The Secret Place

Chapter 17

‘Search time,’ Conway said. ‘And if we’re stuck in here…’ She shoved the sash window up.

A whirl of breeze shot in, carried the mess of body sprays away. Outside, the light was cooling and the sky was turning pale. It was almost evening.

‘One more second of that stink,’ Conway said, ‘I was gonna puke my ring.’

The stir-crazy was starting to needle at her. I felt it too. We’d been in those rooms a long time.

Conway pulled the wardrobe open, said ‘Fuck me,’ at the amount or the labels. Started running her hands down hanging dresses. I went for the beds, Gemma’s first. Pulled back the bedclothes, shook them out, patted down the mattress. Not just checking for big lumps of phone or old book, the way I had been the first time. This time we were after something that could be as small as a SIM card.

‘The door,’ Conway said. ‘What was up with that?’

I’d have only loved to leave that. But the way she’d been straight in there, got my back on whatever I hadn’t told her; I heard myself say, ‘When you were off talking to Alison, I thought I saw someone behind the door. Thought it could be someone trying to get up the guts to talk to us, but by the time I opened the door there was no one there. So, when I saw something behind there again…’

‘You went for it.’ I waited for the slagging – And you went full-on, fair play to you, you’d’ve been all ready to save the day if one of the kids had built herself a nuke in Physics class – but she said, ‘The first time, while I was out. You positive there was someone there?’

I flipped the mattress up to check the bottom. Said, ‘Nah.’

Conway squeezed her way down a puffy jacket. ‘Yeah. We had the same thing last year, a few times: thought we saw something, nothing there. Something about this place, I don’t know. Costello had this theory about the windows being different in old buildings: they’re not the same shapes and sizes as what you get now, not placed the same way. So the light comes in at different angles, and if you catch something in the corner of your eye, it’s gonna look wrong.’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows.’

I said, ‘If it’s that, it could be why people keep seeing Chris’s ghost.’

‘The kids are used to this light, but. And an actual ghost? Is that what you saw?’

‘Nah. Bit of shadow, just.’

‘Exactly. They’re seeing Chris because they want to. Feeding off each other, trying to impress each other, give each other something good.’ She shoved the jacket back into the wardrobe. ‘They need to get out more, this lot. They spend too much time together.’

Nothing down behind Gemma’s bedside table, nothing under the drawer. ‘At this age, that’s what it’s about.’

‘Yeah, they’re not gonna be this age forever. When it hits them that there’s a great big world out there, they’re gonna get the shock of their lives.’

The scraping of satisfaction on her voice, I didn’t feel that. Instead I felt the wind that would hit you from every side, raw-edged and gritty, smelling of spices and petrol, whirling hot in your hair, when you stepped out of a place like this and the door slammed behind you.

I said, ‘I’d say Chris getting murdered made the great big world hard to miss.’

‘You think? Even that was all about each other, for these. “Look, I cried harder than her, so I’m a better person.” “We all saw his ghost together, look how close we are.”’

I moved on to Orla’s bed. Conway said, ‘I remember you from training.’

Her head was in the wardrobe, I couldn’t see her face. I said – carefully, skimming back – ‘Yeah? Good or bad?’

‘You don’t remember, no?’

If I’d talked to her beyond ‘Howya’ in corridors, I’d forgotten. ‘Tell me I didn’t make you do pushups.’

‘Would you remember if you had?’

‘Ah, Jaysus. What’d I do?’

‘Relax the kacks. I’m just wrecking your head.’ I could hear the grin in Conway’s voice. ‘You never did anything on me.’

‘Thank fuck. You had me worried there.’

‘Nah, you were grand. I don’t think we ever even talked. I only clocked you to start with because of the hair.’ Conway pulled something out of a hoodie pocket, grimaced: wad of tissues. ‘After that, but, I kept noticing because you did your own thing. You had mates, but you weren’t hanging out of anyone. All the rest, fuck me: they spent the whole time crawling up each other’s hole. Half of them trying to network, like the little bastards at Colm’s: if I get all buddy-buddy with the Commissioner’s kid, I’ll never have to do traffic duty and I’ll make Inspector by thirty. The other half trying to bond, like this lot here: oh, these are the best days of our lives and we’ll all be best pals forever and tell these stories at our retirement dinners. I was like, what the fuck? You’re grown adults; you’re here to learn the job, not to swap friendship bracelets and do each other’s eyeshadow.’ She shoved clothes down the crowded rail. ‘I liked that you didn’t get sucked into that either.’

