. His iPhone, protruding out from the fabric. Pip approached, carefully, avoiding the red river reflecting the overhead lights. She didn’t want to get any closer, scared that her proximity might somehow drag him back from death. But she had to. She needed his phone to call Ravi so he could come and tell her that everything would be OK, would be normal again, because they were a team.

She reached out for the phone. Wait, Pip, hold on a second. Think about this. She paused. If she used Jason’s phone to call Ravi, that would leave a trace, irrevocably tying Ravi to the scene. DT was a murderer but he was also a murdered man, and it didn’t matter that he deserved it, the law didn’t care about that. Someone would have to pay for his broken-open head. No. Pip couldn’t have Ravi tied to the scene, to Jason, not in any way. That was unthinkable.

But she couldn’t do this on her own, without him. That was unthinkable too. A loneliness too dark and deep.

Her legs felt weak as she stepped over Jason’s body and stumbled outside on to the gravel. Fresh air. She breathed in the fresh twilit air, but it was tainted somehow, by the metallic smell of blood.

She walked, six, seven steps away, towards his car, but that smell, it followed her, held on to her. Pip turned to look at herself, her dark reflection in the window of the car. Her hair was matted and torn. Her face raw and inflamed from the tape. Her eyes faraway and yet also right here. And those freckles there, they were new. Cast-offs of Jason’s blood.

Pip felt her vision dip in and out, knees buckling underneath her. She looked at herself and then looked into herself, through the dark of her eyes. And then past herself: there was something beyond the window drawing her eye, a moonlit glint on its surface, showing her the way again. It was her bag. Her bronze-coloured rucksack, sitting in the back seat of Jason’s car.

He’d taken it when he’d taken her.

It wasn’t much but it was hers, and it felt like an old friend.

Pip scrabbled for the door handle and pulled. It opened. Jason must have left the car unlocked, his keys still waiting there in the ignition. He had meant to finish it quickly, but Pip had finished it first.

She reached in and pulled out her bag, and she wanted to hug it to her chest, this part of her old self before she’d almost died. To borrow some of its life. But she couldn’t do that, she’d get his blood on it. She lowered it to the gravel and undid the zip. Everything was still here. Everything she’d packed when she’d left the house that afternoon: clothes for staying at Ravi’s, her toothbrush, a water bottle, her purse. She reached in and took a long draw from the water bottle, her mouth dried out from all those taped-up screams. But if she drank any more, she’d be sick. She replaced the bottle and stared at the bag’s contents.

Her phone wasn’t here. She’d already known that, but hope had partially hidden the memory from her. Her phone was smashed; dropped and abandoned in the road down Cross Lane. There was no way Jason had brought it with him for that very same reason: an irrevocable link to the victim. He’d got away with this for a long time; he knew things like that, just as she knew them.

Pip almost sank to her knees, but a new thought caught her in time, and the moon again, glinting on something in the front passenger seat. Yes, the DT Killer did know things like that, that’s why they’d never caught him. And that’s why he must have used a burner phone to call his victims, otherwise his connection to the case would have been discovered right after the first victim. Pip knew this now because she could see it, right there. Discarded in the front passenger seat. A small, boxy Nokia, like hers, the screen reflecting the moonlight to catch her eye, showing her the way. Pip opened the car door and stared down at it. Jason Bell had a burner phone. Paid in cash, untraceable to her, or Ravi, unless someone found the phone. But they wouldn’t find it; she would destroy it after.

Pip reached down, her fingers alighting on its cold plastic edge. She pressed the middle button and the green back-lit screen glared up at her. It still had battery. Pip glanced up and thanked the moon, almost crying with relief.

The numbers on the screen told her it was 6:47 p.m. That was it, that was all. She’d been in the boot of that car for days, in that storeroom for months, trapped inside the tape for years, and yet it had all happened in under three hours. 6:47 p.m.: a normal early evening in September, with a pink-tinged twilight and a chill in the breeze, and a dead body behind her.

Pip navigated through the menu to check the recent call list: at 3:51 p.m., this phone had received a call from No Caller ID, from her. And right before that, it had called Pip’s number. She would have to destroy the phone anyway, because of that connection between her and the dead man on the floor over there. But this was it; her path to Ravi, to help.

