As Good as Dead: The Finale to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

There was something stuck to her shoe. Clacking against the pavement with every step, the gummy pull unbalancing her tread.

Pip slowed to a jog, then a walk, right down to a stop, wiping her forehead on her sleeve. She raised the leg to inspect the underside of her trainer. There was a crinkled piece of duct tape stuck to the middle of her heel. The silver finish on the tape had muddied to a dirty grey. Pip must have run over it somewhere on her route, unknowingly picked it up.

She pinched her fingers around the filthy piece of tape, peeling it off as the tacky side clung to the dark sole of her shoe. It came free, leaving little specks of gluey white behind, specks she could still feel as she picked up her pace and started running again.

‘Great,’ she hissed to herself, trying to get her breathing in order again. In, step, two, three, out, step, two, three.

She was taking her longer route this evening, up around Lodge Wood. Long. Fast. Exhaust herself so maybe she wouldn’t need to take anything to fall asleep. This plan never worked out, never had and probably never would, and she believed her own lies even less now. The last two nights had been the worst for a long time. That doubt keeping her awake, that niggling idea that someone might be out there watching her. Someone who might even be counting down the days until she disappeared. No, stop. She’d come on a run to get away from those thoughts. Pip pushed herself even harder, out of control, rounding the corner too fast.

And there he was.

On the other side of the road. Blue water bottle gripped in one hand.

Max Hastings.

And just as she saw him, he saw her. Their eyes met, only the width of one road between them as they approached each other.

Max slowed his pace, pushing his blonde hair back from his face. Why was he slowing down? Shouldn’t he want to get this over and done with too, the moment they had to pass each other? Pip pushed her legs harder, a pain in her ankle, and their mismatched steps became a kind of music, a chaotic percussion that filled the unknowing street, accompanying the high-pitched howl of the wind in the trees. Or did that sound come from inside her head?

There was a tightening in her chest as her heart outgrew its cage, unrolling under her skin, filling her with angry red until it was all behind her eyes. She watched him draw close and her view shifted to red, the scene speeding up before her. Something takes over, pulls Pip by the hand across the road, guiding her feet. And she isn’t scared any more, she is only rage. Only red. And this is right, this is supposed to be, she knows it.

She’s over the road in six strides, and up on to his side. He’s just feet away when he stops, stares at her.

‘What are you do—’ he begins to ask. She doesn’t let him finish.

Pip closes the gap between them and her elbow crashes into Max’s face. She hears a crack, but it isn’t Stanley’s ribs this time, it’s Max’s nose. The sound is the same, it’s all she knows. Max bends double and howls into his hands as the nose falls crooked on his face. But she isn’t finished. Pip rips his hands away and hits him again, slamming her fist into his sharp cheekbones. His blood, it slides between her knuckles on to her palm, right where it belongs.

And still she isn’t finished. There’s a lorry coming; there are never lorries on this small country lane, they wouldn’t fit. But this one is almost here, and now is her chance. Pip grabs Max, twisting her hands into the fabric of his sweat-stained top. And in that passing moment, Max’s eyes widen in fear and they both know it: she has won. The lorry’s horn screams but Max doesn’t have a chance to. Pip throws him out into the road in front of the too-big lorry and he explodes, raining red down on her as she stands there, smiling.

A car passed, in real life, and the sound brings her back. The red falls from her eyes and Pip returned to herself. To here and now. Running down this path. Max was over there on his side of the road, and she here on hers. Pip looked down and blinked, trying to shake loose the violence inside her own head. If she should be scared of anything, it was of that.

She glanced up again at Max, keeping her eye on him as he regained his speed, water bottle pumping at his side. The moment was coming, the moment they would pass each other, cross paths, overlap. They were still running towards each other and then it happened, the pass, the split second of convergence, and then they were running away from each other, their backs turned.