A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

‘There are a lot of people out there, Sarge.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, like, two hundred.’

She could hear them all; the chattering and the clattering of chairs as people took their seats in the school hall.

She was waiting in the wings, her presentation notes clutched in her hands, the sweat from the bulbs of her fingers smudging the printed ink.

Everyone else in her year had done their EPQ presentations earlier in the week, to small classrooms of people and the modulators. But the school and the exam board thought it would be a good idea to turn Pip’s presentation into ‘a bit of an event ,’ as the head teacher had put it. Pip had been given no choice in the matter. The school had advertised it online and in the Kilton Mail. They’d invited members of the press to attend; Pip had seen a BBC van pull up earlier and the equipment and cameras unpacked.

‘Are you nervous?’ Ravi said.

‘Are you asking obvious questions?’

When the Andie Bell story broke it had been in the national newspapers and on TV stations for weeks. It was in the height of all that craziness that Pip had had her interview for Cambridge. The two college fellows had recognized her from the news, gawping at her, yapping questions about the case. Her offer was one of the very first to come in.

Kilton’s secrets and mysteries had followed Pip so closely in those weeks she’d had to wear them like a new skin. Except that one that was buried deep down, the one she’d keep forever to save Cara. Her best friend who’d never once left Pip’s side in the hospital.

‘Can I come over later?’ Ravi asked her.

‘Sure. Cara and Naomi are round for dinner too.’

They heard a sharp patter of clip-clop heels and Mrs Morgan appeared, fighting through the curtain.

‘I think we’re just about ready when you are, Pippa.’

‘OK, I’ll be out in a minute.’

‘Well,’ Ravi said when they were alone again, ‘I’d better go and take my seat.’

He smiled, put his hands on the back of her neck, fingers in her hair, and leaned in to press his forehead against hers. He’d told her before that he did it to take away half her sadness, half her headache, half her nerves as she’d got on the train to Cambridge for her interview. Because half less of a bad thing meant there was room for half good.

He kissed her, and she glowed with that feeling. The one with wings.

‘You bring the rain down on them, Pip.’

‘I will.’

‘Oh, and,’ he said, turning one last time before the door, ‘don’t tell them the only reason you started this project was because you fancied me. You know, think of a more noble reason.’

‘Get out of here.’

‘Don’t feel bad. You couldn’t help yourself, I’m ravishing,’ he grinned. ‘Get it? Ravi-shing. Ravi Singh.’

‘Sign of a great joke, having to explain it,’ she said. ‘Now go.’

She waited another minute, muttering the first lines of her speech under her breath. And then she walked out on stage.

People weren’t quite sure what to do. About half the audience started clapping politely, the news cameras panning to them, and the other half sat deadly still, a poppy field of eyes stalking her as she moved.

From the front row, her dad stood up and whistled with his fingers, shouting: ‘Get ’em, pickle.’ Her mum swiftly pulled him back down and exchanged a look with Nisha Singh, sitting beside her.

Pip strode over to the head teacher’s lectern and flattened her speech down on top.

‘Hi,’ she said, and the microphone screeched, cutting through the silent room. Cameras clicked. ‘My name is Pip and I know many things. I know that typewriter is the longest word that can be made with just one row of the keyboard. I know that the Anglo-Zanzibar war was the shortest in history, lasting only thirty-eight minutes. I also know that this project put myself, my friends and my family in danger and has changed many lives, not all for the better. But what I don’t know,’ she paused, ‘is why this town and the national media still don’t really understand what happened here. I am not the “prodigy student” who found the truth for Andie Bell in long articles where Sal Singh and his brother Ravi are relegated to small side notes. This project began with Sal. To find the truth.’

Pip’s eyes uncovered him then. Stanley Forbes in the third row, scribbling away in an open notebook. She still wondered about him, him and the other names on her persons of interest list, the other lives and secrets that had criss-crossed this case. Little Kilton still had its mysteries, unturned stones and unanswered questions. But this town had too many dark corners; Pip had learned to accept that she couldn’t shine a light into each and every one.

Stanley was sitting just behind her friends, Cara’s face absent among them. As brave as she had been through everything, she’d decided today would have been too hard for her.

‘I couldn’t have fathomed,’ Pip continued, ‘that when this project was over, it would end with four people in handcuffs and one being set free after five years in her own prison. Elliot Ward has pleaded guilty to the murder of Sal Singh, to the kidnap of Isla Jordan and perverting the course of justice. His sentencing hearing is next week. Becca Bell will face trial later this year for the following charges: manslaughter by gross negligence, preventing a lawful burial and perverting the course of justice. Max Hastings has been charged with four counts of sexual assault and two counts of rape, and will also be tried later this year. And Howard Bowers has pleaded guilty to the charge of supplying a controlled drug and possession with intent to sell.’

