Kill Joy
Page 9
‘Hi, Dad, you were so quiet I didn’t even know you were home.’
‘My Pipsicle, you are too clever to recycle a joke.’
She sat down next to them, Josh and her dad’s worn-out breaths making the sofa cushion swell and sink against the backs of her legs.
Josh started excavating in his right nostril and Dad batted his hand away.
‘How were your days then?’ he asked, setting Josh off on a graphic spiel about the football games he’d played earlier.
Pip zoned out; she’d already heard it all in the car when she picked Josh up from the club. She’d only been half listening, distracted by the way the replacement coach had stared bewilderedly at her lily-white skin when she’d pointed out which of the nine-year-olds was hers and said: ‘I’m Joshua’s sister.’
She should have been used to it by now, the lingering looks while people tried to work out the logistics of her family, the numbers and hedged words scribbled across their family tree. The giant Nigerian man was quite evidently her stepfather and Joshua her half-brother. But Pip didn’t like using those words, those cold technicalities. The people you love weren’t algebra: to be calculated, subtracted, or held at arm’s length across a decimal point. Victor and Josh weren’t just three-eighths hers, not just forty per cent family, they were fully hers. Her dad and her annoying little brother.
Her ‘real’ father, the man that lent the Fitz to her name, died in a car accident when she was ten months old. And though Pip sometimes nodded and smiled when her mum would ask whether she remembered the way her father hummed while he brushed his teeth, or how he’d laughed when Pip’s second spoken word was ‘poo,’ she didn’t remember him. But sometimes remembering isn’t for yourself, sometimes you do it just to make someone else smile. Those lies were allowed.
‘And how’s the project going, Pip?’ Victor turned to her as he unbuttoned the shirt from the dog.
‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I’m just looking up the background and typing up at the moment. I did go to see Ravi Singh this morning.’
‘Oh, and?’
‘He was busy but he said I could go back on Friday.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Josh said in a cautionary tone.
‘That’s because you’re a judgemental pre-pubescent boy who still thinks little people live inside traffic lights.’ Pip looked at him. ‘The Singhs haven’t done anything wrong.’
Her dad stepped in. ‘Joshua, try to imagine if everyone judged you because of something your sister had done.’
‘All Pip ever does is homework.’
Pip executed a perfect arm-swung cushion lob into Joshua’s face. Victor held the boy’s arms down as he squirmed to retaliate, tickling his ribs.
‘Why’s Mum not back yet?’ asked Pip, teasing the restrained Josh by floating her fluffy-socked foot near his face.
‘She was going straight from work to Boozy Mums’ book club,’ Dad said.
‘Meaning … we can have pizza for dinner?’ Pip asked. And suddenly the friendly fire was forgotten and she and Josh were in the same battalion again. He jumped up and hooked his arm through hers, looking imploringly at their dad.
‘Of course,’ Victor said, patting his backside with a grin. ‘How else am I to keep growing this junk in my trunk?’
‘Dad,’ Pip groaned, admonishing her past self for ever teaching him that phrase.
Pippa Fitz-Amobi
EPQ 02/08/2017
Production Log – Entry 2
What happened next in the Andie Bell case is quite confusing to glean from the newspaper reports. There are gaps I will have to fill with guesswork and rumours until the picture becomes clearer from any later interviews; hopefully Ravi and Naomi – who was one of Sal’s best friends – can assist with this.
Using what Angela said, presumably after taking statements from the Bell family and thoroughly searching their residence, the police asked for details of Andie’s friends.
From some seriously historical Facebook stalking, it looks like Andie’s best friends were two girls called Chloe Burch and Emma Hutton. I mean, here’s my evidence:
This post is from two weeks before Andie disappeared. It looks like neither Chloe nor Emma live in Little Kilton any more. [Maybe private-message them and see if they’ll do a phone interview?]
Chloe and Emma did a lot on that first weekend (21st and 22nd) to help spread the Thames Valley Police’s Twitter campaign: #FindAndie. I don’t think it’s too big of a leap to assume that the police contacted Chloe and Emma either on the Friday night or on Saturday morning. What they said to the police, I don’t know. Hopefully I can find out.
We do know that police spoke to Andie’s boyfriend at the time. His name was Sal Singh and he was attending his final year at Kilton Grammar alongside Andie.
At some point on the Saturday the police contacted Sal.
‘DI Richard Hawkins confirmed that officers had questioned Salil Singh on Saturday 21st April. They questioned him as to his whereabouts for the previous night, particularly the period of time in which it is believed Andie went missing.’6
That night, Sal had been hanging out at his friend Max Hastings’ house. He was with his four best friends: Naomi Ward, Jake Lawrence, Millie Simpson and Max.
Again, I need to check this with Naomi next week, but I think Sal told the police that he left Max’s house at around 12:15 a.m. He walked home and his father (Mohan Singh) confirmed that ‘Sal returned home at approximately 12:50 a.m.’ 7 Note: the distance between Max’s house (Tudor Lane) and Sal’s (Grove Place) takes about 30 minutes to walk – says Google.
