FULL NOVELXO : Part 4 – Chapter 16
She didn’t sit at the front any more. That’s where she used to sit, in this classroom, at this very time, when it was Elliot Ward standing at the front, talking them through the economic effects of World War II.
Now it was Mr Clark, the new history teacher who’d come in after Christmas to take Mr Ward’s place. He was young, maybe not even thirty yet, brown feathered hair and a trimmed beard that was mostly ginger. He was eager, and more than a little enthusiastic about his PowerPoint slide transitions. Sound effects too. It was a bit too early on a Monday morning for exploding hand grenades, though.
Not that Pip was really listening. She was sitting in the back corner. This was her place now, and Connor’s was beside her: that hadn’t changed. Except he’d been late in today, and now he was jiggling his leg as he sat there, also not paying attention.
Pip’s textbook was standing up on her desk, open on page 237, but she wasn’t actually taking notes. The textbook was a shield, hiding her from Mr Clark’s eyes. Her phone was propped up against the page, earphones plugged in and the cable tucked up the front of her jumper, the wire snaking down her sleeve so the earphone buds rested in her hand. Fully disguised. It must have looked to Mr Clark like Pip was resting her chin in her hand as she scribbled down dates and percentages but really, she was scrolling through calamity party files.
A new wave of emails with attachments had come in late last night and this morning. Word must have started to spread about Jamie. But still no photos in the location and time-window she needed. Pip glanced up: five minutes until the bell, enough time to go through another email.
The next one was from Hannah Revens, from Pip’s English class.
Hey Pip, it said. Someone told me this morning you’re looking for Connor’s missing brother and that he was at the calamity on Friday. This video is super embarrassing – apparently I sent it to my boyfriend at 9:49 when I was already super drunk – please don’t show it to anyone. But there’s a guy in the background I don’t recognize. See you at school x
A prickle of nervous energy crawled up the back of Pip’s neck. The time window, and a guy Hannah doesn’t recognize. This could be it: the break. She thumbed on to the attached file and pressed play.
The sound blared into her ear: loud music, a horde of chattering voices, bursts of jeering and cheering that must have come from the beer pong game in the dining room. But this video was taken in the living room. Hannah’s face took up most of the frame, pointing the phone down at herself from an outstretched arm. She was leaning against the back of a sofa, opposite the one Jasveen was sitting on at 9:38 p.m., the end of which was just visible in the background.
Hannah was alone, the dog filter from Instagram applied to her face, pointy brown ears buried in her hair, following her as she swung her head around. The new Ariana Grande song was playing, and Hannah was lip-synching to it. Very dramatically. Air grabs and eyes screwed shut when the song demanded it.
This wasn’t a joke, was it? Pip kept watching, searching the scene behind Hannah’s head. She recognized two of the faces back there: Joseph Powrie and Katya Juckes. And judging by the positions of the sofas, they must have been standing in front of the fireplace, which hadn’t quite made it into the shot. They were talking to another girl with her back to the camera. Long dark straightened hair, jeans. That could be dozens of people Pip knew.
The clip was almost finished, the blue line creeping along the progress bar towards the end. Six seconds to go. And that’s when two things happened at the exact same time. The girl with the long brown hair turned, started to walk away from the fireplace, towards Hannah’s camera. Simultaneously, from the other side of the frame, a person crossed towards her, walking quickly so all you really catch is the blur of their shirt and a head floating above. A burgundy shirt.
As the two figures were about to collide, Jamie reached out to tap the girl on the shoulder.
The video ended.
‘Shit,’ Pip whispered into her sleeve, drawing Connor’s attention. She knew exactly who that girl was.
‘What?’ he hissed.
‘ “Someone”.’
‘Huh?’
The bell rang and the metallic sound sliced right through her, making her wince. Her hearing was always more sensitive on not-enough sleep.
‘In the hall,’ she said, packing her textbook into her bag and disentangling herself from the earphones. She stood up and shouldered her bag, missing whatever homework task Mr Clark was assigning them.
Being at the back meant being last to leave, waiting impatiently for everyone else to spill out of the classroom. Connor followed Pip into the corridor and she guided him over to the far wall.
‘What is it?’ Connor asked.
Pip unwound her earphones, jamming them one by one into Connor’s pointy ears.
‘Ouch, be careful, would you?’ He closed his hands around his ears to keep the sound in as Pip held up her phone for him and pressed play. A tiny smirk flickered across his face. ‘Wow, that’s embarrassing,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘Is that why you wanted to show m—’
‘Obviously not,’ she said. ‘Wait for the end.’
