Page 154 of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

Could Sal really have been guilty all along? Sal as the killer has always been the path of least resistance, but was it so easy for everyone to believe because it’s also true?

But no:The note.

Somebody warned me to stop digging.

Yes, the note could have been someone’s idea of a prank, and if the note was a joke, then Sal could be the real killer. But it doesn’t feel right. Someone in this town has something to hide and they’re scared because I’m on the right path to chasing them down.

I just have to keep chasing, even when the path is resisting me.

Persons of Interest

Jason Bell

Naomi Ward

Secret Older Guy

Nat da Silva

Daniel da Silva

Fifteen

‘Take my hand,’ Pip said, reaching down and cupping her fingers round Joshua’s.

They crossed the road, Josh’s palm sticky in her right hand, Barney’s lead grating in the other as the dog pulled ahead.

She let go of Josh when they reached the pavement outside the cafe and crouched to loop Barney’s lead round the leg of a table.

‘Sit. Good boy,’ she said, stroking his head as he looked up at her with a tongue-lolling smile.

She opened the door to the cafe and ushered Josh inside.

‘I’m a good boy too,’ he said.

‘Good boy, Josh,’ she said, absently patting his head as she scanned the sandwich shelves. She picked out four different flavours, brie and bacon for Dad, of course, and cheese and ham ‘without the icky bits’for Josh. She took the bundle of sandwiches up to the till.

‘Hi, Jackie,’ she said, smiling as she handed over the money.

‘Hello, sweetheart. Big Amobi lunch plans?’

‘We’re assembling garden furniture and it’s getting tense,’ Pip said. ‘Need sandwiches to placate the hangry troops.’

‘Ah, I see,’ said Jackie. ‘Would you tell your mum I’ll pop by next week with my sewing machine?’

‘I shall do, thanks.’ Pip took the paper bag from her and turned back to Josh. ‘Come on then, squirt.’

They were almost at the door when Pip spotted her, sitting at a table alone, her hands cupped round a takeaway coffee. Pip hadn’t seen her in town for years; she’d presumed she was still away at university. She must be twenty-one by now, maybe twenty-two. And here she was just feet away, tracing her fingertips over the furrowed wordscaution hot beverage,looking more like Andie than she ever had before.

Her face was slimmer now, and she’d started dying her hair lighter, just like her sister’s had been. But hers was cut short and blunt above her shoulders where Andie’s had hung down to her waist. Yet even though the likeness was there, Becca Bell’s face did not have the composite magic of her sister’s, a girl who had looked more like a painting than a real person.

Pip knew she shouldn’t; she knew it was wrong and insensitive and all those words Mrs Morgan had used in her ‘I’m just concerned about the direction of your project’warnings. And even though she could feel the sensible and rational parts of herself rallying in her head, she knew that a small sliver of Pip had already made the decision. That flake of recklessness inside contaminating all other thoughts.

‘Josh,’ she said, handing him the sandwich bag, ‘can you go and sit outside with Barney for a minute? I’ll be two seconds.’

He looked pleadingly up at her.

‘You can play on my phone,’ she said, digging it out of her pocket.

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