The police confirmed Sal’s alibi with his four friends over the weekend.
Missing posters went up. House-to-house enquiries started on the Sunday.8
On the Monday, 100 volunteers helped the police carry out searches in the local woodland. I’ve seen the news footage; a whole ant line of people in the woods, calling her name. Later in the day, forensic teams were spotted going into the Bell residence.9
And on the Tuesday, everything changed.
I think chronologically is the best way to consider the events of that day and those that followed, even though we, as a town, learned the details out of order and jumbled.
Mid-morning: Naomi Ward, Max Hastings, Jake Lawrence and Millie Simpson contacted the police from school and confessed to providing false information. They said that Sal had asked them to lie and that he actually left Max’s house at around 10:30 p.m. on the night Andie disappeared.
I don’t know for sure what the correct police procedure would have been but I’m guessing that at that point, Sal became the number-one suspect.
But they couldn’t find him: Sal wasn’t at school and he wasn’t at home. He wasn’t answering his phone.
It later transpired, however, that Sal had sent a text to his father that morning, though he was ignoring all other calls. The press would refer to this as a ‘confession text’.10
That Tuesday evening, one of the police teams searching for Andie found a body in the woods.
It was Sal.
He had killed himself.
The press never reported the method by which Sal committed suicide but by the power of high school rumour, I know (as did every other student at Kilton at the time).
Sal walked into the woods near his home, took a load of sleeping pills and placed a plastic bag over his head, secured by an elastic band around his neck. He suffocated while unconscious.
At the police press conference later that night no mention of Sal was made. The police only revealed that bit of information about CCTV imaging placing Andie as driving away from her home at 10:40 p.m.11
On the Wednesday, Andie’s car was found parked on a small residential road (Romer Close).
It wasn’t until the following Monday that a police spokeswoman revealed the following: ‘I have an update on the Andie Bell investigation. As a result of recent intelligence and forensic information, we have strong reason to suspect that a young man named Salil Singh, aged 18, was involv
ed in Andie’s abduction and murder. The evidence would have been sufficient to arrest and charge the suspect had he not died before proceedings could be initiated. Police are not looking for anyone else in relation to Andie’s disappearance at this time but our search for Andie will continue unabated. Our thoughts go out to the Bell family and our deepest sympathies for the devastation this update has caused them.’
Their sufficient evidence was as follows:
They found Andie’s mobile phone on Sal’s body.
Forensic tests found traces of Andie’s blood under the fingernails of his right middle and index fingers.
Andie’s blood was also discovered in the boot of her abandoned car. Sal’s fingerprints were found around the dashboard and steering wheel alongside prints from Andie and the rest of the Bell family.12
The evidence, they said, would have been enough to charge Sal and – police would have hoped – to secure a conviction in court. But Sal was dead, so there was no trial and no guilty conviction. No defence either.
In the following weeks, there were more searches of the woodland areas in and around Little Kilton. Searches using cadaver dogs. Police divers in the River Kilbourne. But Andie’s body was never found.
The Andie Bell missing persons case was administratively closed in the middle of June 2012.13 A case may be ‘administratively closed’ only if the ‘supporting documentation contains sufficient evidence to charge had the offender not died before the investigation could be completed’. The case ‘may be reopened whenever new evidence or leads develop’.14
* * *
1. www.gbtn.co.uk/news/uk-england-bucks-54774390 23/04/12
2. www.thebuckinghamshiremail.co.uk/news/crime-4839 26/04/12
3. www.gbtn.co.uk/news/uk-england-bucks-69388473 24/04/12
4. Forbes, Stanley, 2012, ‘The Real Story of Andie Bell’s Killer,’ Kilton Mail, 1/05/12, pp. 1–4.
5. www.findmissingperson.co.uk/stats
6. www.gbtn.co.uk/news/uk-england-bucks-78355334 05/05/12
7. www.gbtn.co.uk/news/uk-england-bucks-78355334 05/05/12
8. Forbes, Stanley, ‘Local Girl Still Missing,’ Kilton Mail, 23/04/12, pp. 1–2.
9. www.gbtn.co.uk/news/uk-england-bucks-56479322 23/04/12
10. www.gbtn.co.uk/news/uk-england-bucks-78355334 05/05/12
11. www.gbtn.co.uk/news/uk-england-bucks-69388473 24/03/12
12. www.gbtn.co.uk/news/uk-england-bucks-78355334 09/05/12
13. www.gbtn.co.uk/news/uk-england-bucks-87366455 16/06/12
14. The National Crime Recording Standards (NCRS) https://www.gov.co.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/99584773/ncrs.pdf
Holly Jackson started writing stories from a young age, completing her first (poor) attempt at a novel aged fifteen. She graduated from the University of Nottingham with an MA in English, where she studied literary linguistics and creative writing. She lives in London and aside from reading and writing, she enjoys playing video games and watching true crime documentaries so she can pretend to be a detective. Good Girl, Bad Blood is the sequel to her No. 1 New York Times bestseller A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. You can follow Holly on Twitter and Instagram @HoJay92.