And when it came, his eyes narrowed and he said, ‘Stella Chapman?’
‘Yep.’ Pip tugged the earphones out of his ears too hard, making him ouch again. ‘Stella Chapman must be the “someone” he spotted at the memorial and followed to the party.’
Connor nodded. ‘So what do we do now?’
‘Find her at lunch and talk to her. Ask how they know each other, what they talked about. Why Jamie followed her.’
‘OK, good,’ Connor said, and his face changed slightly, like the muscles beneath had shifted, loosened. ‘This is good, right?’
‘Yeah,’ she said, though good might not be the right word.
But at least they were finally getting somewhere.
‘Stella?’
‘Oh, hi,’ Stella replied, mid-mouthful of Twix. She narrowed her brown almond-shaped eyes, her perfect cheekbones made even sharper by the bronzer she’d swiped over her tanned skin.
Pip had known exactly where to wait for her. They were locker neighbours, Chapman just six doors over from Fitz-Amobi, and they greeted each other most mornings, their hellos always book-ended by the awful screech of Stella’s locker door. Pip was ready for it this time, as Stella opened the door and deposited some books inside.
‘What’s up?’ Stella’s eyes trailed away, over Pip’s shoulder to where Connor was standing, boxing her in. He looked ridiculous, hands on his hips like he was some kind of bodyguard. Pip flashed him an angry look until he stepped back and relaxed.
‘You on the way to lunch?’ asked Pip. ‘I was wondering if I could talk to you about something.’
‘Er, yeah, I’m heading to the cafeteria. What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Pip said, casually, walking Stella down the hall. ‘Just wondered whether I could borrow you for a few minutes first. In here?’ Pip halted, pushing open the door of a maths classroom she’d already checked was empty.
‘Why?’ The suspicion was clear in Stella’s voice.
‘My brother’s missing,’ Connor butted in, hands going to his hips again. Was he trying to look intimidating? Because it wasn’t working for him at all. Pip glared at him again; normally he was good at reading her eyes.
‘You might’ve heard that I’m looking into his disappearance?’ Pip said. ‘I just have a few questions for you about Jamie Reynolds.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Stella shuffled uncomfortably, picking at the ends of her hair. ‘I don’t know him.’
‘Bu—’ Connor started but Pip cut him off.
‘Jamie was at the calamity party on Friday. It’s currently the last time he was seen,’ she said. ‘I’ve found a video in which Jamie comes over to talk to you at the party. I just want to know what you talked about, how you know each other. That’s all.’
Stella didn’t answer, but her face said everything she wouldn’t: her eyes widened, lines disturbing her smooth forehead.
‘We really need to find him, Stella,’ Pip said gently. ‘He could be in trouble, real trouble, and anything that happened that night might help us work out where he’s gone. It’s . . . it’s life or death,’ she said, refusing to look Connor’s way.
Stella chewed her lip, eyes spooling as she made up her mind.
‘OK,’ she said.
Stella: | Is this OK? |
Pip: | Yes, great, I can hear you perfectly. So can we just go over how you know Jamie Reynolds? |
Stella: | I . . . um, I don’t . . . know him. |
Connor: | [INAUDIBLE] |
Pip: | Connor, you can’t talk while we’re recording. |
Connor: | [INAUDIBLE] |
Stella: | Um . . . I . . . I . . . |
Pip: | Actually, Connor, why don’t you go on ahead to lunch? I’ll see you there. |
Connor: | [INAUDIBLE] |
Pip: | Oh no, really, I insist. Connor. I’ll meet you there. Go on. Oh, close the door please. Thank you. Sorry about that, he’s just worried about his brother. |
Stella: | Yeah, that’s OK, I get it. I just didn’t want to talk about his brother right in front of him, y’know? It’s weird. |
Pip: | I understand. It’s better this way. So, how do you know Jamie? |
Stella: | I really don’t know him. At all. That time on Friday, that was the first time I ever spoke to him. I didn’t know who he was until I saw the posters on my way to school this morning. |
Pip: | Let me play this clip for you. Ignore Hannah’s face. You see, in the background, you walk away from Katya and then Jamie comes over to you. |
Stella: | Yeah, he did. It was, um . . . strange. Really strange. I think there must have been a misunderstanding or something. Or he was confused. |
Pip: | What do you mean? What did he want to talk to you about? |
