FULL NOVELXO : Part 3 – Chapter 11
The bell above the café door jangled, clattering around in her head long after it should. An unwelcome echo that cut through all other thoughts, but she couldn’t go work at home, so the café had to do. Her parents must have seen the posters up around town by now. If Pip went home, she’d have to have The Conversation and there wasn’t time for that now. Or she just wasn’t ready.
More emails had come in with attached photos from the memorial, and the notifications on her announcements had reached into the many thousands now. Pip had just muted them, now that the trolls had found them. I killed Jamie Reynolds, said one of the grey blank profile pictures. Another: Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears?
The bell sounded again, but this time it was accompanied by Cara’s voice.
‘Hey,’ she said, pulling out the chair opposite Pip. ‘Ravi said you were in here. Just saw him as I finished up Chalk Road.’
‘You out of posters?’ asked Pip.
‘Yeah. But that’s not why I need to talk to you.’ Cara’s voice lowered conspiratorially.
‘What’s up?’ Pip whispered, following suit.
‘So, as I was putting up the posters, looking at Jamie’s face, reading what he was wearing, I . . . I dunno.’ Cara leaned forward. ‘I know I was really drunk and don’t remember much of the night, but I keep getting this feeling that . . . well, I think I saw Jamie there that night.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Pip hissed. ‘At the calamity party?’
Cara nodded, leaning so far forward that she could no longer be actually sitting. ‘I mean, I don’t have a clear memory of it. It’s more like a déjà vu thing. But picturing him in that outfit, I swear he walked by me at the party. I was drunk, so maybe I didn’t think anything of it at the time, or maybe I didn’t realize but – hey, don’t look at me like that! I’m sure that maybe I maybe saw him there.’
‘Sure that maybe you maybe you saw him there?’ Pip repeated.
‘OK, I’m obviously not sure.’ She frowned. ‘But I think he was.’ She finally sat back, widening her eyes at Pip, inviting her to speak.
Pip closed the lid of her laptop. ‘Well, OK, let’s say you did see Jamie there. What the hell would Jamie be doing at a party full of eighteen-year olds? He’s twenty-four and probably the only people he knows our age are us, Connor’s friends.’
‘Dunno.’
‘Was he speaking to anyone?’ Pip asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Cara said, fingers going to her temples. ‘I think I only remember him walking past me at some point.’
‘But if he was there . . .’ Pip began, trailing off as her thoughts lost their shape.
‘It’s really strange,’ Cara finished for her.
‘Really strange.’
Cara paused to take a sip of Pip’s coffee. ‘So, what do we do about it?’
‘Well, fortunately there are lots of other witnesses from the party who might be able to corroborate what you think you saw. And if it’s true, then I guess we know where Jamie went after the memorial.’
Pip texted Ant and Lauren first, asking if they’d seen Jamie at the party. Ant’s reply came in after two minutes. They were clearly together as he answered for both of them:
Nah we didn’t, weren’t there for long though. Why would Jamie have been there? X
‘Ant and Lauren not noticing something other than each other, how unlike them,’ Cara said sarcastically.
Pip texted back: You have Stephen Thompson’s number, right? Can I have it please. Urgent. No kiss.
The party had been at Stephen’s house, and even though Pip still very much disliked him – from when she’d gone undercover at a calamity party last year to find information on the drug dealer Howie Bowers, and Stephen had forcibly tried to kiss her – she had to set that dislike aside for now.
When Ant finally sent Stephen’s number through, Pip downed the rest of her coffee and called him, throwing a quick shush sign Cara’s way. Cara pulled her fingers across her lips, zipping them shut but sliding closer to listen in.
Stephen picked up on the fourth ring, a confused sounding ‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Stephen,’ Pip said. ‘It’s Pip. Fitz-Amobi.’
‘Oh hey,’ Stephen said, his tone changing. Softer and deeper.
Pip rolled her eyes at Cara.
‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the posters around town –’
‘Oh, my mum actually just mentioned seeing those. Complained about them being “unsightly”.’ He made a sound Pip could only describe as a guffaw. ‘They something to do with you?’
