Holly Jackson - Good Girl, Bad Blood – The Sunday Times bestseller and sequel to A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

But, months later, Ward was shocked to see Andie walking on the side of the road, thin and dishevelled. She hadn’t died after all. Ward couldn’t allow her to return to Little Kilton, and that’s how she ended up his prisoner for five years. However, in a twist truly stranger than fiction: the person in Ward’s loft wasn’t Andie Bell. “She looked so much like her,” Pip claims, “she even told me she was Andie.” But she was actually Isla Jordan, a vulnerable young woman with an intellectual disability. All this time, Elliot had convinced himself – and Isla – that she was Andie Bell.

This left the final question of what happened to the real Andie Bell? Our young detective beat the police to that too. “It was Becca Bell, Andie’s little sister.” Pip worked out that Becca had been sexually assaulted at a house party (nicknamed calamity parties), and that Andie had sold drugs at these parties, including Rohypnol which Becca suspected played a part in her assault. When Andie was out that night with Ward, Becca allegedly found proof in her sister’s room that Max Hastings had bought Rohypnol from Andie and was likely Becca’s attacker (Max will soon face trial for several rape and sexual assault charges). But when Andie returned, she didn’t react in the way Becca hoped; Andie forbade her little sister from going to the police because it would get her in trouble. They started arguing, pushing, until Andie ended up on the floor, unconscious and vomiting. Andie’s post-mortem – completed last November when her body was finally recovered – showed that “Andie’s brain swelling from a head trauma was not fatal. Though it, no doubt, caused Andie’s loss of consciousness and vomiting, Andie Bell died from asphyxiation, choking on her own vomit.” Becca froze, allegedly watching Andie die, too shocked, too angry to save her sister’s life. Hiding her body because she was scared no one would believe it was an accident.

And there it is, our ending. “No angles or filters, just the sad truth of how Andie Bell died, how Sal was murdered and set up as her killer and everyone believed it.” In Pip’s scathing conclusion, she picks out everyone she finds at fault for the deaths of these two teenagers, naming and blaming: Elliot Ward, Max Hastings, Jason Bell (Andie’s father), Becca Bell, Howard Bowers (Andie’s drug dealer), and Andie Bell herself.

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder stormed to the top of the iTunes chart with its first episode six weeks ago and it looks set to stay there for some time. With the final episode released last night, listeners are already clamouring for a season two of the hit podcast. But in a statement posted to her website, Pip said: “I’m afraid my detective days are over and there will not be a second season of AGGGTM . This case almost consumed me; I could only see that once I was out the other side. It became an unhealthy obsession, putting me and those around me in considerable danger. But I will finish this story, recording updates on the trials and verdicts of all those involved. I promise I will be here until the very last word.”

THURSDAY

One

It was still there, every time she opened the front door. It wasn’t real, she knew that, just her mind filling in the absence, bridging the gap. She heard it: dog claws skittering, rushing to welcome her home. But it wasn’t, it couldn’t be. Just a memory, the ghost of a sound that had always been there.

‘Pip, is that you?’ her mum called from the kitchen.

‘Hey,’ Pip replied, dropping her bronze rucksack in the hall, textbooks thumping together inside.

Josh was in the living room, sitting on the floor two feet from the TV, spooling through the adverts on the Disney Channel. ‘You’ll get square eyes,’ Pip remarked as she walked by.

‘You’ll get a square butt,’ Josh tittered back. A terrible retort, objectively speaking, but he was quick for a ten-year-old.

‘Hi darling, how was school?’ her mum asked, sipping from a flowery mug as Pip walked into the kitchen and settled on one of the stools at the counter.

‘Fine. It was fine.’ School was always fine now. Not good, not bad. Just fine. She pulled off her shoes, the leather unsticking from her feet and smacking against the tiles.

‘Ugh,’ her mum said. ‘Must you always leave your shoes in the kitchen?’

‘Must you always catch me doing it?’

‘Yes, I’m your mother,’ she said, whacking Pip’s arm lightly with her new cookbook. ‘Oh and, Pippa, I need to talk to you about something.’

The full name. So much meaning in that extra syllable.

‘Am I in trouble?’

Her mum didn’t answer the question. ‘Flora Green called me from Josh’s school today. You know she’s the new teaching assistant there?’

‘Yes . . .’ Pip nodded for her to continue.

‘Joshua got in trouble today, sent to the headteacher.’ Her mum’s brow knotted. ‘Apparently Camilla Brown’s pencil sharpener went missing, and Josh decided to interrogate his classmates about it, finding evidence and drawing up a persons of interest list. He made four kids cry.’

‘Oh,’ Pip said, that pit opening up in her stomach again. Yes, she was in trouble. ‘OK, OK. Shall I talk to him?’

‘Yes, I think you should. Now,’ her mum said, raising her mug and taking a noisy sip.

Pip slid off the stool with a gritted smile and padded back towards the living room.

‘Hey Josh,’ she said lightly, sitting on the floor beside him. She muted the television.

‘Oi!’

Pip ignored him. ‘So, I heard what happened at school today.’

‘Oh yeah. There’s two main suspects.’ He turned to her, his brown eyes lighting up. ‘Maybe you can help –’

‘Josh, listen to me,’ Pip said, tucking her dark hair behind her ears. ‘Being a detective is not all it’s cracked up to be. In fact . . . it’s a pretty bad thing to be.’

‘But I –’

‘Just listen, OK? Being a detective makes the people around you unhappy. Makes you unhappy . . .’ she said, her voice withering away until she cleared her throat and pulled it back. ‘Remember Dad told you what happened to Barney, why he got hurt?’

Josh nodded, his eyes growing wide and sad.

‘That’s what happens when you’re a detective. The people around you get hurt. And you hurt people, without meaning to. Have to keep secrets you’re not sure you should. That’s why I don’t do it any more, and you shouldn’t either.’ The words dropped right down into that waiting pit in her gut, where they belonged. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes . . .’ He nodded, holding on to the s as it grew into the next word. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ She smiled, folding him into a quick hug. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for. So, no more playing detective?’

‘Nope, promise.’

Well, that had been easy.

‘Done,’ Pip said, back in the kitchen. ‘I guess the missing pencil sharpener will forever remain a mystery.’

‘Ah, maybe not,’ her mum said with a barely concealed smile. ‘I bet it was that Alex Davis, the little shit.’

Pip snorted.

Her mum kicked Pip’s shoes out of her way. ‘So, have you heard from Ravi yet?’

‘Yeah.’ Pip pulled out her phone. ‘He said they finished about fifteen minutes ago. He’ll be over to record soon.’

‘OK. How was today?’

‘He said it was rough. I wish I could be there.’ Pip leaned against the counter, dropping her chin against her knuckles.

‘You know you can’t, you have school,’ her mum said. It wasn’t a discussion she was prepared to have again; Pip knew that. ‘And didn’t you have enough after Tuesday? I know I did.’