I didn’t tell her: a part of me watched my classmates bonding away like goodo, and wished. Just like Conway said, it was my own choice that I wasn’t in there swapping friendship bracelets with the best of them. Mostly that made it OK.

I said, ‘If you think back, we were kids; only a couple of years older than this lot. People wanted to belong. Nothing strange there.’

Conway thought, unrolling tights. ‘I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘It’s not the making friends that gets on my tits. Everyone needs those. But I had mine back at home. Still do.’

Glance at me. I said, ‘Yeah.’

‘Right. So you didn’t need to go chasing more. If you make friends inside some bubble that’s going to burst on you in a couple of years – like training, or like here – you’re an idiot. You start thinking that’s the whole world, nowhere else exists, then you end up with all this hysterical shite. Best friends forever, she-said-you-said-I-said wars, everyone working themselves into fits over they don’t even know what. Nothing’s just normal; everything’s right up here, all the time.’

Hand above head level. I thought of the Murder squad room. Wondered if Conway was thinking of it too.

‘Then you head out into the big bad world,’ she said, ‘everything looks different all of a sudden, and you’re fucked.’

I ran a hand under the slats of Joanne’s bed-frame. ‘Orla and Alison, you mean? No way Joanne’s going to be hanging out with them in college.’

Conway snorted. ‘Yeah, not a chance. Here, they’re useful; out there, they’ll be gone. And they’ll be devastated. I wasn’t thinking of them, though. I meant the gangs that actually genuinely care about each other. Like your Holly and her mates.’

‘I’d say they’ll still be mates on the outside.’ I hoped so. That something special, gilding the air. You want to believe it’ll last forever.

‘Could be. Probably, even. That’s not the point. The point is, right now, they don’t give a fuck about anyone except each other. Great, that’s cute, I bet they’re delighted with themselves.’ Conway threw a handful of bras back into a drawer, slammed it. ‘But when they get out there? That’s not going to be an option any more. They won’t be able to hang out of each other’s hole twenty-four-seven, ignore everyone else. Other people are going to start mattering, whether these four like that or not. The rest of the world’s gonna be there. It’s gonna be real. And that’s gonna fuck up their heads like they can’t even imagine.’

She pulled out another drawer, hard enough that it nearly fell on her foot. ‘I don’t like bubbles.’

Down the back of Joanne’s headboard: dust and nothing. I said, ‘How about the squad?’

‘What about it?’

‘Murder’s a bubble.’

Conway flipped out a T-shirt with a snap. ‘Yeah,’ she said. Jaw set like she was seeing fights ahead. ‘Murder’s a lot like here. The difference is, I’m there for good.’

I thought about asking if that meant she was planning on making friends on the squad. Decided I had better sense.

Conway said, like she’d heard me anyway, ‘And I’m still not gonna get all buddy-buddy with the squad lads. I don’t want to belong. I want to do my fucking job.’

I did my fucking job – ran my hand over shiny posters; nothing – and thought about Conway. Tried to work out if I envied her, or felt sorry for her, or thought she was talking bollix.

We were finishing up when Conway’s phone buzzed. Message.

‘Sophie,’ she said, slamming the wardrobe door. ‘Here we go.’ This time I went to her shoulder without waiting for an invitation.

The e-mail said, Records for the number that texted Moran. My guy’s working on the actual texts, says they should still be in the system but might take him an hour or two. Probably all ‘OMGLOLWTFbwahaha!!!!’ but you want them, you’re getting them. Enjoy. S.

The attachment was pages long; Chris had been getting plenty of use out of his special phone. He’d activated it at the end of August, just before he went back to school – good little Boy Scout, coming prepared. By the middle of September, two numbers were showing up. No calls, but plenty of texts and media messages back and forth with both, every day, a few times a day. ‘You were right,’ Conway said, hard-edged. I felt her think it: witnesses she should have found.

‘Ladies’ man, our Chris.’

‘And smart, too. See all these picture messages? Those weren’t pics of fluffy kitties. If one of his girls started threatening to tell the world, these would keep her nice and quiet.’

I said, ‘That’ll be why none of them said it to you last year. They were hoping if they kept their mouths shut, no one would link these to them.’

Conway’s head came round, suspicious, ready to shove my comfort up my hole. I kept my eyes on the screen till she turned back to it.