‘Yeah,’ she said, in as bright a voice as she could muster. ‘So you know Connor Reynolds in our year? Well, his older brother, Jamie, went missing on Friday night and everyone’s really worried.’
‘Shit,’ Stephen said.
‘You hosted a calamity party at your house on Friday night, didn’t you?’
‘Were you here?’ Stephen asked.
‘Unfortunately not,’ Pip said. Well, she’d been to the outside, to pick up a drunken, sobbing Cara. ‘But there are rumours that Jamie Reynolds was at the party, and I wondered if you remembered seeing him there? Or heard anyone else say they did?’
‘Are you doing, like, a new investigate-y thing?’ he asked.
She ignored the question. ‘Jamie’s twenty-four, he’s about five nine, has dark blonde almost-brown hair and blue eyes. He was –’
‘Yeah,’ Stephen cut her off. ‘Think I might have seen him there. I remember walking past some guy I didn’t know in the living room. He looked a bit older, I presumed he was with one of the girls. Wearing a shirt, a dark red shirt.’
‘Yes.’ Pip sat up straighter, nodding at Cara. ‘That sounds like Jamie. I’m sending a photo to your phone now, can you confirm that’s who you saw?’ Pip lowered her phone to find Jamie’s photo, the one from the poster, and sent it to Stephen.
‘That’s him.’ Stephen’s voice was a little distant through the speaker as he held his phone up to look at the screen.
‘Do you remember what time you saw him?’
‘Ah, not really,’ he said. ‘I think it was early on, maybe nine, ten-ish, but I’m not sure. Only saw him that one time.’
‘What was he doing?’ asked Pip. ‘Was he talking to anyone? Drinking?’
‘No, didn’t see him talking to anyone. Don’t think he had a drink in his hand either. Think he was just standing there, watching. Kinda creepy when you think about it.’
Pip felt like reminding Stephen that he was one to talk about creepy. But she held her tongue. ‘What time did people turn up to your house? The memorial finished around half eight, did most people go straight to yours?’
‘Yeah. I live, like, less than ten minutes away, so most people walked straight from the common. So, you said you’re, like, investigating again, right? Is this to go on your podcast? Because,’ Stephen lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘well, my mum doesn’t know I had a party; she was away on a spa weekend. I blamed the smashed vases and drink stains on our dog. And the party got shut down by the police at, like, one; a neighbour must have called in a noise complaint. But I don’t want my mum to find out about the party, so could you not –’
‘Which police officer came to shut it down?’ Pip interrupted.
‘Oh, that da Silva guy. Just told everyone to go home. So, you won’t mention the party, right? On your podcast?’
‘Oh, right, sure,’ Pip lied. Of course she was going to mention it, even better if it got Stephen ‘Gropey’ Thompson in trouble. She thanked him and hung up. ‘You were right,’ she told Cara, dropping the phone.
‘I was? Jamie was there? I helped?’
‘He was and you did.’ Pip smiled at her. ‘Well, we have two eyewitness accounts, neither with an exact time, but I think we can be fairly certain Jamie went there after the memorial. Now I need to try find photographic evidence, narrow down the timeframe. What’s the best way to get a message to everyone who was at the calamity?’
‘Message everyone in that school year group on Facebook?’ Cara shrugged.
‘Good idea.’ Pip re-awakened her laptop. ‘I should tell Connor first. What the hell was Jamie doing there?’ Her computer burred into life and Jamie’s face popped up onscreen from the missing poster document, his pale eyes staring right out into hers, holding her there as a cold shiver crept down the back of her neck. She knew him; this was Jamie. Jamie. But how well did you ever know anyone? She watched his eyes, trying to unpick the secrets that lay behind them. Where are you? She asked him silently, face to face.
Hi everyone,
As you might have seen from posters up in town, Jamie Reynolds (Connor’s older brother) went missing on Friday night after the memorial. I have recently learned that Jamie was seen at the calamity party at Stephen Thompson’s house on Highmoor. I am making an urgent appeal for anyone who was there to please send me all photos and videos you took while at the party (I promise that none of these will make their way to parents / police at any time). This includes Snapchat / Instagram stories if you have those saved. Please send those in ASAP to the email address listed above. I am posting Jamie’s photo below. If anyone remembers seeing him at the party or has any information at all on his whereabouts or movements Friday night, please get in contact with me via email or my phone number above.
