Good Girl, Bad Blood (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder #2)(6)

Pip:

It makes me so angry that this kind of cross-examination of victims is allowed. It almost shifts the burden of proof on to them, and it isn’t fair.



Ravi:

Not fair at all. Epps then grilled her about not going to the police the next day, if she was sure she was assaulted and who the perpetrator was. That if she’d gone within seventy-two hours, a urinalysis could have confirmed whether she even had Rohypnol in her system which, he claimed, was up for debate. Nat could only reply that she hadn’t been sure afterwards, because she had no memory. And then Epps said, ‘If you have no memory, how do you know you didn’t consent to any sexual activity? Or that you even interacted with the defendant that night?’ Nat replied that Max had made a loaded comment to her the following Monday, asking if she’d had a ‘good time’ at the party because he had. Epps never let up. It must have been exhausting for Nat.



Pip:

It seems this is his tactic for Max’s defence. To somehow undermine and discredit each of us as witnesses. With me, it was his claim about how convenient it was that I had Max to use as a male patsy, to try make Becca Bell and her alleged manslaughter sympathetic. That it was all part of the ‘aggressive feminist narrative’ I’ve been pushing with my podcast.



Ravi:

Yeah, that does seem to be the route Epps is going down.



Pip:

I guess that’s the kind of aggressive strategy you get when your lawyer costs three hundred pounds an hour. But money is no issue for the Hastings family, of course.



Ravi:

It doesn’t matter whatever strategy he uses; the jury will see the truth.





Two

Words spliced, growing across the gaps like vines as her eyes unfocused, until her handwriting was just one writhing blur. Pip was looking at the page, but she wasn’t really there. It was like that now; giant holes in her attention that she slipped right into.

There was a time, not too long ago, she would have found a practice essay about Cold War escalation enthralling. She would have cared, really cared. That was who she was before, but something must have changed. Hopefully it was just a matter of time until those holes filled back in and things went back to normal.

Her phone buzzed against the desk, Cara’s name lighting up.

‘Good evening, Miss Sweet F-A,’ Cara said when Pip picked up. ‘Are you ready to Netflix and chill in the upside down?’

‘Yep CW, two secs,’ Pip said, taking her laptop and phone to bed with her, sliding under the duvet.

‘How was the trial today?’ Cara asked. ‘Naomi almost went this morning, to support Nat. But she couldn’t face seeing Max.’

‘I just uploaded the next update.’ Pip sighed. ‘Makes me so angry that Ravi and I have to tiptoe around it when we record, saying ‘allegedly’ and avoiding anything that steps over the presumption of innocence when we know he did it. He did all of it.’

‘Yeah, it’s gross. But it’s OK, it will be over in a week.’ Cara rustled in her covers, the phone line crackling. ‘Hey, guess what I found today?’

‘What?’

‘You’re a meme. An actual meme that strangers are posting on Reddit. It’s that photo of you with DI Hawkins in front of all the press microphones. The one where it looks like you’re rolling your eyes at him while he’s talking.’

‘I was rolling my eyes at him.’

‘And people have captioned the funniest things. It’s like you’re the new “jealous girlfriend” meme. This one has a caption of Me . . . by you, and beside Hawkins it says Men on the internet explaining my own joke back to me.’ She snorted. ‘That’s when you know you’ve made it, becoming a meme. Have you heard from any more advertisers?’

‘Yeah,’ Pip said. ‘A few companies have emailed about sponsorship. But . . . I still don’t know if it’s the right thing, profiting off what happened. I don’t know, it’s too much to think about, especially this week.’

‘I know, what a week.’ Cara coughed. ‘So tomorrow, you know . . . the memorial, would it be weird for Ravi . . . and his parents, if Naomi and I were there?’

Pip sat up. ‘No. You know Ravi doesn’t think like that, you’ve spoken to each other about it.’

‘I know, I know. But I just thought, with tomorrow being about remembering Sal and Andie, now we know the truth, maybe it would be weird for us to –’

‘Ravi is the last person who’d ever want you to feel guilty for what your dad did to Sal. His parents too.’ Pip paused. ‘They lived through that, they know better than anyone.’

‘I know, it’s just –’

‘Cara, it’s OK. Ravi would want you there. I’m pretty sure he’d say Sal would’ve wanted Naomi there. She was his best friend.’

‘OK, if you’re sure.’

‘I’m always sure.’

‘You are. You should think about taking up gambling,’ Cara said.

‘Can’t, Mum’s already too concerned about my addictive personality.’

‘Surely mine and Naomi’s fucked-uppedness helps to normalize you.’

‘Not enough, apparently,’ said Pip. ‘If you could try a bit harder, that would be great.’