Pip typed Ravi’s number in the keypad, but her thumb hesitated over the call button. She backspaced and deleted it, replacing it with the landline for his house. That was better, less of a direct link to him, if they ever found the burner phone. They won’t find the burner phone.

Pip clicked the green button and held the small phone to her ear.

It rang. Only through the phone this time. Three chimes and then a click. Rustling.

‘Hello, Singh residence,’ said a bright, high voice. It was Ravi’s mum.

‘Hi, Nisha, it’s Pip,’ she said, her voice rasping at the edges.

‘Oh, there you are, Pip. Ravi’s been looking for you. Over-worrying as usual, my little sensitive boy,’ she laughed. ‘I hear you’re coming over for dinner tonight? Mohan’s insisting we play Articulate. He’s already bagsied you for his team, apparently.’

‘Um.’ Pip cleared her throat. ‘I’m actually not sure I’m going to be able to make it tonight. Something’s come up. I’m so sorry.’

‘Oh no, that’s a shame. Are you OK, Pip? You sound a little strange.’

‘Ah, yeah, no, I’m fine. Just have a bit of a cold, that’s all.’ She sniffed. ‘Um, is he there? Ravi?’

‘Yes, yes, he is. Two seconds.’

Pip heard her calling his name.

And in the background, she heard the distant sound of his voice. Pip sank down into the gravel, her eyes glazing. It wasn’t so long ago she thought she’d never hear his voice again.

‘It’s Pip!’ she heard Nisha shout, and Ravi’s voice grew nearer: nearer and frantic.

Rustling as the phone changed hands.

‘Pip?’ he said down the line, like he didn’t believe it. And Pip hesitated a moment, refilling herself with his voice, welcoming it home. She’d never take it for granted, never again. ‘Pip?’ he said, louder.

‘Y-yes, it’s me. I’m here.’ It was hard to push the words out, around the lump in her throat.

‘Oh my god,’ Ravi said, and she could hear him thundering up the stairs to his room. ‘Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been calling you for hours. Your phone’s been going straight to voicemail. You were supposed to keep checking in.’ He sounded angry. ‘I called Nat and she said you didn’t even go round there. I’ve just got back from yours, seeing if you were at home, and your car was at home but you weren’t, so your parents are probably worried now because they thought you were with me. I was literally minutes from calling the police, Pip. Where the fuck have you been?’

He was angry, but Pip couldn’t help smiling, holding the phone tighter to her ear, to bring him closer. She had disappeared and he had… he had looked for her.

‘Pip?!’

She could imagine the look on his face: stern eyes and a cocked eyebrow, waiting for her to explain herself.

‘I-I love you,’ she said, because she never said it enough and it was important. She didn’t know when she’d last said it, and if she said it again, that wouldn’t be the last time either. ‘I love you. I’m sorry.’

Ravi hesitated, and his breath changed. ‘Pip,’ he said, the hard edge gone from his voice. ‘Are you OK? What is it? Something’s wrong, I can tell. What’s wrong?’

‘I just didn’t know when I last told you.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘It’s important.’

‘Pip,’ he said, steadying her. ‘Where are you? Tell me where you are right now.’

‘Can you come here?’ she asked. ‘I need you. I need help.’

‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘I will come right now. Just tell me where you are. What’s happened? Is it something to do with DT? Do you know who he is?’

Pip stared back at Jason’s feet, hanging out the doorway. She sniffed and she focused, turning back.

‘It’s… I’m at Green Scene. Jason Bell’s company, in Knotty Green. Do you know where it is?’

‘Why are you there?’ His voice higher now, confused.

‘Just – Ravi, I don’t know how long the battery lasts on this phone. Do you know where it is?’

‘What phone are you using?’

‘Ravi!’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, shouting now too, though he didn’t know why. ‘I know where it is, I can look it up.’

‘No, no, no,’ Pip said quickly. She needed him to understand, without her saying it. Not on the phone. ‘No, Ravi, you can’t use your phone to get here. You need to leave your phone at home, OK? Do not bring it with you. Do not bring it.’

‘Pip, wh—’

‘You have to leave your phone at home. Look at the way on Google Maps now, but do not type Green Scene into your search browser, whatever you do. Just search on the map.’

