SWNOVELS : Part 1 – Chapter 9
They probably thought she couldn’t hear them. Her parents, bickering in the living room downstairs. She had long ago learned that the word ‘Pip’ was one that travelled exceptionally well through walls and floors.
Listening through the crack of her bedroom door, it wasn’t hard to catch hold of snatches and shape them into a gist. Her mum wasn’t happy that Pip was spending so much of her summer on schoolwork. Her dad wasn’t happy that her mother had said that. Then her mum wasn’t happy because her dad had misunderstood what she meant. She thought that obsessing over the Andie Bell thing would be unhealthy for her. Her dad wasn’t happy that her mum wouldn’t give Pip the space to make her own mistakes, if that’s what they were.
Pip grew bored of the sparring match and closed her bedroom door. She knew their cyclical argument would burn itself out soon, without neutral intervention. And she had an important phone call to make.
She had private-messaged both of Andie’s best friends last week. Emma Hutton replied a few hours ago with a phone number, saying she didn’t mind answering ‘just a few’ questions at eight o’clock tonight. When Pip told Ravi this, he’d texted back with a whole page of shock-face and fist-bump emojis.
She glanced at the clock on her computer dashboard and the glance became a stare. The clock stood stubbornly at 7:58 p.m.
‘Oh, come on,’ she said when, even after twenty Mississippis, the eight in the :58 hadn’t sprung into the leg of a nine.
When it did, an age later, Pip said, ‘Close enough,’ and pressed the record button on her app. She dialled Emma’s number, her skin prickling with nerves. It picked up on the third ring.
‘Hello?’ said a high and sweet voice.
‘Hi, Emma, this is Pippa here.’
‘Oh yeah, hi. Hold on, let me just go up to my room.’
Pip listened impatiently to the sound of Emma’s feet skipping up a flight of stairs.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘So, you said you’re doing a project about Andie?’
‘Sort of, yeah. About the investigation into her disappearance and the media’s role in it. A kind of case study.’
‘OK,’ Emma said, sounding uncertain. ‘I’m not sure how much help I can be with that.’
‘Don’t worry, I just have a few basic questions about the investigation as you remember it,’ Pip said. ‘So firstly, when did you find out she was missing?’
‘Um . . . it was around one o’clock that night. Her parents rang both me and Chloe Burch; we were Andie’s best friends. I said how I hadn’t seen her or heard from her and told them I would call around a bit. I tried Sal Singh that night but he didn’t pick up until the next morning.’
‘Did the police contact you at all?’ asked Pip.
‘Yeah, Saturday morning. They came around asking questions.’
‘And what did you tell them?’
‘Just the same as I said to Andie’s parents. That I had no idea where she was; she hadn’t told me she was going anywhere. And they were asking about Andie’s boyfriend, so I told them about Sal and that I’d just rung and told him she was missing.’
‘What did you tell them about Sal?’
‘Well, only that at school that week they were kind of fighting. I definitely saw them bickering on the Thursday and Friday, which was out of the ordinary. Usually Andie bickered at him and he didn’t get involved. But this time he seemed super mad about something.’
‘What about?’ Pip said. It was suddenly clearer to her why the police might have thought it prudent to interview Sal that afternoon.
‘I don’t know, honestly. When I asked Andie she just said that Sal was being “a little bitch” about something.’
Pip was taken aback. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘So Andie didn’t have plans to see Sal on the Friday?’
‘No, she didn’t have plans to do anything actually; she was supposed to stay at home that night.’
‘Oh, how come?’ Pip sat up a little straighter.
‘Um, I don’t know if I should say.’
‘Don’t worry –’ Pip tried to hide the desperation in her voice – ‘if it’s not relevant it won’t go in my project. It just might help me better understand the circumstances of her disappearance.’
‘Yeah, OK. Well, Andie’s little sister, Becca, had been hospitalized for self-harming several weeks before. Her parents had to go out, so they told Andie she had to stay in and take care of Becca.’
‘Oh,’ was all Pip could think to say.
‘Yeah, I know, poor girl. And still Andie left her. Only looking back now can I understand how difficult it must have been having Andie as an older sister.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Erm, it’s just, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, you know, but . . . I’ve had five years to grow up and reflect on everything and when I think back to those times I don’t like the person I was at all. The person I was with Andie.’
‘Was she a bad friend to you?’ Pip didn’t want to say too much; she needed to keep Emma talking.
‘Yes and no. It’s really difficult to explain,’ Emma sighed. ‘Andie’s friendship was very destructive, but at the time, I was addicted to her. I wanted to be her. You’re not going to write any of this, are you?’
‘No, of course not.’ Small lie.
