Her writing hand must have had its own mind, an independent circuitry from the one contained in her head.

Mr Ward was speaking, ‘But Lenin did not like Stalin’s policy towards Georgia after the Red Army invasion in 1921,’ and Pip’s fingers moved in harmony, scribbling it all down with dates underlined too. But she wasn’t really listening.

There was a war going on inside her, the two sides of her head squabbling and pecking at each other. Should she ask Elliot about Andie’s comments, or was that a risk to the investigation? Was it rude to ask probing questions about murdered students, or was it an entirely forgivable Pippism?

The bell rang for lunch and Elliot called over the scraping chairs and zipping bags, ‘Read chapter three before our next lesson. And if you want to

be really keen, you can Trotsky on over to chapter four as well.’ He chuckled at his own joke.

‘You coming, Pip?’ Connor said, standing up and swinging his rucksack on to his back.

‘Um, yeah I’ll come find you lot in a minute,’ she said. ‘I need to ask Mr Ward something first.’

‘You need to ask Mr Ward something, eh?’ Elliot had overheard. ‘That’s ominous. I hope you haven’t started thinking about the coursework already.’

‘No, well, yes I have,’ Pip said, ‘but that’s not what I want to ask you about.’

She waited until they were the only two left in the classroom.

‘What is it?’ Elliot glanced down at his watch. ‘You have ten of my minutes before I start panicking about the panini queue.’

‘Yeah, sorry,’ Pip said, grasping for her stash of courage but it leaked out of reach. ‘Um . . .’

‘Everything OK?’ Elliot said, sitting back on his desk, his arms and legs crossed. ‘You worrying about university applications? We can go over your personal statement some time if –’

‘No, it’s not that.’ She took a breath and blew out her top lip. ‘I . . . when I interviewed you before you said you didn’t have anything to do with Andie in the last two years of school.’

‘Yes, correct.’ He blinked. ‘She didn’t take history.’

‘OK, but –’ the courage trickled back all at once and her words raced each other out – ‘one of Andie’s friends said that, excuse the language, Andie referred to you as an arsehole and other unsavoury words sometime in the weeks before she went missing.’

The why question was evidently there hiding beneath her words; she didn’t need to speak it.

‘Oh,’ Elliot said, rubbing the dark hair back from his face. He looked at her and sighed. ‘Well, I was hoping this wouldn’t come up. I don’t see what good it can do to dwell on it now. But I can see you’re being very thorough with your project.’

Pip nodded, her long silence beckoning an answer.

Elliot shuffled. ‘I don’t feel too comfortable about it, saying unpleasant things about a student who has lost their life.’ He glanced up at the open classroom door and scooted over to shut it. ‘Um, I didn’t have much to do with Andie at school but I knew of her, of course, as Naomi’s dad. And . . . it was in that capacity, through Naomi, that I learned some things about Andie Bell.’

‘Yes?’

‘No soft way of saying it but . . . she was a bully. She was bullying another girl in their year. I can’t remember her name now, something Portuguese- sounding. There was some sort of incident, a video online that Andie had posted.’

Pip was both surprised and not at all. Yet another path opening up in the maze of Andie Bell’s life. Palimpsest upon palimpsest, the original concept of Andie only just peeking out through all the overlaying scribbles.

‘I knew enough to understand that Andie would be in trouble with both the school and the police for what she’d done,’ Elliot continued. ‘And I . . . I thought it was a shame because it was the first week back after Easter and her A-level exams were coming up. Exams that would determine her entire future.’ He sighed. ‘What I should have done, when I found out, was tell the

head teacher about the incident. But the school has a no-tolerance policy on bullying or cyber-bullying and I knew Andie would be expelled immediately. No A levels, no university and I, well, I just couldn’t do it.

Even though she was a bully, I couldn’t live with myself knowing I’d play a part in ruining a student’s future.’

‘So what did you do?’ Pip asked.

‘I looked up her father’s contact details and I called him, the first day of term after the Easter holidays.’

‘You mean the Monday of the week Andie disappeared?’

Elliot nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose it was. I phoned Jason Bell and I told him everything I’d learned and said that he needed to have a very serious talk with his daughter about bullying and consequences. And I suggested restricting her online access. I said I was trusting him to sort this out, otherwise I would have no choice but to inform the school and have Andie expelled.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘Well, he was thankful that I was giving his daughter a second chance she possibly didn’t deserve. And he promised he would sort it out and talk to her. I’m guessing now that when Mr Bell did speak to Andie he mentioned that I was the source of the information. So, if I was the target of some choice words from Andie that week, I’m not entirely surprised, I must say.

Disappointed is all.’

Pip took a deep breath, one glazed with undisguised relief. ‘What’s that for?’

‘I’m just glad you weren’t lying for a worse reason.’

‘Think you’ve read too many mystery novels, Pip. Why not some historical biographies instead?’ He smiled gently.

‘They can be just as disturbing as fiction.’ She paused. ‘You’d never told anyone before, had you . . . about Andie’s bullying?’

‘Of course not. It seemed pointless after everything that happened.

Insensitive too.’ He scratched his chin. ‘I try not to think about it because I get lost in butterfly-effect theories. What if I had just told the school and Andie was expelled that week? Would it have changed the outcome? Would the conditions that led to Sal killing her not have been in place? Would those two still be alive?’