‘Pip, what’s going –’

She interrupted him, something else occurring to her. ‘No, wait. Ravi, you can’t drive on any big roads. No A-roads. Not any. You have to take the back roads, small roads only. Big roads have traffic cams. You can’t be seen on any traffic cams. Back roads only. Ravi, do you understand?’ Her voice was urgent now, the shock gone, left behind in that room with the dead body.

She heard the click of his trackpad in the background.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m just looking now. Yep, that way. Down Watchet Lane, into Hazlemere,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Down those residential roads, take a right down that B-road. Yeah,’ he said to her again. ‘Yeah, I can find it. I’ll write this down. Back roads only, leave phone at home. I’ve got it.’

‘Good,’ she said, exhaling, and even the effort of that made her feel weak, sinking further into the gravel.

‘Are you OK?’ he said, taking charge again, because that’s what teams did. ‘Are you in danger?’

‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘Not any more. Not really.’

Did he know? Could he hear it in her voice, raw and scratchy, marked forever by the last three hours?

‘OK, hold tight. I’m on my way, Pip. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

‘No, wait, don’t speed, you can’t get –’

But he was already gone, three loud beeps in her ear. He was gone, but he was on his way.

‘I love you,’ she said to the empty phone, because she never wanted there to be a last time again. Another crunch of gravel. Step after step after step. Pacing up and down, counting her steps, to count the seconds, to count the minutes. And though she told herself not to look, her eyes always found their way back to the body, convincing herself that he had shifted each time. He hadn’t; he was dead.

Pacing up and down, the early stirrings of a plan seeding in her brain, now that the shock had passed. But it was missing something. It was missing Ravi. She needed him, the team, their back and forth that always showed her the right way, the middle road between her and him.

Headlights broke open the deepening sky, a car pulling into the drive just before the Green Scene gate, hanging wide open. Pip held up her hand to shield her eyes from the glare, and then she waved for Ravi to stop. The car stopped in front of the gate, and the headlights blinked out.

The car door opened and a Ravi-shaped silhouette stepped out. He didn’t even wait to shut the door, running over to her, scattering gravel.

Pip stopped and studied him, like it was the very first time again. Something tightened in her gut, another thing loosening in her chest, releasing, breaking open. He’d promised she would see him again, and here he was, getting closer and closer.

Pip held up her hand again to keep him back from her. ‘Did you leave your phone at home?’ she said, voice quavering.

‘Yes,’ Ravi said, his eyes wide with fear. Widening further as he studied her back. ‘You’re hurt,’ he said, moving forward. ‘What happened?’

Pip stepped away from him. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said. ‘It’s… I’m fine. It’s not my blood. Not most of it. It’s…’ She forgot what she was trying to say.

Ravi steadied his face, held up his hands to steady her too. ‘Pip, look at me,’ he said calmly, though she could tell he was anything but. ‘Tell me what happened. What are you doing here?’

Pip glanced behind her, at Jason’s feet hanging out the doorway.

Ravi must have followed her eyes.

‘Fuck, who is – Are they OK?’

‘He’s dead,’ Pip said, turning back. ‘It’s Jason Bell. It was Jason Bell, he was the DT Killer.’

Ravi blinked for a moment, shuffling through her words, trying to find the sense in them.

‘He’s… what? How did he…?’ Ravi shook his head. ‘How do you know?’

Pip couldn’t tell which answer he needed to hear first. ‘How do I know he was the DT Killer? Because he took me. Abducted me from Cross Lane, tied me up in the boot of his car. Brought me here. Wrapped my face up in duct tape, bound me to a shelf. Exactly like he did to the rest of them. They died here. And he was going to kill me.’ It didn’t sound real, now that she was saying it out loud. Like all of that had happened to a different person, separate from her. ‘He was going to kill me, Ravi.’ Her voice snagged in her worn-out throat. ‘I thought I was dead and… and I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again, see anyone. And I thought about you finding out I was dead and –’

‘Hey, hey, hey,’ he said quickly, taking one careful step towards her. ‘You’re OK, Pip. I’m here, OK? I’m here now.’ He glanced back over at Jason’s body, eyes lingering too long. ‘Fuck,’ he hissed. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck. I can’t believe it. You shouldn’t have been out on your own. I shouldn’t have let you be out on your own. Fuck,’ he said again, hitting his palm against his forehead. ‘Fuck. Are you OK? Did he hurt you?’