‘OK. So Andie was beautiful, she was popular, she was fun. Being her friend, being someone she chose to spend her time with, it made you feel special. Wanted. And then she would flip and use the things you were most self-conscious about to cut you down and hurt you. And still we both remained by her side, waiting for the next time she would pick us up and make us feel good again. She could be amazing and awful, and you never knew which side of Andie was turning up at your door. I’m surprised my self-esteem even survived.’
‘Was Andie like this with everyone?’
‘Well, yeah, to me and Chloe. Andie wouldn’t let us go over to her house much, but I saw the way she was with Becca too. She could be so cruel.’ Emma paused. ‘I’m not saying any of this because I mean that Andie deserved what she got. No, no that’s not what I mean at all, no one deserves to be murdered and put in a hole. I only mean that, appreciating now the kind of person Andie was, I can understand why Sal snapped and killed her. She could make you feel so high and then so low; it was bound to end in tragedy, I think.’
Emma’s voice slipped into a wet sniff and Pip knew the interview was over. Emma couldn’t hide the fact that she was crying, and she didn’t try to.
‘OK, those are all the questions I have. Thank you so much for your help.’
‘That’s OK,’ Emma said. ‘Sorry, I thought I was over everything. Guess not.’
‘No, I’m sorry for making you go over it all. Um, actually, I’ve also messaged Chloe Burch for an interview, but she hasn’t got back to me yet. Are you two still in contact?’
‘No, not really. Like, I’ll message her on her birthday, but . . . we definitely drifted after Andie and then leaving school. I think we both wanted it that way really, a clean break from the people we had been back then.’
Pip thanked her again and hung up the phone. She exhaled and just stared at it for a minute. She knew that Andie had been pretty and popular, that much social media had made perfectly clear. And like everyone that’s ever been to high school, she knew that popular people sometimes had their hard edges. But she hadn’t expected this. That Emma could still resent herself after all this time for loving her tormentor.
Was this the real Andie Bell, hiding behind that perfect smile, behind those sparkling pale blue eyes? Everyone in her orbit so dazzled by her, so blinded, that they didn’t notice the darkness that might lurk beneath. Not until it was too late.
Pippa Fitz-Amobi
EPQ 25/08/2017
Production Log – Entry 11
UPDATE : I researched to see if I could find the owner of the car with the number plate Sal had written down in his notes: R009 KKJ. Ravi was right. We’d need to know the make and model of the car to send a request to the DVLA. I guess that particular lead is dead.
OK, back to the task at hand. I just got off the phone with Chloe. I tried a different tactic this time; I didn’t need to go over the same things I’d learned from Emma and I didn’t want to hinder the interview with any dormant Andie emotional issues.
But I stumbled into some anyway . . .
Transcript of interview with Chloe Burch
[I’m getting bored of typing out the interview intros; they’re all the same and I always sound awkward. Skipping from now on straight to juicy bits.]
Pip: | OK, so my first question is how would you describe Andie and Sal’s relationship? | |
Chloe: | Yeah, good, he was nice to her and she thought he was hot. Sal always seemed really calm and chilled; I thought he would mellow Andie out a bit. | |
Pip: | Why would Andie have needed mellowing out? | |
Chloe: | Oh, just because she always had some drama going on. | |
Pip: | And did Sal mellow her? | |
Chloe: | (Laughs) No. | |
Pip: | But were they quite serious about each other? | |
Chloe: | I don’t know, I guess so. Define serious? | |
Pip: | Well, excuse the question, but were they sleeping together? | |
[Yes, I do cringe hearing this back. But I need to know everything.] | ||
Chloe: | Wow, school projects have changed since I left. Why on earth would you need to know that? | |
Pip: | Did she not tell you? | |
Chloe: | Of course she told me. And no, they weren’t, actually. | |
Pip: | Oh. Was Andie a virgin? | |
Chloe: | No, she wasn’t. | |
Pip: | So who was she sleeping with? | |
Chloe: | (Small pause) I don’t know. | |
Pip: | You didn’t know? | |
Chloe: | Andie liked her secrets, OK? They made her powerful. She got a thrill out of me and Emma not knowing certain things. But she’d dangle them in front of us because she liked us to ask. Like where she got all that money from; she would just laugh and wink when we asked. | |
Pip: | Money? | |
Chloe: | Yeah. That girl was always shopping, always had a load of cash on her. And, in our final year, she told me she was saving up to get lip fillers and a nose job. She never told Emma that, just me. But she was generous with it too; she’d buy us make-up and stuff, and always let us borrow her clothes. But then she’d pick her moment at the party to say something like: “Oh, Chlo, looks like you’ve stretched that. I’ll have to give it to Becca now.” Sweet girl. | |
Pip: | Where did her money come from? Did she have a part-time job? | |
Chloe: | No. I told you, I didn’t know. I just presumed her dad was giving it to her. | |
Pip: | Like an allowance? | |
Chloe: | Yeah, maybe. | |
Pip: | So when Andie first went missing, was there any part of you that thought she had run away to punish someone? Maybe her father? | |
Chloe: | Andie had things too good to want to run away. | |
Pip: | But was there tension in Andie’s relationship with her dad? | |
[As soon as I say the word ‘dad’ Chloe’s tone flips.] | ||
Chloe: | I don’t see how that can be relevant to your project. Look, I know I’ve been flippant about her and, yeah, she had her flaws, but she was still my best friend who got murdered. I don’t think it’s right to be talking about her personal relationships and her family, however many years later. | |
Pip: | No, you’re right, sorry. I just thought if I knew what Andie was like and what was happening in her life, I could better understand the case. | |
Chloe: | Yeah OK, but none of that is relevant. Sal Singh killed her. And you’re not going to get to know Andie from a few interviews. It was impossible to know her, even when you were her best friend. | |
[I inelegantly try to apologize and bring us back on topic, but it is clear Chloe is done. I thank her for her help before she hangs up.]