She shuffled her notes and cleared her throat.

‘So, why did the events of Friday the twentieth of April 2012 happen? The way I see it, there are a handful of people who carry some of the blame for what happened that night and the days following, morally if not all criminally. These are: Elliot Ward, Howard Bowers, Max Hastings, Becca Bell, Jason Bell and, do not forget, Andie herself. You have cast her as your beautiful victim and wilfully overlook those more shaded layers of her character, because it doesn’t comfortably fit your narrative. But this is the truth: Andie Bell was a bully who used emotional blackmail to get what she wanted. She sold drugs without care or regard for how they might be used. We will never know if she knew she was facilitating drug-assisted sexual assault, but certainly when confronted with this truth by her own sister she could not find it in herself to show compassion.

‘And yet, when we look closer, what do we find behind this true Andie? We find a girl, vulnerable and self-conscious. Because Andie grew up being taught by her father that the only value she had was in the way she looked and how strongly she was desired. Home for her was a place where she was bullied and belittled. Andie never got the chance to become the young woman she might have been away from that house, to decide for herself what made her valuable and what future she wanted.

‘And though this story does have its monsters, I’ve found that it is not one that can be so easily cleaved into the good and the bad. In the end, this was a story about people and their different shades of desperation, crashing up against each other. But there was one person who was good until the very end. And his name was Sal Singh.’

Pip looked up then, her eyes flicking straight to Ravi, sitting between his parents.

‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘I didn’t do this project alone, as the guidelines require. I couldn’t have done it on my own. So, I guess you’re going to have to disqualify me.’

A few people gasped in the audience, Mrs Morgan loudly among them. A few titters of laughter.

‘I couldn’t have solved this case without Ravi Singh. In fact, I wouldn’t have survived it. So, if anyone should speak about how kind Sal Singh was now that you’re all finally listening, it’s his brother.’

Ravi stared at her from his seat, his eyes wide in that telling-off way that she loved. But she knew he needed this. And he knew it too.

She beckoned with a tilt of her head and Ravi got to his feet. Victor stood up too, whistling with his fingers again and smacking his big hands loudly together. Some of the students in the audience joined in, clapping as Ravi jogged up the steps to the stage and walked over to the lectern.

Pip stepped back from the microphone as Ravi joined her. He winked at her and Pip felt a flash of pride as she watched him step up to the lectern, scratching the back of his head. He’d told her just yesterday that he was going to retake his school exams so he could go on to study law.

‘Erm . . . hi,’ Ravi said, and the microphone screeched for him too. ‘I wasn’t expecting this, but it’s not every day a girl throws away a guaranteed A star for you.’ There was a quiet ripple of warm laughter. ‘But, I guess, I didn’t need preparation to talk about Sal. I’ve been preparing for that nearly six years now. My brother wasn’t just a good person, he was one of the best. He was kind, exceptionally kind, always helping people and nothing was ever too much trouble. He was selfless. I remember this one time when we were kids, I spilt Ribena all over the carpet and Sal took the fall for me so I wouldn’t get in trouble. Oops, sorry, Mum, guess you had to find out some time.’

More laughter from the audience.

‘Sal was cheeky. And he had the most ridiculous laugh; you couldn’t help but join in. And, oh yeah, he used to spend hours drawing these comics for me to read in bed because I wasn’t a great sleeper. I still have them all. And damn was Sal clever. I know he would have done incredible things with his life, if it hadn’t been taken away from him. The world will never be as bright without him in it,’ Ravi’s voice cracked. ‘And I wish I’d been able to tell him all this when he was alive. Tell him he was the best big brother anyone could ever wish for. But at least I can say it now on this stage and know that this time everyone will believe me.’

He looked back at Pip, his eyes shining, reaching for her. She drew forward to stand with him, leaning into the microphone to say her final lines.

‘But there was one final player in this story, Little Kilton, and it’s us. Collectively we turned a beautiful life into the myth of a monster. We turned a family home into a ghost house. And from now on we must do better.’

Pip reached down behind the lectern for Ravi’s hand, sliding her fingers between his. Their entwined hands became a new living thing, her finger pads perfect against the dips in his knuckles like they’d grown just that way to fit together.

‘Any questions?’