SWNOVELS : Part 5 – Chapter 20
Jamie Reynolds is clearly dead.
The words jumped in and out of focus as Connor held the phone in front of her eyes.
‘Look,’ he said, his voice quivering, maybe with the effort of keeping up with her down this corridor, maybe with something else.
‘I have,’ Pip said, slowing to divert around a group of chittering year sevens. ‘What was the one very important rule I gave you, Con?’ She looked over at him. ‘Never read the comments. Ever. OK?’
‘I know,’ he said, going back to his phone. ‘But that’s a reply to your tweet with the episode link, and it’s already got one hundred and nine likes. Does that mean one hundred and nine people really think my brother’s dead?’
‘Connor –’
‘And there’s this one, from Reddit,’ he carried on, not listening to her. ‘This person thinks that Jamie must have taken the knife from our house on Friday evening, to defend himself, therefore he must have known someone would try to attack him.’
‘Connor.’
‘What?’ he said defensively. ‘You read the comments.’
‘Yes, I do. In case there are any tips, or someone has spotted something I missed. But I know that the vast majority are unhelpful and that the internet is full of morons,’ she said, skipping up the first set of stairs. ‘Did you see Jamie carrying a dirty great knife around at the memorial? Or in any of the photos from the calamity? No. Because he couldn’t have, he was wearing just a shirt and jeans. Not many places to hide a six-inch blade.’
‘You get quite a few trolls, huh?’ Connor followed her as she pushed through the double doors on to the history floor. ‘I killed Jamie and I’ll kill you too, Pip.’
A student in the year below was just passing when he said that. She gasped, mouth open in shock, hurrying away from them in the other direction.
‘I was just reading something out,’ Connor called to explain, giving up as the girl disappeared through the opposite doors.
‘Right.’ Pip stopped outside Mr Clark’s classroom, looking through the glass in the door. He was there, sitting at his desk even though it was break time. She guessed he was new enough that an empty classroom was still more welcoming than the staff room. ‘Come with me, but if I give you the eyes, that means you need to leave. Got it?’
‘Yes, I get it now,’ Connor said.
Pip opened the door and gave Mr Clark a small wave.
He stood up. ‘Hello Pip, Connor,’ he said brightly, fidgeting like he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. One went to his wavy brown hair, the other settling in his pocket. ‘What can I do for you both? Is this about the exam?’
‘Um, it’s actually about something else.’ Pip leaned against one of the tables at the front of the classroom, resting the weight of her rucksack.
‘What is it?’ Mr Clark said, his face changing, features rearranging beneath his heavy brows.
‘I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Connor’s brother, Jamie, went missing last Friday and I’m looking into his disappearance. He was an ex-pupil here.’
‘Yes, yes I saw that in the town newspaper yesterday,’ Mr Clark said. ‘I’m very sorry, Connor, that must be very hard for you and your family. I’m sure the school counsellor would –’
‘So,’ Pip cut him off; there were only fifteen minutes left of break, and time wasn’t something she had to spare. ‘We’re investigating Jamie’s disappearance and we’ve traced a lead to a particular individual. And, well, we think you might know this individual. Might be able to give us some information on her.’
‘Well, I . . . I don’t know if I’m allowed . . .’ he spluttered.
‘Layla Mead.’ Pip said the name, watching Mr Clark’s face for a reaction. And he gave her one, though he tried to wrestle with it, shake it off. But he hadn’t been able to hide that flash of panic in his eyes. ‘So you do know her?’
‘No.’ He fiddled with his collar like it was suddenly too small for him. ‘Sorry, I’ve never heard that name before.’
So, he wanted to play it that way, did he?
‘Oh, OK,’ Pip said, ‘my mistake.’ She stood up, heading towards the door. Behind her, she heard Mr Clark breathe a sigh of relief. That’s when she stopped, turned back. ‘It’s just,’ she said, scratching her head like she was confused, ‘it’s strange, then.’
‘Sorry?’ said Mr Clark.
‘I mean, it’s strange that you’ve never heard the name Layla Mead before, when you follow her on Instagram and have liked several of her posts.’ Pip looked up at the ceiling, like she was searching for an explanation. ‘Maybe you forgot about that?’
‘I . . . I,’ he stammered, watching Pip warily as she stepped forward.
‘Yeah, you must have forgot about it,’ she said. ‘Because I know you wouldn’t intentionally lie about something that could help save an ex-pupil’s life.’
‘My brother,’ Connor chimed in, and Pip hated to admit it, but his timing was perfect. And that glassy, imploring look in his eyes too: spot on.
‘Um, I . . . I don’t think this is appropriate,’ Mr Clark said, a flush of red appearing above his collar. ‘Do you know how strict they are now, after everything with Mr Ward and Andie Bell? All these safeguarding measures, I shouldn’t even be alone with any student.’
‘Well, we aren’t alone.’ Pip gestured to Connor. ‘And the door can stay wide open, if you want. All I care about is finding Jamie Reynolds alive. And to do that, I need to you to tell me everything you know about Layla Mead.’
‘Stop,’ Mr Clark said, the red creeping above his beard into his cheeks now. ‘I am your teacher, please stop trying to manipulate me.’
