Pip knew from her murder map that it would take Ravi about eighteen minutes to walk from his house to Monroe. He was four minutes faster, running when he spotted her.

“What is it?” he said, out of breath and brushing the hair back off his face.

“ ‘It’ is a lot of things,” Pip said quietly. “I’m not quite sure where to start, so I just will.”

“You’re freaking me out.” His eyes flicked over her face, searching.

“I’m freaking me out too.” She paused. “OK, you know how I was looking for the drug dealer, from my lead at the calamity party. Well, he was there tonight, dealing in the parking lot, and I followed him home. He lives here, Ravi. The road where Andie’s car was found.”

Ravi’s eyes wandered up to trace the outline of the dark street. “But how do you even know he’s the guy that supplied her?” he asked.

“I didn’t for sure,” she said. “I do now. But wait, there’s another thing I have to tell you first, and I don’t want you to be mad.”

“Why would I be mad?” He looked down at her, his face hardening around the eyes.

“Um, because I lied to you,” she said, her gaze down on her own feet. But she could feel Ravi’s stare, and her stomach jumped up, blocking her throat. Why was this so hard? “I told you that Sal’s police interview hadn’t arrived yet. It did, over two weeks ago.”

“What?” he said quietly. A look of unconcealed hurt clouded his face.

“I’m sorry,” Pip said. “But when it arrived and I read through it, I thought you’d be better off not seeing it.”

“Why?”

She swallowed. “Because it looked really bad for Sal. He was evasive with the police and outright told them he didn’t want to say why he and Andie were arguing on that Thursday and Friday. It looked like he was trying to hide his own motive. And I was scared that maybe he’d actually killed her, and I didn’t want to upset you.” She chanced to look up at his eyes. They were drawn and sad.

“You think Sal is guilty after all this?”

“No, I don’t. I just doubted it for a while, and I was scared what it would do to you. I was wrong, I’m sorry. It wasn’t my place. But I was also wrong to ever doubt Sal.”

Ravi looked at her, scratching the back of his head. “OK,” he said. “It’s OK, I get why you did it. So what’s going on?”

“I just found out exactly why Sal was so weird and evasive in his police interview and why he and Andie were arguing. Come on.”

She beckoned him to follow and walked back over to Howie’s bungalow. She pointed.

“This is the drug dealer’s house,” she said. “Look at his car, Ravi.”

She watched Ravi’s face as his eyes tracked up and down over the car. From windshield to bumper and headlight to headlight. Until they dropped to the license plate.

“Oh,” he said.

Pip nodded, staring back at the plate: 009 KKJ.

“Sal wrote that plate number in the notes on his phone,” Pip said. “On Wednesday, the sixteenth of April, at about seven-forty-five p.m. He must have been suspicious—maybe he’d heard rumors at school or something. So he followed Andie that evening and must have seen her with Howie and this car. And what she was doing.”

“That’s why they were arguing in the days before she went missing,” Ravi added. “Sal hated drugs. Hated them.”

“And when the police asked him about their arguing,” Pip continued, “he wasn’t being evasive to hide his own motive. He was protecting Andie. He didn’t think she was dead. He thought she was alive and coming back, and he didn’t want to get her in trouble with the police by telling them she was dealing drugs. And the final text he sent her on that Friday night?”

“ ‘I’m not talking to you till you’ve stopped,’ ” Ravi quoted.

“You know,” Pip said, smiling, “your brother has never looked more innocent than right now.”

“Thanks.” He returned the smile. “You know, I’ve never said this to a girl before, but…I’m glad you came knocking on my door out of the blue to interrogate me.”

Blood flushed to her cheeks and she untucked her hair so he wouldn’t see. “I distinctly remember you telling me to go away,” she said.

“Well, it appears you’re hard to get rid of.”

“That I am.” She bowed her head. “Ready to do some knocking with me?”

“What?” He looked at her, appalled.

“Oh come on,” she said, striding toward Howie’s front door. “You’re finally going to get some action.”

“Gah, so hard not to point out all the innuendos. Wait, Pip,” Ravi said, bounding after her. “What are you doing? He’s not going to talk to us.”

“He will,” Pip said, waving her phone above her head. “I have leverage.”

“What leverage?” Ravi caught up with her just before the front door.

She turned and flashed him a scrunched-up, crinkly-eyed smile. And then she took his hand. Before Ravi could take it away, she knocked it three times against the door.

He widened his eyes in a silent rebuke.

They heard shuffling and coughing from inside. A few seconds later the door was roughly pulled open.

Howie stood there, blinking at them. He’d taken off his coat now and was wearing a stained blue T-shirt, his feet bare. He smelled of stale smoke and damp, moldy clothes.