Grrr, so frustrating. I thought I was actually getting somewhere, but, no, I blundered into a giant minefield of raw emotion with both of Andie’s friends and ruined it. I guess even though they think they’ve moved on, they still haven’t quite broken free of Andie’s hold. Maybe they are even still keeping some of her secrets. I certainly struck a nerve when I brought up Andie’s dad; is there a story there?
I just read the transcript another few times and . . . maybe there’s something else hidden here. When I asked Chloe who Andie was sleeping with, what I’d meant to ask was who Andie had slept with before Sal, any past relationships. But I accidentally phrased it in the past continuous: ‘who was she sleeping with?’ This, in context, means that what I accidentally asked was: who else was Andie sleeping with at the same time as her relationship with Sal? But Chloe didn’t correct me. She just said she didn’t know.
I’m grasping at straws, I know. Of course, Chloe could have been answering the question I’d meant to ask. This could be nothing. I know I can’t solve this case by being particular about grammar, that’s not how the real world works unfortunately.
But now I’ve got the scent of it, I can’t let it go. Was Andie secretly seeing someone else? Did Sal find out and that’s why they were arguing? Does this explain Sal’s last text to Andie before she disappeared: im not talking to you till youve stopped ?
I’m not a police officer, this is still just a school project, so I can’t make them tell me anything. And these are the kinds of secrets you only share with your best friends, not some random girl doing her EPQ.
Oh My God. I’ve just had a horrible but maybe brilliant idea. Horrible and certainly immoral and probably stupid. And definitely, definitely wrong. And even so, I think I should do it. I can’t come out of this thing entirely squeaky clean if I actually want to find out what happened to Andie and Sal.
I’m going to catfish Emma, pretending to be Chloe.
I have that pay-as-you-go SIM I used on holiday last year. If I put that in my phone, I can text Emma pretending that I’m Chloe with a new number. It might work; Emma said they lost contact so she might not realize. And it might not work. But I have nothing to lose, and maybe secrets to gain and a killer to find.
Holy pepperoni.
I have never sweated so much in my whole damn life. I’m in shock that I managed to pull that off. I almost lost it a couple of times but . . . I actually did it.
I do feel bad, though. Emma is so nice and trusting. But it’s good that I feel guilty; it shows I haven’t quite lost my moral compass. I might still be a good girl yet . . .
And just like that, we have two more leads.
Jason Bell was already on the persons of interest list, but now he goes on in bold as number-one suspect. He was having an affair and Andie knew about it. More so than that, Jason knew that Andie knew. She must have approached him about it, or maybe she’s the one who caught him. That’s definitely filled in some of the gaps about why their relationship was strained.
And, now I think about it, was all this secret money Andie had given to her by her dad BECAUSE she knew? Was she, maybe, blackmailing him? No, that’s pure conjecture; I need to consider the money as separate intel until I can confirm where it came from.
The second lead and the biggest reveal of the night then: Andie was secretly seeing an older man during her relationship with Sal. So secret that she never told her friends who it was, only that she could ruin him. My mind goes immediately to that place: a married man. Could he have been the source of the secret money? I have a new suspect. One who would certainly have motive to silence Andie for good.
This is not the Andie I expected to find in my investigation, so removed from that public image of a beautiful blonde victim. A victim loved by her family, a victim adored by her friends, a victim who was taken too soon by her ‘cruel, murderous ’ boyfriend. Maybe that Andie was a fictional character all along, designed to bucket-collect people’s sympathy, to exchange their coins for newspapers. And now that I’m scratching, that image is starting to peel away at the corners.
I need to call Ravi.
Persons of Interest
Jason Bell
Naomi Ward
Secret Older Guy (how much older?)