‘No one’s manipulating here,’ Pip said coolly, glancing back at Connor. She knew exactly what she was about to do, and that pit in her stomach knew too, reflooding with guilt. Ignore it, just ignore it. ‘Although I do wonder whether you knew Layla was using the photos of a current student here at Kilton: Stella Chapman?’
‘I didn’t know that at the time,’ he said, voice dipping into whispers. ‘I don’t teach her, I only worked it out a few weeks ago when I saw her walking down the hall, and that was already after me and Layla had stopped talking.’
‘Still,’ Pip pulled a face with gritted teeth, sucking in a breath between them. ‘I wonder if that would get you into hot water if anyone found out.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Here’s what I suggest,’ she said, replacing her expression with an innocent smile. ‘You record an interview with me in which I use a plug-in to distort your voice. Your name will never be mentioned and I’ll bleep out any information that might potentially identify you. But you tell me everything you know about Layla Mead. If you do that, I’m sure no one will ever find out anything you wouldn’t want them to.’
Mr Clark paused for a moment, chewing the inside of his cheek, glancing at Connor as though he could help. ‘Is that blackmail?’
‘No sir,’ Pip said. ‘It’s just persuasion.’
Pip: | So, let’s start with how you and Layla met. |
Anonymous: | [DISTORTED] We never met. Not in real life. |
Pip: | Right, but what was your first online communication? Who initiated contact? Did you match on Tinder? |
Anonymous: | No, no, I’m not on there. It was Instagram. I have my account set to private so that [————-BEEP————-]. One day, I think near the end of February, this woman Layla requested to follow me. I checked out her profile, thought she looked nice, and clearly she was local to Little Kilton because she had photos from around town. And I’d only been living here a couple of months then and hadn’t really had the chance to meet any people outside of [–BEEP–]. I thought it might be nice to get to know someone new, so I approved her and followed her back. Liked a couple of her photos. |
Pip: | Did you start messaging each other directly? |
Anonymous: | Yes, I got a DM from Layla, something like, ‘Hey, thanks for following me back.’ Said she thought she recognized me, asked if I lived in Little Kilton. I’m not going to go into all the particulars of our conversations, by the way. |
Pip: | Yes, I understand. So, to clarify, the nature of your and Layla’s conversations, would you say they were . . . romantic? Flirtatious? |
Anonymous: | |
Pip: | OK, no need to answer. Loud and clear. I don’t want you to recount every conversation, I just want to know anything Layla said that might help me identify who she really is. Did you ever have a phone conversation with her? |
Anonymous: | No. Only on Instagram. And really, we only spoke on and off for a few days. A week at most. It wasn’t a big deal. |
Pip: | Did Layla tell you where she lives? |
Anonymous: | Yes, Little Kilton. We didn’t get to the point of swapping addresses, obviously. But she seemed to have local knowledge, talked about drinking in the King’s Head. |
Pip: | Did she tell you anything else about herself? |
Anonymous: | Said she was twenty-five. That she lived with her dad and she worked in HR somewhere in London but she was signed off work sick at the moment. |
Pip: | Sick? With what? |
Anonymous: | I didn’t ask. We hardly knew each other, that would have been rude. |
Pip: | Seems like a classic catfish line to me. Did you suspect she wasn’t who she said she was at any time? |
Anonymous: | No. No idea, not until I saw Stella Chapman [———— BEEP———-] and I was very shocked that I’d been catfished. At least it hadn’t gone on long at all. |
Pip: | So, you only spoke for a week? What kind of things did you talk about? The clean stuff. |
Anonymous: | She asked me a lot of questions about myself. A lot, in fact. I found it quite refreshing to meet someone so interested in me. |
Pip: | Really? What kinds of things did she ask? |
Anonymous: | It wasn’t like she was interviewing me or anything, her questions all occurred naturally during conversation. Right at the start she wanted to know how old I was, asked me directly. I told her I was twenty-nine, and then she asked when I would turn thirty, and if I had any plans yet for the big birthday. She was chatty like that. Nice. And she was interested in my family too, asked if I still lived with any of them, if I had siblings, how my parents were. She would sort of avoid answering when I returned those questions, though. Seemed more interested in me. Made me think she didn’t have such a good home life. |
Pip: | It seems like you two were getting on well, why did you stop messaging after a week? |
Anonymous: | She stopped messaging me. It felt completely out of the blue to me. |
Pip: | She ghosted you? |
Anonymous: | Yes, embarrassingly. I kept messaging after, like, ‘Hello? Where’ve you gone?’ And nothing. Never heard from her again. |
Pip: | Do you have any idea why she ghosted? Anything you might’ve said? |
Anonymous: | Don’t think so. I know what the last thing I said to her was, before she disappeared. She’d asked me what I did for a living, and so I replied and told her that I was a [—– BEEP—–] at the [—-BEEP—-]. And then that was it, she never replied. I guess maybe she’s one of those people who doesn’t want to go out with a [–BEEP–]. Maybe she feels like she can do better, or something. |
Pip: | I know you didn’t know she was a catfish at the time, but looking back now, did Layla let anything slip, any clues about her real identity? Her age? Any out-of-date slang she might have used? Did she mention Jamie Reynolds to you? Or any other people she interacts with in real life? |
Anonymous: | No, nothing like that. I believed she was exactly who she told me she was. No slips. So, if she’s a catfish, then I guess she’s a pretty damn good one. |