October, both of Chris’s girls got the boot – same MO we’d seen on Joanne’s records: he ignored their texts, the flood of calls from one of them, till they gave up. As they faded, Joanne’s number kicked in. By the middle of November, Chris was two-timing her; after Joanne faded away in December, the other girl hung on a couple more weeks, but by Christmas she was history. January, a new number swapped a handful of texts and vanished: something that never got off the ground.

Conway said, ‘I wondered all along. Why Chris hadn’t had a girlfriend in a year. Popular guy like him, good-looking, did fine with the girls before; it didn’t add up. I should’ve…’ Quick jerk of her head, angry. She didn’t bother finishing.

Last week in February, the next run of texts started. One a day, then two, then half a dozen. All the one number. Conway scrolled down: March, April, the texts kept coming.

She tapped the screen. ‘That’ll be Selena.’

I said, ‘And he wasn’t two-timing her.’

We left a second for what that meant. My theory, the girl who had caught Chris cheating, she was out. Conway’s was getting stronger.

Conway said, ‘See that? No media messages, just texts. No tit pics here. Selena wasn’t giving Chris what he was after.’

‘Maybe he dumped her for that.’

‘Maybe.’

April 22nd, Monday, the usual couple of texts back and forth during the day – setting up the meeting, probably. That night, Joanne had taken the video.

Early on April 23rd, Chris texted Selena. She answered before school, he came straight back to her. No answer. Chris texted her again after school: nothing.

He tried three more times the next day. Selena didn’t answer.

Conway said, ‘Something went wrong, anyway, that night. After Joanne and Gemma went inside.’

I said, ‘And she’s the one dumping him.’ Conway’s theory swelled bigger.

It was the 25th, Thursday, when Selena finally got back to Chris. Just the one text. No answer.

Over the next few weeks, she texted him six times. He didn’t answer any of them. Conway’s eyebrows were pulled together.

Early on the morning of the 16th of May, Thursday, a text from Selena to Chris and, finally, one back. That night, Chris had been murdered.

After that, nothing into his phone or out, for a year. Then, today, the text to me.

Below the window, a tumble of high voices: girls outside, getting fresh air on their break between dinner and study. Nothing on our corridor. McKenna was keeping this lot where they were, under her eye.

Conway said, ‘It goes bad the night of the twenty-second. Next day, Chris tries to apologise, Selena tells him to fuck off. He keeps trying, she ignores him.’

‘Over the next few days,’ I said, ‘she comes out of shock, starts getting mad. She decides she wants to confront Chris. By that time, though, he’s in a snot because she didn’t accept his apology; he’s decided to move on. Like that story Holly told us, with the muffin: he didn’t like not getting what he wanted.’

‘Or it’s started to sink in that this is serious shit, and he’s scared Selena’s going to tell. He figures the safest thing he can do is cut off contact; if she comes forward, he’ll call her a liar, claim the person she was texting wasn’t him, he never had anything to do with her.’

‘Finally,’ I said, ‘on the sixteenth of May, Selena finds a way to get him to meet up. Maybe he figures he needs to get the phone off her, in case there’s a way it can be traced back to him.’

The rest turned in the air between us. On the grass below the window a huddle of little girls were chattering, indignant as small birds: She totally knew I wanted it and she like looked at me going for it and then she just barged right in front-

Conway said, ‘I told you in the car I didn’t fancy Selena for it, didn’t think she could get the job done. I still don’t.’

I said, ‘Julia’s very protective of Selena.’

‘You spotted that, yeah? I make noises about questioning Selena, say I don’t play nice; Julia’s straight in with the info about Joanne and Chris, throwing another ball for me to chase.’

‘Yeah. And I’d say it’s not just Julia: all four of them look after each other. If Chris did something to Selena, or tried to, and the others found out…’

‘Revenge,’ Conway said. ‘Or they saw Selena losing the plot, thought she’d go back to normal if Chris was gone and she felt safe again. And I’d say any of those three could get the job done just fine.’

‘Rebecca?’ But I remembered it, that lift of her chin, the glint that had told me Not so frail after all. Thought of the poem on her wall, of what her friends meant to her.

‘Yeah. Even her.’ After a second, carefully not looking at me: ‘Even Holly.’

I said, ‘Holly’s the one who brought me that card. She could’ve just binned it.’

‘I’m not saying she did anything. I’m just saying I’m not ready to rule her out yet.’

Made me prickle, the carefulness; like Conway thought I was going to throw a full-on hissy, demand she take my Holly off the list, start making calls to my big daddy Mackey. I wondered all over again what Conway had heard about me.

I said, ‘Or it could be all three of them.’