‘No, I’m… I’m fine,’ she said, that small, cavernous word again, hiding all sorts of dark things. ‘Just from the tape. I’m fine.’

‘So, how did…?’ Ravi began, his eyes abandoning her again, slipping back over to the dead man twelve feet away.

‘He left me, tied up,’ Pip sniffed. ‘I don’t know where he went, or for how long. But I managed to push over the shelves, get free and take off the tape. There’s a window, I broke out of it. And –’

‘OK, OK,’ he cut her off. ‘OK, that’s OK, Pip. It’s going to be OK. Fuck,’ he said again, more to himself than her. ‘Whatever you did, it was in self-defence, OK? Self-defence. He was going to kill you, so you had to kill him. That’s what this is. Self-defence, and that’s OK, Pip. We just need to call the police, OK? Tell them what happened, what he did to you and that it was self-defence.’

Pip shook her head.

‘No?’ Ravi lowered his eyebrows. ‘What do you mean, no, Pip? We have to call the police. There’s a dead man on the ground over there.’

‘It wasn’t self-defence,’ she said quietly. ‘I had escaped. I was free. I could have walked away. But I saw him return, and I went back. I killed him, Ravi. Snuck up behind him and hit him with a hammer. I chose to kill him. It wasn’t self-defence. I had a choice.’

Ravi was shaking his head now; he still couldn’t see it, the full picture. ‘No, no, no. He was going to kill you, that’s why you killed him. That’s self-defence, Pip. It’s OK.’

‘I killed him.’

‘Because he was going to kill you,’ Ravi said, his voice rising.

‘How do you know that?’ Pip said. She had to make him see, make him see that self-defence wasn’t an option here, as she’d already realized, pacing up and down.

‘How do I know that?’ Ravi asked, incredulous. ‘Because he took you. Because he’s the DT Killer.’

‘The DT Killer has been in prison for more than six years,’ Pip said, not in her own voice. ‘He confessed. There have been no killings since.’

‘What? B-but–’

‘He pleaded guilty in court. There was evidence. Forensic and circumstantial. The DT Killer is already in prison. So why did I kill this man?’

Ravi’s eyes narrowed, confused. ‘Because he was the real DT Killer!’

‘The DT Killer is already in prison,’ Pip repeated, watching his eyes, waiting for him to understand. ‘Jason Bell was a respectable man. A managing director of a mid-size company, and no one has a bad word to say about him. Acquaintances, friends even, with DI Richard Hawkins. Jason has already been through a tragedy, a tragedy – you might argue – that I made much worse. So, why did I have a fixation on Jason Bell? Why was I trespassing on his private property on a Saturday evening? Why did I sneak up behind him and hit him with a hammer? Not just once. I don’t know how many times. Go look at him, Ravi. Go look. I didn’t just kill him. Overkill, that’s the term, isn’t it? And that is incompatible with selfdefence. So, why did I kill this nice, respectable man?’

‘Because he was the DT Killer?’ Ravi said, less certain now.

‘The DT Killer is already in prison. He confessed,’ she said, and she saw the shift in Ravi’s eyes as he understood what she was telling him.

‘That’s what you think the police will say.’

‘It doesn’t matter what the truth is,’ Pip said. ‘What matters is a narrative they will find acceptable. Believable. And they won’t believe my narrative. What evidence do I have other than my word? Jason got away with this for years. There might not be any evidence that he was DT.’ She deflated. ‘I don’t trust them, Ravi. I trusted the police before and they’ve let me down every single time. If we call them, the most likely outcome is that I’m going away for the rest of my life for murder. Hawkins already thinks I’m unhinged. And maybe I am. I killed him, Ravi. I knew what I was doing. And I don’t even think I regret it.’

‘Because he was going to kill you. Because he’s a monster,’ Ravi said, reaching for her hand, before remembering the blood and letting his arm fall to his side. ‘The world is better off without him. Safer.’

‘It is,’ she agreed, looking back again, checking Jason hadn’t moved, wasn’t listening in. ‘But no one else will understand that.’