“Hello, Howie Bowers,” Pip said. “Please may we buy some drugs?”

“Who the hell are you?” Howie spat.

“I’m the hell person who took these lovely photos earlier tonight,” Pip said, scrolling to the pictures of Howie and holding the phone up to face him. She swiped across so he saw the whole range. “Interestingly, I know this boy you sold drugs to. His name’s Robin. I wonder what would happen if I called his parents right now and told them to search his backpack. I wonder if they’d find a small paper bag of treats. And then I wonder how long it would take for the police to come knocking around here, especially once I give them a call to help them along.”

She let Howie digest it all, his eyes darting between the phone, Ravi, and Pip.

He grunted. “What do you want?”

“I want you to invite us in and answer some of our questions,” Pip said, glad that Ravi was standing right behind her. She wasn’t so scared with him here, his breath warm against her hair. “That’s all, and we won’t go to the police.”

“What about?” he said, picking something from his teeth with his fingernails.

“About Andie Bell.”

A look of badly performed confusion spread over Howie’s face.

“You know, the girl you supplied with drugs to sell to schoolkids. The same girl who was murdered five years ago. Remember her?” Pip said. “Well, if you don’t, I’m sure the police will remember.”

“Fine,” Howie said, stepping back over a pile of plastic bags, holding the door open. “You can come in.”

“Excellent,” Pip said, looking back at Ravi over her shoulder. She mouthed, “Leverage” to him, and he rolled his eyes. But as she went to enter the house, Ravi pulled her behind him, crossing the threshold first. He stared Howie down until the man drew back from the door and moved along the tiny corridor.

Pip followed Ravi inside, shutting the door behind her.

“This way,” Howie said gruffly, disappearing into the living room.

He fell back into a tattered armchair, an open can of beer waiting for him on the armrest. Ravi stepped over to the sofa and, pushing away a pile of clothes, took the seat opposite Howie, straight-backed and as close to the edge of the couch cushion as it was possible to be. Pip sat beside him, crossing her arms.

Howie pointed his beer can at Ravi. “You’re the brother of the guy that murdered her.”

“Allegedly,” Pip and Ravi said at the same time.

The tension in the room mounted as eye contact shifted between the three of them.

“You understand we’ll go to the police with these pictures if you don’t answer our questions about Andie?” Pip said, eyeing the beer, which probably wasn’t Howie’s first since returning home.

“Yes, darling,” Howie laughed a teeth-whistle laugh. “You’ve made that clear enough.”

“Good,” she said. “I’ll keep my questions nice and clear too. When did Andie first start working with you, and how did it come about?”

“I don’t remember.” He took a large glug of beer. “Maybe early 2013. And she was the one that came to me. All I know is I had this ballsy teenager strolling up to me in the parking lot, telling me she could get me more business if I gave her a cut. Said she wanted to make money, and I told her that I had similar interests. Don’t know how she found out where I sold.”

“So you agreed when she offered to help you sell?”

“Obviously. She was promising an in with the younger crowd, kids I couldn’t really get to. It was win-win.”

“And then what happened?” Ravi said.

Howie’s eyes alighted on Ravi, and Pip felt him tense where their arms almost touched.

“We met up and I gave her some ground rules, like about keeping the stash and money hidden, about using codes rather than names. I gave her a phone to use for business stuff and that was it, really. I sent her out into the big wide world.” Howie smiled, his face and stubble unnervingly symmetrical.

“Andie had a second phone?” Pip asked.

“Yeah, obviously. Couldn’t be arranging deals on a phone her parents paid for, could she? I bought her a burner phone, prepaid in cash. Two, actually. I got the second one when the credit on the first ran out. Gave it to her only a few months before she got killed.”

“Where did Andie keep the drugs before she sold them?” asked Ravi.

“That was part of the ground rules.” Howie sat back, speaking into his can. “I told her this little business venture would go nowhere if she didn’t have somewhere to hide the stash and her second phone without her parents finding it. She assured me she had just the place, and no one else knew about it.”

“Where was it?” Ravi pressed.

He scratched his chin. “Um, think it was some kind of loose floorboard in her wardrobe. She said her parents had no idea it existed and she was always hiding shit there.”

“So the phone’s probably still hidden in Andie’s bedroom?” Pip said.

“I don’t know. Unless she had it on her when she…” Howie made a gurgling sound as he crossed his finger sharply across his throat.

Pip looked over at Ravi before her next question, a muscle pulsing in his jaw as he ground his teeth, not dropping his eyes from Howie. Like he thought he could hold him in place with his stare.

“OK,” she said, “so which drugs was Andie selling at house parties?”

Howie crushed the empty can and threw it onto the floor. “Started with just weed,” he said. “By the end she was selling a load of different things.”