‘Or all four,’ Conway said. She pressed her fingers to her nose, rubbed them along her cheekbones. ‘Fuck.’

She looked like today was starting to close over her head. She was longing to leave: go back to Murder and turn in her paperwork, sit in the pub with a mate till her head was wiped clear, start fresh in the morning.

She said, ‘This fucking place.’

‘Long day,’ I said.

‘You want to go, go.’

‘And do what?’

‘Do whatever you do. Go home. Get your glad rags on and go clubbing. There’s a bus stop down the main road, or you can phone a taxi. Send me the receipt, I’ll put it on expenses.’

I said, ‘If I’ve got the choice, I’m staying.’

‘I’m gonna be here a while. I don’t know how long.’

‘No problem.’

Conway looked at me, eyebag to eyebag. Fatigue had rasped the coppery sheen off her skin, left her bare and hard and dusty.

She said, ‘Ambitious little fucker, aren’t you?’

It stung, places where it shouldn’t have, because it was true and because it wasn’t all the truth. I said, ‘It’s your case. No matter what I do, it’s your name going on the solve. I just want to work it.’

Second of silence, while Conway looked at me. She said, ‘If we get a suspect and we bring her back to base, the lads are gonna give me hassle. About the case, about you, whatever. I can deal with that. If you add to the hassle because you want to be one of the lads, you’re gone. Clear?’

What I’d felt in the squad-room air that morning: not just your normal Murder-squad edge, fast Murder-squad pulse. Something more, beating faster and sharper around Conway. And not just today. Her every day had to be a fight.

I said, ‘I’ve ignored eejits before. I can do it again.’ Hoped to Jaysus the squad room would be empty whenever we walked in there. Last thing I wanted to do was pick between pissing off Conway and pissing off the Murder lads.

Conway kept up the stare for another moment. Then: ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You better be good at it.’ She clicked her phone to black, slid it back into her pocket. ‘Time to talk to Selena.’

I glanced around the beds. Shoved Alison’s locker back into place, pulled Joanne’s duvet straight. ‘Where?’

‘Her room. Keep it casual, keep her relaxed. If she comes out with it…’

If Selena said rape, then parent or guardian, support officer, video camera, all the bells and whistles. I asked, ‘Who does the talking?’

‘I do. What’re you looking at? I can do sensitive. And you think she’ll talk to you about a rape? You stay back and try to disappear.’

Conway slammed the window shut. Before we got out of the room, the smell of body sprays and hot hair was rising around us again.

To keep the girls occupied, God help them, McKenna had started a singalong. Their voices straggled down the corridor to meet us, thin and threadbare. O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today…

The common room was too hot, even with the windows open. The dinner plates were scattered around, mostly barely touched; the smell of cooled chicken pie turned me starving and queasy at the same time. The girls’ eyes were glazed and ricocheting, to each other, the windows, to Alison huddled in an armchair under a pile of hoodies.

Half of them were barely moving their lips. Queen of the angels and queen of the may… It took them a second to notice us. Then the voices faltered and died.

‘Selena,’ Conway said, barely a nod to McKenna. ‘Got a minute?’

Selena had been singing along, absently, gazing into nowhere. She looked at us like she was trying to work out who we were, before she got up and came.

‘Remember, Selena,’ McKenna told her, as she passed, ‘if at any point you feel in need of support, you can simply put a stop to the interview and ask to have me or another teacher present. The detectives are aware of that.’

Selena smiled at her. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, reassuring.

‘She is, of course,’ Conway said cheerfully. ‘Hang on for us in your room, yeah, Selena?’

As Selena wandered off down the corridor: ‘Julia,’ Conway said, beckoned. ‘Come here a sec.’

Julia had her back to us, hadn’t moved when we came in. In the second when she turned around, she looked wrecked: grey and tense, all the spark faded out of her. By the time she reached us she’d found a last bit of zip somewhere, gave us the smart eye again.

‘Yeah?’

Conway pulled the door to behind her. Quietly, so as not to reach Selena: ‘How come you never told me you had a thing going with Finn Carroll?’

Julia’s jaw tightened. ‘Bloody Joanne. Right?’

‘Doesn’t matter. Last year, I asked you about relationships with Colm’s guys. How come you said nothing?’

‘Because there was nothing to say. It wasn’t a relationship; Finn and I never touched each other. We just liked each other. As actual human beings. And that’s exactly why we didn’t tell anyone we were hanging out, which we barely even were anyway, only for like two seconds. But we knew everyone would be like, “OMG, hee-hee-hee, Finn and Julia sitting in a tree… ” And we didn’t feel like putting up with that bullshit. OK?’

