Good Girl, Bad Blood

Cara¹⁰ tells Pip¹ she thinks she spotted Jamie³ at a high-school party after the memorial. The party's host confirms it — an older guy in a burgundy shirt standing alone, watching the room. Pip¹ finds Jamie³ in a video background at 9:38 PM, eyes locked intently on someone near the fireplace.

A witness outside the house provides the critical break: at 10:32 PM, Jamie³ was pacing the pavement on his phone, visibly agitated. He kept repeating that he couldn't do something, mentioned calling the police, and said something about a child.

Then he walked away and never returned. Separately, bookshop employees report seeing Jamie³ hurrying up Wyvil Road at 11:40 PM, breathing hard. Two of the four witnesses thought he was wearing something darker — a hoodie over his shirt, not just the burgundy alone.

A party video reveals Jamie³ tapping a girl on the shoulder, calling her a name she doesn't recognize. The girl is Stella Chapman¹⁴ from Pip's¹ school year — but she's never met Jamie.³ He insisted she was someone called Leila, commented she'd changed her hair, and questioned why she was at a high-school party.

Pip¹ realizes Jamie³ was catfished: someone stole Stella's¹⁴ photos and altered the hair color. On Tinder, they find the profile — Layla Mead, twenty-five, less than a mile away. Her Instagram shows that Pip's¹ history teacher, Mr. Clark, also follows her.

Clark admits Layla ghosted him immediately after he mentioned his profession. When Pip¹ messages Layla from an anonymous account, the response arrives instantly — addressing Pip¹ by name and declaring she's getting closer, punctuated with a smiley face. Then every one of Layla's accounts vanishes.

Pip's¹ own mother drops a bombshell: she fired Jamie³ two and a half weeks ago after catching him trying to steal the company credit card. When confronted, Jamie³ claimed the situation was life or death. He never told his family he'd lost his job, pretending to leave for work each morning.

Then Charlie Green,⁶ a neighbor who moved in four doors down, shows Pip¹ doorbell camera footage from the previous Tuesday at 3 AM: Jamie³ breaks into the Greens' house through a window, stays forty-one seconds, and leaves with Flora's¹² rose-gold watch — the same one Pip¹ found in his bedside drawer.

Back at the Reynolds house, Joanna⁷ discovers Jamie's³ black hoodie is missing entirely, confirming the witnesses who saw him in darker clothing. She also finds a grey jumper from his birthday with drops of dried blood on the front and a smear on the sleeve.

Pip¹ cracks Jamie's³ laptop password — a portmanteau of his childhood nickname for his mother⁷ and her birth year. His browser history reveals targeted searches for brain cancer and clinical trials, what constitutes assault, and how to fight.

But the Fitbit, a birthday gift Jamie³ wore reluctantly, holds the most devastating data. On the night he vanished, his steps continued past the last sighting. Just after midnight he stopped moving for several minutes while his heart rate climbed to 126.

Then he walked nearly two thousand more steps before his heart peaked at 158 and flatlined to zero. A search party of eighty-eight volunteers discovers the missing yellow-handled kitchen knife in the grass beside the abandoned farmhouse on Sycamore Road — right at the outer edge of the Fitbit's calculated radius.

A body is found in woodland near the main road — a white male in his early twenties. The Reynolds family clusters in their living room, Arthur¹¹ on the phone to police, all of them holding hands through the worst wait of their lives. When Arthur's¹¹ face cracks, Pip's¹ heart stops — until he chokes out the words: it isn't Jamie.³

The family collapses into each other, crying with relief. Arthur¹¹ finally agrees to be interviewed, revealing that Jamie³ asked to borrow exactly nine hundred pounds weeks earlier and was refused. But within hours, a second blow lands.

Ravi² calls from the courthouse: the jury has found Max Hastings¹⁵ not guilty on all charges. Pip¹ sinks to the pavement. She sprints back to Nat da Silva's⁸ house, arriving before anyone else can deliver the news. When Nat⁸ reads the verdict on Pip's¹ face, she crumbles against the hallway wall. Pip¹ catches her, and for the first time, Nat⁸ holds on.

A classmate's eyewitness account proves fabricated — he lied about seeing Jamie³ at Nat's⁸ house for podcast fame. A tabloid claims the entire investigation is staged for content. When their friend Ant accuses Pip¹ of faking Jamie's³ disappearance, something detonates.

She shoves him into the school lockers and screams in his face. Three-day suspension. She pushes Ravi² away. That night, soaking and aimless in the rain, she sits on Charlie Green's⁶ porch. He tells her that when the justice system fails, ordinary people get to decide right and wrong for themselves.