“She asked which drugs Andie sold,” said Ravi. “List them.”

“Yeah, OK.” Howie looked annoyed, sitting up taller and picking at a textured brown stain on his T-shirt. “She sold weed, sometimes ecstasy, mephedrone, ketamine. She had a couple of regular buyers of Rohypnol.”

“Rohypnol?” Pip repeated, unable to hide her shock. “You mean roofies? Andie was dealing roofies at school parties?”

“Yeah. They’re for like chilling out though, too, not just what most people think.”

“Did you know who was buying Rohypnol from Andie?” she asked.

“Um, there was this rich kid, I think she said. Dunno.” Howie shook his head.

“A rich kid?” Pip’s mind immediately drew a picture of him: his angular face and sneering smile, floppy yellow hair. “Was this rich kid a blond guy?”

Howie looked blankly at her and shrugged.

“Answer or we go to the police,” Ravi said.

“Yeah, it could have been that blond guy.”

Pip cleared her throat to give herself some thinking time. “OK,” she said. “How often would you and Andie meet?”

“Whenever we needed to, whenever she had orders to collect or cash to give me. I’d say it was probably about once a week—sometimes more, sometimes less.”

“Where did you meet?” Ravi asked.

“At the station, or she sometimes came over here.”

“Were you…” Pip paused. “Were you and Andie involved romantically?”

Howie snorted. He sat up suddenly, swatting something near his ear. “Fuck no, we weren’t.” His laughter didn’t wholly cover the anger creeping up his neck in red patches.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” The cover of amusement was cast aside now.

“Why are you getting defensive, then?” Pip said.

“Course I’m defensive. There’s two kids in my house, berating me about stuff that happened years ago and threatening to tell the cops.” He kicked out at the crumpled beer can on the floor, and it sailed across the room, clattering into the blinds just behind Pip’s head.

Ravi jumped up from the sofa, stepping in front of her.

“What are you going to do about it?” Howie leered at him, staggering to his feet. “You’re a fucking joke, man.”

“All right, everyone, calm down,” Pip said, standing up too. “We’re almost finished here; you just have to answer honestly. Did you have a sexual relationship with—”

“No. I already said no, didn’t I?” The flush reached his face, peeking out above the line of his beard. “She was just business to me, OK? It wasn’t any more complicated than that.”

“Where were you the night she was killed?” Ravi demanded.

“I was passed out drunk on that sofa.”

“Do you know who killed her?” said Pip.

“Yeah, his brother.” Howie pointed aggressively at Ravi. “Is that what this is? You want to prove your murdering scum brother was innocent?”

Pip saw Ravi stiffen, folding his hands into fists. Then he caught her eyes and shook the hardness out of his face, tucking his fingers into his pockets.

“OK, we’re done here,” Pip said, laying her hand on Ravi’s arm. “Let’s go.”

“No, no, I don’t think so.” In two giant leaps, Howie darted over to the door, blocking their way out.

“Excuse me, Howard,” Pip said, her nervousness cooling into fear.

“No, no, no,” he laughed, shaking his head. “I can’t let you leave.”

Ravi stepped up to him. “Move.”

“I did what you asked.” Howie turned to Pip. “Now you have to delete those pictures of me.”

Pip relaxed a little. “OK,” she said. “Yes, that’s fair.” She held up her phone and showed Howie as she deleted every single picture from the parking lot, until she swiped right to a photo of Barney and Josh asleep in the dog bed together. “Done.”

Howie stepped aside and let them pass.

Pip pulled open the front door, and she and Ravi stepped outside into the brisk night air, but not before Howie said one last thing: “You go around asking dangerous questions, girl, you’re going to find some dangerous answers.”

Ravi yanked the door shut. He waited until the house was at least twenty paces behind them before saying, “Well, that was fun. Thanks for the invite to my first blackmailing.”

“Welcome,” she said. “My first time too. But it worked; we found out that Andie had a second phone, Howie had complicated feelings for her, and Max Hastings had a taste for Rohypnol.” She unlocked her phone. “Just recovering those photos, in case we need future Howie leverage.”

“Oh, fantastic,” he said. “Can’t wait. Maybe then I can add blackmail as a special skill to my résumé.”

“You know you use humor as a defense mechanism when you’re tense?” Pip smirked at him, letting him through the hedge gap ahead of her.

“Yeah, and you turn into a smartass.”

He looked back at her for a long moment, and she broke first. They started laughing, slowly at first, still in shock, and then they couldn’t seem to stop. Pip’s skin hummed with adrenaline as she fell into Ravi, eyes watering. Her stomach felt tight and sore and something else; a warm, fizzing feeling.

The after-laugh sighs only set them off again.