I thought of Joanne and Gemma, snickering low in the darkness, and I believed her. So did Conway. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Fair enough.’ And as Julia turned away: ‘What’s Finn at these days? He doing OK?’

Just for a second, the slash of grief turned Julia’s face into an adult’s. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said, and went back into the common room and closed the door.

Selena was waiting outside her room. The low sun through the window at the end of the corridor sent her shadow towards us, floating over the glowing red tiles. The singing had started up again. O virgin most tender, our homage we render…

Selena said, ‘It’s break time. We should be outside. People are getting sort of fidgety.’

‘I know, yeah,’ Conway said, brushing past her and getting comfortable on Julia’s bed. Sitting differently this time, one foot tucked under her, teenager curled up for a chat. ‘Tell you what: when we finish up with all this, I’ll ask McKenna if she’d let yous have a late break outside. How’s that?’

Selena glanced down the corridor, dubious. ‘I guess.’

In danger defend us, in sorrow befriend us… Raggedy, splintering at the edges. I thought I saw that flash of wide-awake silver in Selena’s face again, saw her seeing something we shouldn’t miss.

If it was there, Conway didn’t spot it. ‘Great. Have a seat.’ Selena sat on the edge of her bed. I shut the door – the singing vanished – and melted into a corner, got out my notebook to hide behind.

‘Lovely.’ Conway pulled out her phone, tapped at the screen. ‘Have a look at this,’ she said, and passed it to Selena.

It hit her. Even if I hadn’t been able to hear it – bumping footsteps, rustling branches – I’d’ve known what it was, by Selena.

She went white, not red. Her head reared back, away from the screen, and her face had a terrible, violated dignity to it. The shorn hair, nothing to hide behind, made her look stripped naked. I felt like I should look away.

‘Who?’ she said. She pressed her other hand down over the phone, palm covering the screen. ‘How?’

‘Joanne,’ Conway said. ‘Her and Gemma followed you. I’m sorry for hitting you with this, it’s a dirty trick, but it seems like it’s the only way to get you to stop claiming you weren’t going out with Chris. And I can’t afford to waste any more time on that. OK?’

Selena waited, like she couldn’t hear anything else, till the muffled sounds from under her palm ended. Then she loosened her hands – it took an effort – and passed the phone back to Conway.

‘OK,’ she said. Her breath was still coming hard, but she had her voice under control. ‘I was meeting Chris.’

‘Thanks,’ Conway said. ‘I appreciate that. And he gave you a secret phone that you used to keep in touch. Why was that?’

‘We were keeping things private.’

‘Whose idea was that?’

‘Chris’s.’

Conway shifted an eyebrow. ‘You didn’t mind?’

Selena shook her head. Her colour was starting to come back.

‘No? Me, I would’ve minded. I’d’ve figured, either this guy thinks I’m not good enough to take out in public, or he wants to keep his options open. Either way, I’m not happy.’

Selena said simply, ‘I didn’t think that.’

Conway left a pause, but that was it. ‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘Would you say it was a good relationship?’

Selena had herself back. She said, slowly, turning over the words before she let them out, ‘It was one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever had. That and my friends. Nothing’s ever going to be like that again.’

The words dissolved and spread into the air, turned it those still, backlit blues. She was right; course she was. You don’t get a second first time. It seemed like she shouldn’t have had to know that, not yet. Like she should have had the chance to leave that glade behind, before she realised she could never go back.

Conway held up her phone. ‘So why’d you dump him after this night?’

Selena went vague, but I got that feeling again: she was wrapping the vague around her. ‘I didn’t.’

Conway tapped at her screen, quick and deft. ‘Here,’ she said, holding it out. ‘That’s records of the texts going back and forth between you and Chris. See here? This is the couple of days after that night in the video. He’s trying to get in touch, but you’re ignoring him. You’d never done that before. Why after that night?’

Selena never even thought about denying the number was hers. She looked at the phone like it was alive and strange, maybe dangerous. She said, ‘I just needed to think.’

‘Yeah? About what?’

‘Chris and me.’

‘Yeah, I figured that. I meant what specifically? Did he do something, that night, that made you rethink the relationship?’

Selena’s eyes went away somewhere, for real this time. She said quietly, ‘That was the first time we kissed.’

Conway gave her the scepticals. ‘That doesn’t match our information. You’d been seen kissing at least once before.’

