Holly Jackson - A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

First published in Great Britain in 2019

by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright © 2019 Holly Jackson

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

First e-book edition 2019

ISBN 978 1 4052 9318 1

Ebook ISBN 978 1 4052 9384 6

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.

Egmont takes its responsibility to the planet and its inhabitants very seriously. We aim to use papers from well-managed forests run by responsible suppliers.

To Mum and Dad,

this first one is for you.

Cover

Title page

Copyright First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN Text copyright © 2019 Holly Jackson The moral rights of the author have been asserted First e-book edition 2019 ISBN 978 1 4052 9318 1 Ebook ISBN 978 1 4052 9384 6 www.egmont.co.uk A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet. Egmont takes its responsibility to the planet and its inhabitants very seriously. We aim to use papers from well-managed forests run by responsible suppliers.

Dedication To Mum and Dad, this first one is for you.

Part I

One

Production Log – Entry 1

Transcript of interview with Angela Johnson from the Missing Persons Bureau

Two

Production Log – Entry 2

Three

Production Log – Entry 3

Transcript of interview with Stanley Forbes from the Kilton Mail newspaper

Four

Production Log – Entry 4

Transcript of interview with Ravi Singh

Production Log – Entry 5

Five

Production Log – Entry 7

Transcript of interview with Max Hastings

Six

Production Log – Entry 8

Transcript of interview with Elliot Ward

Seven

Eight

Nine

Production Log – Entry 11

Transcript of interview with Chloe Burch

Ten

Eleven

Part II

Twelve

Production Log – Entry 13

Transcript of second interview with Emma Hutton

Thirteen

Production Log – Entry 15

Transcript of second interview with Naomi Ward

Fourteen

Production Log – Entry 17

Production Log – Entry 18

Fifteen

Production Log – Entry 19

Production Log – Entry 20

Transcript of interview with Jess Walker (Becca Bell’s friend)

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Production Log – Entry 22

Nineteen

Twenty

Production Log – Entry 23

Twenty-One

Production Log – Entry 24

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Production Log – Entry 25

Production Log – Entry 26

Twenty-Four

Production Log – Entry 27

Production Log – Entry 28

Production Log – Entry 29

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Part III

Production Log – Entry 31

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Production Log – Entry 33

Thirty-One

Production Log – Entry 34

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

The Months Later

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

About the Author

Pip knew where they lived.

Everyone in Little Kilton knew where they lived.

Their home was like the town’s own haunted house; people’s footsteps quickened as they walked by and their words strangled and died in their throats. Shrieking children would gather on their walk home from school, daring one another to run up and touch the front gate.

But it wasn’t haunted by ghosts, just three sad people trying to live their lives as before. A house not haunted by flickering lights or spectral falling chairs, but by dark spray-painted letters of Scum Family and stone-shattered windows.

Pip had always wondered why they didn’t move. Not that they had to; they hadn’t done anything wrong. But she didn’t know how they lived like that.

Pip knew a great many things; she knew that hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia was the technical term for the fear of long words, she knew that babies were born without kneecaps, she knew verbatim the best quotes from Plato and Cato, and that there were more than four thousand types of potato. But she didn’t know how the Singhs found the strength to stay here. Here, in Kilton, under the weight of so many widened eyes, of the comments whispered just loud enough to be heard, of neighbourly small talk never stretching into long talk any more.

It was a particular cruelty that their house was so close to Little Kilton Grammar School, where both Andie Bell and Sal Singh had gone, where Pip would return for her final year in a few weeks when the August-pickled sun dipped into September.