‘Barney-Barney-Barney plops,’ Pip sang, both the dog’s front paws in her hands as they danced around the dining table. Then her mum’s old CD

got stuck in a surface scratch, telling them to hit the road, Ja-Ja-Ja-Ja-Ja . .

.

‘Awful sound.’ Pip’s mum, Leanne, entered with a dish of roasted potatoes, placing them on a trivet on the table. ‘Skip to the next one, Pips,’

she said, leaving the room again.

Pip set Barney down and prodded the button on the CD player; that last relic of the twentieth century that her mum was not ready to give up for touch screens and Bluetooth speakers. Fair enough; even watching her use the TV remote was painful.

‘Have you carved, Vic?’ Leanne shouted, backing into the room with a bowl of steaming broccoli and peas, a small knob of butter melting on top. ‘The poultry is pared, my fair lady,’ came his response.

‘Josh! Dinner’s ready,’ Leanne called.

Pip went to help her dad carry in the plates and the roast chicken, Josh sidling in behind them.

‘You finished your homework, sweetie?’ Mum asked Josh as they all took their acknowledged seats at the table. Barney’s place was on the floor

beside Pip, a co-conspirator in her mission to drop small bits of meat when her parents weren’t looking.

Pip nipped in and grabbed the potato dish before her dad could beat her to it. He, like Pip, was a spud connoisseur.

‘Joshua, may you bestow the Bisto upon your father?’

When each of their plates were loaded up and everyone had dug in, Leanne turned to Pip, her fork pointed at her. ‘When’s the deadline for sending in your UCAS application then?’

‘The fifteenth,’ Pip said. ‘I’m going to try to send it in a couple of days. Be a tad early.’

‘Have you spent enough time on your personal statement? All you ever seem to be doing is that EPQ at the moment.’

‘When am I ever not on top of things?’ Pip said, spearing a particularly overgrown broccoli stump, the Sequoiadendron giganteum tree of the broccoli world. ‘If I ever miss a deadline, it will be because the apocalypse has started.’

‘OK, well, Dad and I can read it through after dinner if you want?’ ‘Yep, I’ll print a copy.’

The train whistle of Pip’s phone blared, making Barney jump and her mum scowl.

‘No phones at the table,’ she said.

‘Sorry,’ Pip said. ‘I’m just putting it on silent.’

It could very well be the start of one of Cara’s lengthy monologues sent line by line, where Pip’s phone became a station out of hell, all the trains in a frenzied scram screaming over each other. Or maybe it was Ravi. She

pulled out the phone and looked down at the screen in her lap to flick the ringer button.

She felt the blood drain from her face.

All the heat guttered down her back, slopping into her gut where it churned, pushing her dinner back up. Her throat constricted at the sudden drop into cold fear.

‘Pip?’

‘Uh . . . I . . . suddenly desperate for a wee,’ she said, jumping up from her chair with her phone in hand, almost tripping over the dog.

She darted from the room and across the hall. Her thick woollen socks slipped out under her on the polished oak and she fell, catching the weight of the fall on one elbow.

‘Pippa?’ Victor’s voice called.

‘I’m OK,’ she said, picking herself up. ‘Just skidded.’

She shut the bathroom door behind her and locked it. Slamming down the toilet-seat lid, she turned shakily to sit on top of it. Her phone between both hands, she opened it and clicked on to the message.

You stupid bitch. Leave this alone while you still can.

From Unknown.

Pippa Fitz-Amobi EPQ 08/10/2017 Production Log  – Entry 24‌

I can’t sleep.

School starts in five hours and I can’t sleep.

There’s no part of me that thinks this can be a joke any more. The note in my sleeping bag, this text. It’s real. I’ve plugged all the leaks in my research since the camping trip; the only people who know what I’ve discovered are Ravi and those I’ve interviewed.

Yet someone knows I’m getting close and they are starting to panic. Someone who followed me into the woods. Someone who has my phone number.

I tried to message them back, a futile who is this? It errored. It couldn’t send it. I’ve looked it up: there are certain websites and apps you can use to anonymize texts so I can neither reply nor find out who sent it.

They are fittingly named. Unknown.

Is Unknown the person who actually murdered Andie Bell? Do they want me to think they can get to me too?

I can’t go to the police. I don’t have enough evidence yet. All I have are unsworn statements from people who knew different fragments of Andie’s secret lives. I have seven persons of interest but no one main suspect yet. There are too many people in Little Kilton who had motive to kill Andie.

I need tangible proof.

I need that burner phone.

And only then will I leave this alone, Unknown . Only when the truth is out there and you no longer are.