‘That’s a rabbit hole you shouldn’t go down,’ Pip said. ‘And you definitely don’t remember the girl that who bullied?’

‘No, sorry,’ he said. ‘Naomi would remember; you could ask her about it. Not sure what this has to do with use of media in criminal investigations, though.’ He looked at her with a slightly scolding look.

‘Well, I’m yet to decide on my final title,’ she smiled.

‘OK, well, don’t go falling down your own rabbit hole.’ He wagged his finger. ‘And now I’m running away from you because I’m desperate for a tuna melt.’ He smiled and dashed out into the corridor.

Pip felt lighter, the bulk of doubt disappearing, just as Elliot now had through the door. And instead of misplaced speculation leading her astray, she now had another real lead to follow. And one less name on her list. It was a good trade to make.

But the lead was taking her back to Naomi again. And Pip would have to look her in the eyes like she didn’t think there was something dark hiding behind them.

‌Pippa Fitz-Amobi EPQ 13/09/2017‌‌

Production Log  – Entry 15

Transcript of second interview with Naomi Ward Pip:

OK, recording. So, your dad told me that he found out Andie was bullying another girl in your year. Cyber-bulling. He thought there was some online video involved. Do you know anything about this?

Naomi:

Yeah, like I said, I thought Andie was trouble. Pip:

Can you tell me more about it? Naomi:

There was a girl in our year, called Natalie da Silva, and she was pretty and blonde too. They looked quite similar actually. And I guess Andie felt threatened by her because ever since the start of our final year Andie started spreading rumours about her and finding ways to humiliate her.

Pip:

If Sal and Andie didn’t start seeing each other until that December, how did you know all this?

Naomi:

I was friends with Nat. We had biology together. Pip:

Oh. And what kind of rumours was Andie starting? Naomi:

The kind of disgusting things only a teenage girl could think up. Things like her family was incestuous, that Nat watched people undress in the changing rooms and touched herself. Those kinds of things.

Pip:

And you think Andie did this because Nat was pretty and she felt threatened by that?

Naomi:

I actually think that was the extent of her thought process. Andie wanted to be the girl in the year that all the boys wanted. Nat was competition so Andie had to take her down.

Pip:

So did you know about this video at the time? Naomi:

Yeah, it got shared all over social media. I think it wasn’t taken down until a few days later when someone reported it as inappropriate content.

Pip:

When was this?

Naomi:

It was during the Easter holidays. Thank god it wasn’t during the school term; that would have been even worse for Nat.

Pip:

OK, so what was it? Naomi:

So, as far as I know, Andie had been hanging out with some friends from school, including her two minions.

Pip:

Chloe Burch and Emma Hutton?

Naomi:

Yeah and some other kids. Not Sal or any of us. And there was this guy, Chris Parks, who everyone knew Nat fancied. I don’t know all the details, but Andie either used his phone or told him what to do, and they were sending flirty texts to Nat. And she was responding ’cause she liked Chris and thought it was him. And then Andie slash Chris asked Nat to send a video of her topless, with her face in it so he’d know it was really her.

Pip:

And Nat did it?

Naomi:

Yeah. A little naive, but she thought she was talking to just Chris. The next we all know, the clip is online and Andie and loads of other people are sharing it on their profiles. The comments were so horrible. And practically everyone in the year saw it before it got taken down. Nat was inconsolable. She even skipped the first two days back at school after Easter because she was so humiliated.

Pip:

Sal knew Andie was doing this? Naomi:

Well, I mentioned it to him. He didn’t approve obviously, but he just said, ‘It’s Andie’s drama. I don’t want to get involved.’ Sal was just too laid-back about some things.

Pip:

Was there anything else that happened between Nat and Andie? Naomi:

Yeah, actually. Something I think is just as bad, but hardly anyone knew about it. I might have been the only one Nat told ’cause she was crying in biology right after it happened.

Pip:

What?

Naomi:

So in that autumn term the school was doing a sixth-form play. I think it was The Crucible . After auditions Nat was given the main part.

Pip:

Abigail?

Naomi:

Maybe, I don’t know. And apparently Andie had wanted that part and she was really pissed off. So after the parts were posted, Andie corners Nat and she told her . . .

Pip:

Yes?

Naomi:

Sorry, I forgot to mention some context. Nat’s brother, Daniel, who was, like, five years older than us, he had worked at the school part-time as a caretaker when we were like fifteen or sixteen. Only for a year while he was looking for other jobs.

Pip:

OK?

Naomi:

OK, so Andie corners Nat and says to her that when her brother was still working at the school he had sex with Andie even though she was only fifteen at the time. And Andie tells Nat to drop out of the play or she will go to the police and say she was statutorily raped by Nat’s brother. And Nat dropped out because she was scared of what Andie would do.

Pip:

Was it true? Did Andie have a relationship with Nat’s brother? Naomi:

I don’t know. Nat didn’t know for sure either, that’s why she dropped out. But I don’t think she ever asked him.

Pip:

Do you know where Nat is now? Do you think I could talk to her? Naomi:

I’m not really in contact with her, but I know she’s back at home with her parents. I heard some stuff about her, though.

Pip:

What stuff?

Naomi:

Um, I think at uni she was involved in some kind of fight. She got arrested and charged with ABH and I think she spent some time in prison.

Pip:

Oh god.

Naomi:

I know. Pip:

Can you give me her number?