‘Well, what the fuck are we going to do?’ Ravi asked, shifting his weight from foot to foot, a quiver in his lip. ‘You can’t go down for murder. That’s not fair, that’s not what this was. You… I don’t know if we can say it was the right thing, but it wasn’t wrong. It’s not like what he did to those women. He deserved it. And I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. That’s your whole life, Pip. Our whole life.’

‘I know,’ she said, a new kind of terror making its home in her head. But there was something else there too, keeping it back. A plan. They just needed a plan.

‘Can’t we go to the police and explain th—’ Ravi drew off, chewing his lip, another glance at those disembodied feet. He was silent for a moment, and another, eyes flickering, his mind busy behind them. ‘We can’t go to the police. They got it wrong with Sal, didn’t they? And Jamie Reynolds. And do I trust a jury of twelve peers with your life? Like the jury that decided Max Hastings was innocent? No, no way. Not you, you’re too important.’

Pip wished she could take his hand, feel his warmth on her skin as their fingers intertwined in the way that they did. Team Ravi and Pip. Home. They looked into each other’s eyes, a silent conversation in their shifting glances. Ravi finally blinked.

‘So, what do we…? How would we get away with this?’ he said, the question almost ridiculous enough for a smile. How to get away with murder. ‘Just, theoretically. Do we… I don’t know, bury him somewhere so no one ever finds him?’

Pip shook her head. ‘No. They always find them, eventually. Like Andie.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve studied a lot of murder cases, as have you, listened to hundreds of true crime podcasts. There’s only one way to get away with it.’

‘Which is?’

‘To not leave any evidence and to not be here at the time of death. To have an iron-clad alibi somewhere far away during the time-of-death window.’

‘But, you were here.’ Ravi stared at her. ‘What time did it…? What time did you…?’

Pip checked the time on Jason’s burner phone. ‘I think it was around six thirty that it happened. So, coming up to an hour ago now.’

‘Whose phone is that?’ Ravi nodded to it. ‘You didn’t call me from his phone, did you?’

‘No, no, it’s a burner phone. Not mine, it’s his, Jason’s, but it…’ Her voice escaped from her as she saw the question forming in Ravi’s eyes. And Pip knew, she’d finally have to tell him. They had bigger secrets now, no room for this any more. ‘I have a burner phone I never told you about. At home.’

There was movement in Ravi’s lips, almost close to a smile. ‘I always said you’d end up with your own burner phone,’ he said. ‘Wh-why do you have one?’

‘I have six, actually,’ Pip sighed, and somehow this felt harder to say than telling him that she’d killed a man. ‘It’s, um … I haven’t been coping well, with what happened to Stanley. I said I was fine, but I wasn’t fine. I’m sorry. I, um, I’ve been buying Xanax from Luke Eaton, after the doctor wouldn’t prescribe me any more. I just wanted to be able to sleep. I’m sorry.’ She dropped his gaze, staring down at her trainers. There were flecks of blood on those as well.

Ravi looked hurt, taken aback. ‘I’m sorry too,’ he said quietly. ‘I knew you weren’t fine, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I thought you just needed time, change of scenery.’ He sighed. ‘You should have told me, Pip. I don’t care what it is, whatever it is.’ He glanced quickly over at Jason’s body. ‘But no secrets between us, OK? We’re a team. We’re a team, you and me, and we will fix this. Together. I promise we’re going to get through this.’

Pip wanted to fall into him, let him wrap her up in his arms and disappear down into them. But she couldn’t. Her body, her clothes, were a crime scene, and she couldn’t contaminate him. It was like he knew, somehow, had read it in her eyes. He stepped forward and reached out, carefully stroking one finger under her chin, in a place without blood, and it was just the same.

‘So, if he died at 6:30 p.m.,’ Ravi said, locking back on to her eyes. ‘How do we give you an iron-clad alibi for 6:30 p.m., when you were here?’

