Page 80 of Good Girl, Bad Blood

‘It wasn’t her,’ Pip said. ‘She told me Jamie never turned up at her house as planned and ignored all her texts and calls.’

‘I don’t know then. I’m sorry,’ Joanna said in a small voice, like that was slipping away from her too.

‘That’s OK.’ Pip brightened hers to compensate. ‘I’m guessing you would have told me, but any luck with the computer password?’

‘Not yet,’ Connor said. ‘We’ve been working through that questionnaire, trying all variables with number replacements. Nothing so far. We’re keeping a record of everything we’ve tried, think we’re over six hundred failed attempts now.’

‘OK, well, keep trying. Tomorrow after school I’ll see if I can contact someone who can brute-force the password without damaging any of the data.’

‘Yep, will do.’ Connor fiddled with his own fingers. There was an open packet of cereal on the counter behind him, and two discarded bowls; Pip guessed those had been dinner. ‘Is there anything else we can be doing, other than the password? Anything?’

‘Um, yeah of course,’ she said, scrambling to think of something. ‘I’m still going through all the videos and photos people have sent me from the calamity party. As I said, I’m looking for people who were standing around the fireplace, from 9:38 p.m. until about 9:50 p.m. The only near-hit I’ve found is a photo taken at 9:29 in the direction of the fireplace. There are about nine people in it, some in our year, some the year below. The photo might be too early to show whoever Jamie was watching, but it’s something I . . . we can chase up tomorrow at school. Connor, I’ll email you the photo and video files and you could look through them, too?’

‘Yeah.’ He sat up straighter. ‘I’ll do that.’

‘Perfect.’

‘I’ve been getting messages from people,’ Joanna said. ‘From friends and neighbours who’ve seen your missing posters. I haven’t left the house, been trying Jamie’s computer and phone all day. Could I see the photo you used?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Pip swiped her finger across the mousepad to reawaken her laptop. She navigated through her recent files, pulled up the photograph and twisted the computer to face Joanna. ‘I went for this one,’ she said. ‘You can see his face clearly, and his smile isn’t too wide, because I often think people look quite different when they’resmilingsmiling. This was one you took before the birthday cake was lit, so no strange lighting from the candles. Is that OK?’

‘Yes,’ Joanna said quietly, covering her mouth with her balled-up hand. ‘Yes, it’s perfect.’ Her eyes filled as they flitted up and down over her son’s face, like she was scared to let her gaze settle in one spot for too long. What did she think she’d see if it did? Or was she studying his face, trying to remember every detail?

‘I’m just going to nip to the bathroom,’ Joanna said in a far-away voice, standing up shakily from her chair. She closed the kitchen door behind her and Connor sighed, deflated. He picked at the loose skin by his fingernails.

‘She’s gone upstairs to cry,’ he said. ‘Been doing it all day. I know what she’s doing, and she must know I know. But she won’t do it in front of me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Maybe she thinks I’ll lose hope if I see her crying.’

‘I’m sorry, Connor.’ Pip reached out to touch his arm, but he was too far across the table. She went for her laptop instead, pulling it back in front of her, Jamie’s face staring out. ‘But we’ve made progress today, we have. We’ve filled in more of Jamie’s timeline that night and have a couple of leads to look into.’

Connor shrugged, looking at the time on his phone. ‘Jamie was last seen at 10:32 now, right? That means the forty-eight-hour mark is in fifty-seven minutes.’ He went quiet for a moment. ‘He’s not coming back in the next fifty-seven minutes, is he?’

Pip didn’t know what to say to that. She knew something she should say, something she should have told him yesterday: not to touch Jamie’s toothbrush or his comb or anything that would have his DNA on it, in case it was ever needed. But now was not the time. She wasn’t sure there would ever be a right time to say that. A line that could never be uncrossed.

She looked instead at her screen, at Jamie’s half-smiling face, his eyes seeing out into hers as she saw into his, as though there weren’t ten days between them. And then she realized: he was sitting exactly opposite her, at this very same table. She was here and Jamie was right there, like a crack in time had opened up across this polished wooden surface. Everything was the same as in the photograph behind him: the fridge door with a scattered collection of cheesy souvenir magnets, the cream blind pulled one third of the way down behind the sink, the wooden chopping board propped up in the same place above Jamie’s left shoulder, and the black cylindrical knife rack above his other shoulder, holding six differently sized knives with colour-coded bands on their handles.

Well, actually – Pip’s eyes flickered between the screen and up – the knife set behind Jamie in the photo was complete, all the knives tucked inside: purple, orange, light green, dark green, red and yellow. But now, looking up, one of the knives was missing. The one with the yellow band.

‘What are you looking at?’ Connor said. Pip hadn’t noticed him standing behind her, watching over her shoulder.

‘Oh, nothing,’ she said. ‘I was just looking at this photo, and I noticed one of the knives isn’t here now. It’s nothing,’ she repeated, waving her hand to dismiss the idea.

‘It’s probably just in the dishwasher.’ Connor walked over and pulled open the dishwasher door. ‘Hm,’ he said, abandoning it and moving to the sink instead. He clattered around in there, the sound of porcelain hitting porcelain making Pip flinch. ‘Someone probably put it in a drawer by accident. I’m always doing that,’ he said, but there was a frantic edge to his voice now as he went about pulling out the drawers, their contents crashing around, drawers straining at their very limits.

Pip must have caught the dread from watching him, her heart spiking at every crash, and something cold made itself at home in her chest. Connor kept going, in a frenzy, until every drawer was open, like the kitchen had grown outward teeth, biting into the rest of the room. ‘Not here,’ he told her, needlessly.

‘Maybe you should ask your mum,’ Pip said, rising to her feet.

‘Mum!’ Connor shouted, turning his attention to the cupboards, opening each door until it looked like the kitchen was hanging upside down. It felt like it, too: Pip’s stomach lurching, feet stumbling over themselves.

She heard Joanna thundering down the stairs.

‘Calm down, Connor,’ Pip tried. ‘It’s probably here somewhere.’

‘And if it isn’t,’ he said on his knees, checking the cupboard under the sink, ‘what would that mean?’

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