Stella: | Well, like you can see there, he tapped me on the shoulder, so I turned to him and he said, ‘Leila, it’s you.’ And so I was like, ‘No, I’m Stella.’ But he carried on, he was like: ‘Leila, it’s really you,’ and he wasn’t listening when I said, ‘No, that’s not me.’ |
Pip: | Leila? |
Stella: | Yeah. He was pretty insistent so then I was like, ‘Sorry, I don’t know you,’ and began to walk away and he said something like, ‘Leila, it’s me, Jamie. I almost didn’t recognize you because you’ve changed your hair.’ So, I was really confused at this point. And he also looked really confused, and then he asked me what I was doing at a high-school party anyway. By this point he was freaking me out a bit, so I said to him, ‘I’m not called Leila, my name’s Stella and I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about. Leave me alone or I’ll scream.’ And then I walked away. That was it. He didn’t say anything else or follow me. He actually looked really sad when I left, but I don’t know why. I still don’t understand what was going on, what he meant. If it was some like weird creepy pick-up tactic, I dunno. He’s older, right? |
Pip: | Yes, he’s twenty-four. So wait, let me get this straight: he calls you Leila, multiple times, saying, ‘It’s me, Jamie,’ when you don’t seem to recognize him. Then he comments that you’ve changed your hair – |
Stella: | Which I haven’t, my hair’s been the same since, like, forever. |
Pip: | Right, and then he also asks you: ‘What are you doing at a high-school party?’ |
Stella: | Yeah, basically those exact words. Why? What are you thinking? |
Pip: | Stella . . . on your social media, like on Insta, do you have a lot of pictures of yourself? Like selfies, or photos where it’s just you in the shot? |
Stella: | Well, yeah, I do. Most of them. What’s wrong with that? |
Pip: | Nothing. How many photos have you posted of just you? |
Stella: | I don’t know, loads. Why? |
Pip: | How many followers do you have? |
Stella: | Not that many. Around eight hundred-ish? Why, Pip? What’s wrong? |
Pip: | I, um, I think . . . it sounds to me like Jamie might have been talking to a catfish. |
Stella: | A catfish? |
Pip: | Someone who’s been using your photos, calls themselves Leila. |
Stella: | Oh. You know, that actually makes a lot of sense, now you’ve said it. Yeah, it definitely seemed as though Jamie thought he knew me, and the way he was talking like he expected me to know him too. As if we’d spoken many times before. Clearly never in real life, though. |
Pip: | Yes. And if it is a catfish, maybe they’ve edited your photos somehow, hence the ‘changed your hair’ comment. I think Jamie spotted you at the memorial, well . . . he spotted who he thought was Leila, and it was the first time he’d seen her in real life, but he was confused because you looked different. I think he then followed you when you walked to the calamity party, waiting for an opportunity to speak to you. But he was also confused about why you were there, at a high-school party, hanging round with eighteen-year-olds, so I’m guessing this Leila told him she was older, in her twenties. |
Stella: | Yes, that makes total sense. That all fits. A catfish. That’s so obvious now. Oh god, I feel bad about what I said, now I know he wasn’t trying to be creepy. And he looked so crushed afterwards. He must have worked it out, right? Realized then that Leila wasn’t real, that she’d been lying to him? |
Pip: | Seems like it. |
Stella: | So, he’s missing now? Like missing missing? |
Pip: | Yeah, he’s missing missing. Right after he found out someone’s been catfishing him. |
From: [email protected] 2:41 p.m.
Subject: Sighting of Jamie Reynolds
Dear Pippa Fitz-Amobi
Hello, my name’s Harry Scythe. I’m a big fan of your podcast
– great job with the first season! So I live in Kilton and currently
work at the bookshop (where I’m emailing from now). I was
working Friday afternoon and after we closed up, me and a few
work friends went to the memorial – didn’t really know Andie or
Sal, but it’s nice to show up, I think. And then we went to my
mate’s house on Wyvil Road for some takeaway / beers.
Anyway, when we were leaving at the end of the night, I’m
pretty sure we saw your guy, Jamie Reynolds, walking past. I’m
like, 98% sure it was him, and since seeing your posters up this
morning, I spoke to my friends and they think it was him too.
So I thought I should let you know ASAP. Me and two of my
friends who were also there are working now, so feel free to
contact us / come in and talk, if this information is at all useful
to your investigation.
Yours sincerely,
Harry