Selena shook her head. ‘No.’

‘No? That doesn’t match with anything we’ve learned about Chris. You’d met up, how many times?’

‘Seven.’

‘And never laid a hand on each other. All pure and innocent, no bad thoughts, never anything the nuns couldn’t’ve seen. Seriously?’

A faint pink had come up in Selena’s cheeks. Conway was good; every time Selena tried to drift away into her cloud, Conway got a finger on her. ‘I didn’t say that. We’d held hands, we’d sat there with our arms round each other, we… But we’d never kissed before. So I needed to think. Whether it should happen again. Stuff like that.’

I couldn’t tell if she was lying. As hard to gauge as Joanne, not for the same reasons. Conway nodded away, turning her phone between her fingers, thinking. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘So that means you and Chris weren’t having sex?’

‘No. We weren’t.’ No wiggle, no giggle, none of that shite. That rang true. Score one for Conway’s instincts.

‘Was Chris OK with that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Really? A lot of guys his age would’ve been putting on the pressure. Did he?’

‘No.’

‘Here’s the thing,’ Conway said. Her tone was good: gentle, but direct, no talking down to the kiddie; just woman to woman, working through something tough together. ‘A lot of times, people who get sexually assaulted don’t want to report it because the aftermath is so much hassle. Medical examinations, testifying in court, getting cross-examined, maybe watching the attacker walk away scot-free: they don’t want to deal with any of that mess, they just want to forget the whole thing and move on. Hard to blame them for that, right?’

A pause to let Selena nod. She didn’t. She was listening, though, eyebrows pulled together. She looked bewildered.

Conway said, a notch slower, ‘See, though, this is different. There’s not gonna be any medical exam, since this happened a year ago; and there’s not gonna be any trial, since the attacker’s dead. Basically, you can tell me what happened, and it won’t blow up into some huge big thing. If you want, you can talk to someone who’s had a load of practice helping people deal with things like this. That’s it. End of story.’

‘Wait,’ Selena said. The bewilderment had got bigger. ‘You mean me? You think Chris raped me?’

‘Did he?’

‘No! God, no way!’

It looked real. ‘OK,’ Conway said. ‘Did he ever make you do anything you didn’t want to do?’ You always rephrase this one, keep coming at it from different angles. Scary, how many girls think it doesn’t count as rape unless it’s a laneway stranger with a knife; how many guys do.

Selena was shaking her head. ‘No. Never.’

‘Keep touching you after you told him to stop?’

Still shaking her head, steady and vehement. ‘No. Chris wouldn’t have done that to me. Never.’

Conway said, ‘Selena, we know Chris wasn’t an angel. He hurt a lot of girls. Slagging them, two-timing them, messing them around and then blanking them when he got bored.’

Selena said, ‘I know. He told me. He shouldn’t have done that.’

‘It’s easy to romanticise someone who’s dead, specially someone who meant a lot to you. Fact is, Chris had a cruel streak, specially when he didn’t get what he wanted.’

‘Yeah. I know that; I’m not romanticising.’

‘Then why’re you telling me he wouldn’t have hurt you?’

Selena said – not defensive, just patient – ‘That was different.’

Conway said, ‘That’s what all the other girls thought, too. Every one of them thought she had something special with Chris.’

Selena said, ‘Maybe they did have. People are complicated. When you’re a little kid, you don’t realise, you think people are just one thing; but then you get older, and you realise it’s not that simple. Chris wasn’t that simple. He was cruel and he was kind. And he didn’t like realising that. It bothered him, that he wasn’t just one thing. I think it made him feel…’

She drifted for long enough that I wondered if she’d left the sentence behind, but Conway kept waiting. In the end, Selena said, ‘It made him feel fragile. Like he could break into pieces any time, because he didn’t know how to hold himself together. That was why he did that with those other girls, went with them and kept it secret: so he could try out being different things and see how it felt, and he’d be safe. He could be as lovely as he wanted or as horrible as he wanted, and it wouldn’t count, because no one else would ever know. I thought, at first, maybe I could show him how to hold the different bits together; how he could be OK. But it didn’t work out that way.’

‘Right,’ Conway said. No interest in the deep and meaningfuls, but I could feel her clocking that I had been right: no short bus for Selena. She skimmed a finger over her phone, held it out again. ‘See here? After that night on the video, you ignored Chris for a few days, but then you stopped. These here, these are texts from you to him. What changed your mind?’