Pip¹ drives to Max Hastings'¹⁵ empty house with a pot of paint and a hammer — writes one word across his front door, shatters every window, and uploads his recorded confession online. Later, standing in the rain outside Ravi's² house, she tells him she loves him and is finished pretending to be someone she's not.

Nat⁸ contacts Pip¹ with something unexpected: screenshots from Luke Eaton's⁹ phone showing messages with Layla Mead. Luke⁹ went to meet Layla at a car park around midnight the Friday Jamie³ vanished — but Jamie³ was there instead. Pip¹ offers Luke⁹ nine hundred pounds, the exact amount Jamie³ owed him, in exchange for his full account.

Luke⁹ explains that Jamie³ approached him, uttered something like child broomstick, studied his face for a reaction, got none, then bolted. Every person Layla targeted shares an uncanny profile: white men with brown hair, aged twenty-nine to thirty. Ravi² suggests the misheard phrase might be Child Brunswick.

A search confirms it: Scott Brunswick was a serial killer whose young son helped lure seven teenagers to their deaths in the late 1990s. The son was given a new identity upon release. He would be twenty-nine or thirty now, living under a court-ordered pseudonym somewhere in England.

On a forum, someone posts that Child Brunswick lives in Little Kilton — the information traced back through a chain of prison gossip to Howie Bowers, a local drug dealer Pip¹ put away during her first investigation. Pip¹ remembers photographs she took months ago of Stanley Forbes⁵ secretly handing Howie an envelope of cash.

The blackmail connection clicks: Howie knew Stanley's⁵ secret and was extorting him. Everything aligns. Stanley⁵ is the right age, has no visible family history, maintains no personal social media, and sometimes fails to respond to his own name — a quirk his colleague attributed to selective hearing but which suggests a man still adjusting to a name he hasn't carried for long. Pip¹ tells Ravi² and Connor:⁴ Stanley Forbes⁵ is Child Brunswick. If Layla sent Jamie³ to test two suspects that night, Stanley⁵ was the one who reacted.

The plan unfolds at night: Pip¹ texts Stanley⁵ as Layla, luring him to the farmhouse at eleven. When he drives away, Ravi² and Connor⁴ break into his house through a back window. Pip¹ watches the farmhouse from the trees, sixty feet away, phone pressed to her ear.

Through the speaker she hears Connor's⁴ ragged shout — Jamie's³ name, desperate and breaking. Jamie³ is locked in a downstairs bathroom, chained from the outside, but alive and talking. He tells them to leave; he's made a deal. When Stanley⁵ re-emerges from the empty farmhouse, Pip¹ steps out of the shadows to confront him.

Shaken but relieved she isn't Layla, he tells his side: Jamie³ attacked him with a knife on Layla's instructions, he defended himself, knocked Jamie³ out, and kept him prisoner — not to harm him, but because calling police would destroy the identity and the life he'd spent eight years building.

Charlie Green⁶ walks into the farmhouse, asks to borrow Pip's¹ phone, and pockets it. He draws a gun. His real name is Charlie Nowell. His sister Emily was the last teenager murdered by Scott Brunswick — lured from a playground by the killer's ten-year-old son while nine-year-old Charlie⁶ waited at the swings, counting to three, praying she'd reappear.

He spent nineteen years and ten different towns hunting for Child Brunswick, creating a new Layla Mead in each one. He groomed Jamie³ through escalating tasks — steal money, steal a watch, beat a stranger — preparing him to kill on command.

The memorial forced his hand too early. He thanks Pip¹ for finishing the identification. Then he fires six times. Pip¹ tears her jacket into tourniquets, drags Stanley⁵ out as the building catches fire, and performs chest compressions on the grass until paramedics arrive and stop. Stanley⁵ is gone.

Pip¹ arranges Stanley's⁵ funeral — no family claims him, no friends remain after the truth surfaces. Eight people attend. Protesters arrive with signs calling Charlie Green⁶ a hero and Stanley⁵ a monster. Pip¹ charges at them, tears their placards apart, and is dragged back by her father.

Weeks later, at a barbecue in the Reynolds garden, Jamie³ sits beside Pip¹ and promises to live a full life for Stanley,⁵ who cannot anymore. He plans to train as a paramedic. He walks over to Nat,⁸ and something bright and reciprocal passes between their eyes.

Pip¹ watches from the garden steps with Ravi's² foot tucked under her leg. She cannot join the others yet. The sound of the gun has taken up residence inside her — hiding in every closing door, every dropped pencil, every beat of her own heart. Charlie⁶ and Flora Green¹² remain at large.