Thank you,
Pip
Pip: | George, George, I’ve just pressed record. I’ll get you to sign a form at school tomorrow, but for now can I ask whether you consent to your voice being used in a published podcast. |
George: | Yes, that’s fine. |
Pip: | OK, I’ve moved to the back of the café, can you hear me better now? |
George: | Yep, much better. |
Pip: | OK. So, you saw my message on Facebook. Let’s go back over what you started to tell me. Can you go back to the beginning? |
George: | Yeah so I saw him – |
Pip: | Sorry, a bit before that too. So, on Friday night, you were where? |
George: | Oh, right. On Friday, after the memorial, I went to the calamity party at Stephen Thompson’s house. I wasn’t drinking much because we’ve got a big football match next week, Ant’s probably told you that. So, I remember the whole night. And I saw him, I saw that Jamie Reynolds in the living room. He was standing against one of the walls, not talking to anyone. I remember thinking to myself, I didn’t know him and, y’know, it’s normally the same crowd from school who goes to calamities, so he stuck out to me. I didn’t talk to him, though. |
Pip: | OK. Now let’s go back to when you saw him next. |
George: | Right. So, a little while later, I went out the front to have a cigarette. There were only a few people out front, Jas and Katie M were talking because Katie was crying about something. And Jamie Reynolds was out there too. I remember it very clearly. He was pacing up and down the pavement in front of the house and talking to someone on the phone. |
Pip: | Can you describe his demeanour while he was on the phone? |
George: | Yeah, well, he looked kind of . . . agitated. Like angry, but not quite. Maybe scared? His voice was kinda shaky. |
Pip: | And could you hear anything he was saying? |
George: | Only a little bit. As I was lighting up, I remember hearing him say: “No, I can’t do that.” Or words to that effect. And he repeated that a couple of times, like: “I can’t do that, I can’t.” And by this time, he’d sort of caught my attention, so I was listening in while pretending to look through my phone. After a while, Jamie started shaking his head, saying something like: “I know I said anything, but . . .” and sort of trailed off. |
Pip: | Did he notice you were there? That you were listening? |
George: | Don’t think so. I don’t think he was aware of anything other than what was going on at the other end of the phone. He was sort of plugging his other ear so he could hear them better. He went quiet for a bit, like he was listening, still pacing. And he said: “I could call the police,” or something like that. I definitely remember him mentioning the police. |
Pip: | Did he say it in a confrontational way, or like he was offering to help? |
George: | I don’t know, it was hard to tell which. So then he was quiet for a while, listening again, seemed to grow more jittery. I remember him saying something about a child. |
Pip: | A child? Whose child? |
George: | Don’t know, I just heard the word. And then Jamie looked up and we accidentally made eye contact and he must have realized I was listening in. So then, still on the phone, he started walking away from the house, down the street, and the last thing I heard him say was something like: “I don’t think I can do it.” |
Pip: | Which direction was he going? |
George: | Pretty sure he went right, heading towards the high street. |
Pip: | And you didn’t see him come back to the house at all? |
George: | No. I was out there for, like, another five minutes. He was gone. |
Pip: | And do you have any idea what time any of this happened? |
George: | I know exactly when this was, because right after Jamie left, like thirty seconds after, I texted this girl from Chesham High I’ve been talking to. Sent her this meme of SpongeBob . . . you know what, that’s irrelevant, but my phone says I sent that at 10:32 p.m. and it was literally right after Jamie walked away. |
Pip: | 10:32? George, that’s perfect. Thank you so much. Did you pick up any hints about the person Jamie was talking to? Could you tell if it was a man or a woman? |
George: | No. No I couldn’t tell anything else, other than Jamie didn’t much like what they were saying to him. Do you . . . Do you think Connor’s brother is OK? Maybe I should have told someone what I saw sooner? If I’d texted Connor that night . . . |
Pip: | That’s OK, you didn’t know Jamie was missing until an hour ago. And your information has been incredibly helpful. Connor will really appreciate it. |