Selena had her head turned away from the phone, like she couldn’t look. She said, to the slowing light outside the window, ‘I knew the right thing to do was cut him off totally. Never be in touch again. I knew that. But… you saw that. The video.’ A bare nod towards the phone. ‘It wasn’t just that I missed him. It was because that was special. We made it together, me and Chris, it was never going to exist anywhere else in the world, and it was beautiful. Wrecking something like that, grinding it up to nothing and throwing it away: that’s evil. That’s what evil is. Isn’t it?’

Neither of us answered.

‘It felt like a terrible thing to do. Like it might even be the worst thing I’d ever done – I couldn’t tell for sure. So I thought maybe I could save just some of it. Maybe, even if we weren’t going to be together, we could still…’

Everyone’s thought that: maybe even if, maybe we could still, maybe small bits of precious things can be salvaged. No one with cop-on thinks it after the first try. But her voice, quiet and sad, shimmering the air into those pearly colours: for a second I believed it, all over again.

Selena said, ‘It would never have worked out like that. Probably I knew that; I think I might’ve. But I had to try. So I texted Chris a couple of times. Saying let’s stay friends. Saying I missed him, I didn’t want to lose him… Stuff like that.’

‘Not a couple of times,’ Conway said. ‘Seven.’

Selena’s eyebrows pulling together. ‘Not that many. Two? Three?’

‘You were texting him every few days. Including the day he died.’

Selena shook her head. ‘No.’ Anyone would’ve said that, anyone with half a brain. But the bewildered look: I would’ve nearly sworn that was real.

‘It’s right here in black and white.’ Conway’s tone was turning. Not hard, not yet, but firm. ‘Look. Text from you, no answer. Text from you, no answer. Text from you, no answer. This time Chris was ignoring you.’

Things moved in Selena’s face. She was watching the screen like a telly, like she could see it all happening in front of her, all over again.

‘That had to have hurt,’ Conway said. ‘Didn’t it?’

‘Yeah. It did.’

‘So Chris was prepared to hurt you, after all. Right?’

Selena said, ‘Like I told you. He wasn’t just one thing.’

‘Right. So is that why you broke up with him? Because he did something to hurt you?’

‘No. That, when he didn’t answer my texts, that was the first time Chris ever hurt me.’

‘Must’ve made you pretty angry.’

‘Angry,’ Selena said. Turned the word over. ‘No. I was sad; I was so sad. I couldn’t figure out why he’d do that, not at first. But angry…’ She shook her head. ‘No.’

Conway waited, but she was done. ‘And then? Did you figure it out in the end, yeah?’

‘Not till afterwards. When he died.’

‘Right,’ Conway said. ‘So why was it?’

Selena said, simply, ‘I was saved.’

Conway’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You mean you – what? Found God? Chris broke it off because–’

Selena laughed. The laugh startled me: fountaining up into the air, full and sweet, like laughter out of girls splashing in some tumbling river, miles from any watcher. ‘Not saved like that! God, can you imagine? I think my parents would’ve had a heart attack.’

Conway smiled along. ‘The nuns would’ve been delighted, though. So what way were you saved?’

‘Saved from getting back with Chris.’

‘Huh? You said being with Chris was great. Why did you need saving?’

Selena examined that. Said, ‘It wasn’t a good idea.’

That flash again. Wrapped in the pearly mist was someone wide awake and careful, someone we’d barely met.

‘Why not?’

‘Like you said. He messed around all the other girls he was with. Going out with someone brought out his worst side.’

Conway trying to box Selena in, Selena leading her in loops. Conway said, ‘But you said he never did anything bad on you till after you split. What bad side did being with you bring out?’

‘It hadn’t had time to, yet. You said it would’ve, sooner or later.’

Conway dropped it. ‘Probably would’ve,’ she said. ‘So someone saved you.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Who?’

So smooth and easy, it slid out.

Selena thought. She thought without moving: no ankles twisting or fingers weaving, not even her eyes flicking; just still, gazing, one hand loose in the other.

Said, ‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘It does to us.’

Selena nodded. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Yeah. You do.’

Selena met Conway’s eyes straight on. She said, ‘No, I don’t. I don’t need to.’

‘But you’ve got a guess.’

She shook her head. Slow and adamant: the end.

‘OK,’ Conway said. If she was pissed off, she didn’t give any sign. ‘OK. The phone Chris gave you: where is it now?’

Something. Wariness, guilt, worry; I couldn’t tell. ‘I lost it.’

‘Yeah? When?’

‘Ages ago. Last year.’