‘We can’t, not that way,’ she said, looking inside, into that growing idea in her head. It should be impossible, but maybe… maybe it wasn’t. ‘But I was thinking, when I was waiting for you, I was thinking about it. Time of death is an estimate, and the medical examiner uses three main factors in that estimation. Rigor mortis – that’s how the muscles stiffen after death; livor mortis – that’s when the blood pools inside the body; and body temperature. Those are the three factors they use to narrow down the time of death. And so, I was thinking, if we can manipulate those three factors, if we can delay them, we can make the medical examiner think he died hours after he did. And in that time window, you and I can have solid alibis, separately, with people and cameras and an undeniable evidence trail.’

Ravi considered for a moment, chewing on his bottom lip.

‘How would we manipulate those factors?’ he said, eyes ahead, skimming over dead Jason and back.

‘Temperature,’ Pip said. ‘Temperature is the main one. Colder temperatures slow the onset of rigor mortis, and lividity – that’s the blood pooling. But also, with lividity, if you turn the body before the blood has settled, it will re-settle again. And if you could turn the body a few times, you could buy yourself hours there, alongside cooling the body.’

Ravi nodded, turning his head, studying their surroundings. ‘How could we cool his body, though? I suppose it was too much to ask for Jason Bell to have owned a fridge-freezer company instead.’

‘The problem is body temperature, though. If we keep him cool to delay rigor and lividity, his body temperature will also drop. He will be too cold, and the plan won’t work. So we would have to cool him down, and then be able to warm him up again.’

‘Right,’ Ravi said, with a disbelieving sniff. ‘So, we’ve just got to put him in a freezer and then pop him in a microwave. Fuck, I can’t believe we are even talking about this. This is crazy. This is crazy, Pip.’

‘Not a freezer,’ Pip said, following Ravi’s lead, looking at the Green Scene complex with new eyes. ‘That’s too cold. More like a fridge temperature. And then, of course, after we’ve warmed him up again, we will have to make sure his body is found only a few hours later, by the police, and the medical examiner. Otherwise none of this will work. We need him to be warm and stiff when they find him, and his skin still blanchable – that means the pooled blood moves when you press the skin. If that’s the early morning, then they should think he died six to eight hours before then.’

‘Will it work?’

Pip shrugged, a near-laugh in her throat. Ravi was right; this was crazy. But she was alive, she was alive, and she was very nearly not. At least this was better than that. ‘I don’t know, I’ve never killed someone and got away with murder before,’ she sniffed. ‘But it should work. The science works. I did a lot of research when I was looking at that Jane Doe case. If we can do all that: cool him down, turn him a couple of times, and then heat him back up, it should work. It will look like he died more like – I don’t know – nine o’clock, ten o’clock. And we will both be somewhere else by then. Iron-clad.’

‘OK,’ Ravi nodded. ‘OK, that sounds, well, it sounds crazy, but I think we can do it. I think we might actually be able to do this. It’s a good thing you’re such an expert in murder.’

Pip pulled a face at him.

‘No, I mean, like, from studying it, not killing people. I hope this is the first and last time.’ Ravi tried and failed at a smile, shifting on his feet. ‘One thing though – say we’re actually going to try to pull this off, and we want them to find his body so this time-of-death manipulation works. Well, they’re going to know that someone killed him. And they will look for a killer until they find one. That’s what the police do, Pip. They’ll have to have a killer.’

Pip tilted her head, studied Ravi’s eyes, her reflection captured inside them. This was why she needed him; he pushed her forward or reined her back when she didn’t know she needed it. He was right. This would never work. They could shift the time of death and make sure they were far away from here in that time frame, but the police would still need a killer. They would look until they found one, and if she and Ravi made even one mistake, then…

‘You’re right,’ she nodded, her hand moving out to take his, before she remembered. ‘It won’t work. They need a killer. Someone has to have killed Jason Bell. Someone else.’

‘OK, so…’ Ravi began, talking them back to square one, but Pip’s mind wandered away from him, flipped over to show her all those things at the very back. The things she hid away: the terror, the shame, the blood on her hands, the red, red, violent red thoughts, and one face hanging there, angular and pale.

‘I know,’ Pip said, cutting Ravi off. ‘I know who the killer is. I know who’s going to have killed Jason Bell.’

‘What?’ Ravi stared at her. ‘Who?’

It was inevitable. Full circle. The end was the beginning and the beginning was the end. Back to the very start, to the origin, to set it all right.

‘Max Hastings,’ she said.