‘Before Chris died, or after?’

Selena thought about that for a while. ‘Around then,’ she said, helpfully.

‘Right,’ Conway said. ‘Let’s try this. Where were you keeping it?’

‘I’d cut a slit in the side of my mattress. The side that was against the wall.’

‘Good. So think hard, Selena. When’s the last time you took it out?’

‘By the end I knew he wasn’t going to text me. So I only checked last thing at night, sometimes. Just in case. I tried not to.’

‘The night he died. Did you check?’

The thought of that night sent Selena’s eyes skidding. ‘I don’t remember. Like I said, I was trying not to.’

‘But you’d texted him that day. You didn’t want to see if he’d answered?’

‘I hadn’t. I mean, I don’t think so. Maybe I might’ve, but…’

‘What about after you heard he’d died? Did you go for the phone, see if he’d sent you one last text?’

‘I can’t remember. I wasn’t…’ Selena caught her breath. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. A lot of that week doesn’t… it’s not really in my head.’

‘Think hard.’

‘I am. It’s not there.’

‘OK,’ Conway said. ‘You keep trying, and if it comes back, you let me know. What’d the phone look like, by the way?’

‘It was little, like this big. Light pink. It was a flip phone.’

Conway’s eye found mine. The same phone Chris had given Joanne; he must have got a job lot. ‘Did anyone know you had it?’ she asked.

Selena said, ‘No.’ And flinched. The others, certain sure that there were no secrets in their holy circle: under cover of the night she had slipped out of that circle, left them sleeping and trusting. ‘None of them knew.’

‘You positive? Living in each other’s pockets, it’s not easy to keep a secret. Specially not one as big as that.’

‘I was super-careful.’

Conway said, ‘They knew you were with Chris, though, right? It was just the phone they didn’t know about?’

‘No. They didn’t know about Chris.’ Flinch. ‘I only went out to him like once a week, and I waited till I was completely sure the others were asleep. Sometimes they take ages, specially Holly, but once they’re asleep they don’t wake up for anything. I’ve always had trouble sleeping, so I knew.’

‘I thought yous were so close. Shared everything. Why didn’t you tell them?’

Another flinch. Conway was hurting her, on purpose. ‘We are. I just didn’t.’

‘Would they have had a problem with you seeing Chris?’

Vague look. The pain had her moving away again, taking refuge in her mist. Another girl would have been shifting as the pressure went on, glancing at the door, asking if she could go; Selena didn’t need to. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘So that’s not why you dumped him? Someone found out you two were seeing each other, didn’t like it?’

‘Nobody found out.’

‘You positive? Anything ever make you worry that you’d been sussed? Like maybe one of the others said something that sounded like a hint, or maybe you found the phone in the wrong position one night?’

Conway trying to go after her, haul her back. One flicker in Selena’s eyes and I thought she had her, but then the gauze came down again. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘After he died, though. You told them then, right?’

Selena shook her head. She was gone: gazing at Conway peacefully, the way you gaze at a fish swimming up and down an aquarium, all the pretty colours.

Conway looked puzzled. ‘Why not? It’s not like it could’ve done any harm: Chris was the one who’d wanted privacy, and he wasn’t around to care. And you’d lost someone who meant a lot to you. You needed support from your mates. It would’ve only made sense to tell them.’

‘I didn’t want to.’

Conway waited. ‘Huh,’ she said, when she got nothing else. ‘Fair enough. They must’ve copped that something was up, though. I’d say you were in tatters; anyone would’ve been. Even before Chris died: you said you were upset that he was ignoring you. Your friends can’t have missed that.’

Selena gazing, tranquil, waiting for the question.

‘Did any of them ever say it to you? Ask you what was up?’

‘No.’

‘If you’re all so close, how’d they miss that?’

Silence, and those peaceful eyes.

‘OK,’ Conway said, in the end. ‘Thanks, Selena. If you remember when you last saw that phone, you tell me.’

‘OK,’ Selena said, agreeably. Took her a second to think of standing up.

As she drifted for the door, Conway said, ‘When all this is sorted, I’ll e-mail you that video.’

That turned Selena fast, in a quick rush of breath. For a second she was vivid, blazing at the heart of the room.

Then she switched it off, deliberately. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

‘No? I thought you said nothing bad happened that night. Why wouldn’t you want the video? Unless it brings back bad memories?’

Selena said, ‘I don’t need to have what Joanne Heffernan saw. I was there.’ And she went out, closing the door gently behind her.