The Secret Place

Chapter 25

I stood there in the corridor, just stood, my stupid gob hanging open and a big cartoon bubble saying ‘!!??!!’ bouncing over my fat head. Stood till I copped that Mackey or Conway might come out and find me there. Then I moved. Past the Secret Place, cards jostling and hissing. Down the stairs. Caught myself moving slow and careful, like I’d taken a kicking and something hurt like fuck, if I could work out where.

The foyer was dark, I had to grope my way to the main door. It felt heavier or the strength had gone out of me, I had to lean my shoulder on it and heave, feet slipping on the tiles, picturing Mackey watching and grinning from the stairs. I half-fell outside sweating. Let the door slam behind me. I didn’t know any other way back into the school, but I wasn’t going to need one.

I thought about ringing a taxi to take me home. The picture of Mackey and Conway coming out and finding me gone, flounced off to have a little cry on my pillow, turned me red in the twilight. I left my phone in my pocket.

Twenty to ten, and nearly dark. Outdoor lights were on, turning the grass whitish without actually illuminating it, doing strange eye-bending things in among the trees. I looked at that tree line and saw it the way the sixth-years had to see it, outline sharpened to slicing by the knowledge that it was about to sift away down the sky like a flower-fall, out of view. Something that would be there forever and ever; for other people, not for me. I was almost gone.

I picked my way down the steps – that light turned them depthless, treacherous – and started walking, along the front of the school and down the side of the boarders’ wing. My feet crunched in pebbles, and that morning’s jumpy reflex – head turning, checking for the gamekeeper siccing the hounds on the unwashed – was back.

I scrabbled through the mess for something good somewhere, couldn’t find it. Told myself if Mackey was right about Conway – course he was, Mackey has something on everyone, no need to invent it – then she had just done me a favour: better out than in. I told myself I’d be relieved in the morning, when I wasn’t wrecked and starving, when I hadn’t used up everything I had. Told myself in the morning I wouldn’t feel like something priceless had landed in my hand, been robbed away and smashed before I could close my fingers.

Couldn’t make it stick. Cold Cases waiting for me outside these walls and Mackey had been right, the smirky fucker: now I was the kid who couldn’t hack twelve hours in the big leagues, and he and Conway between them would make sure everyone knew that. Cold Cases had looked so shiny to me, my first day, such a wide glittering sweep of step up. Now it looked like a dingy dead end. This here, this was what I wanted. One day, and gone.

The only smudge of silver lining I could come up with: it was almost over. Even before Mackey’s backstabbing break, we’d been starting to go in circles. If he didn’t pull the plug soon, Conway would. I just had to wait out the last of their patience, then I could go home and try to forget today had ever happened. I’d’ve only loved to be one of those blokes who drink till days like this dissolve. Better: one of those blokes who texts his mates, days like this, Pub. Feels their circle click closed around him.

Everyone knows a wife and kids tie you down. What people miss somehow is that mates, the proper kind, they do the same just as hard. Mates mean you’ve settled, made your bargain: this, wherever you are together, this is as far as you’re going, ever. This is your stop; this is where you get off.

Not just where you are: they tie you down to who you are. Once you have mates who know you, right down under the this-and-that you decide people want to see today, then there’s no room left for the someday person who’ll magic you into being all your finest dreams. You’ve turned solid: you’re the person your mates know, forever.

You like things to be beautiful, Conway had said, and been right. Over my own dead body was I going to stake myself down somewhere, being someone, that didn’t have all the beautiful I could cram into me. For ugly I could’ve stayed where I started, got myself a career on the dole and a wife who hated my guts and a dozen snot-faced brats and a wall-sized telly playing 24/7 shows about people’s intestines. Call me arrogant, uppity, me the council-house kid thinking I deserved more. I’d been swearing it since before I was old enough to understand the thought: I was going to be more.

If I had to get there without friends, I could do it. Had been doing it. I’d never met anyone who brought me somewhere I wanted to stay, looked at me and saw someone I wanted to be for good; anyone who was worth giving up the more I wanted down the line.

It landed inside me then, there under the dead weight of the shadow of Kilda’s, too late. That light I had seen on Holly and her mates, so bright it hurt, the rare thing I had come into that school looking to find and to envy: I had thought it came to them showering down with the echoes from high ceilings, reflected onto them in the glow of old wood. I had been wrong. It had come from them. From the way they gave things up for each other, stripped branches off their futures and set them ablaze. What had felt like beautiful to me on the other side of today, balustrades and madrigals, those were nothing. I had been missing the heart of it, all along.

Mackey had taken one sniff of me, known the whole story. Seen me in school turning down a spliff and a laugh, in case getting caught cost me my chance at getting out; seen me at training college, big friendly smile and vague excuse to wander away from the big friendly guys who were going to be in uniform for life. Watched me fuck Kennedy over, and known exactly what was missing out of a person who would do that.

And Conway must have smelled it off me too. All day, when I’d been thinking how we clicked, thinking we were getting on like a house on fire. Thinking against my own will that this tasted like something brand-new.

Out the back of the school. Clusters of dark shapes tossed across the green-white grass, restless and stirring, for a moment my eye went wild trying to make sense of them – I thought big cats released for the night, thought another art project, thought ghosts got loose from Holly’s model school – before one threw back her head, floodlight glossing long hair, and laughed. The boarders. Conway had told McKenna to let them out before bedtime. McKenna had been smart enough to do it.

Rustles under the trees, a shake in the hedge. They were everywhere, watching me. A trio on the grass glanced across, chins turning over shoulders, huddled in tight to whisper. Another laugh, this one fired straight at me.

Half an hour, maybe, till someone called time on the interview and I got to hunch in Conway’s passenger seat like a kid caught spray-painting, for the long silent drive home. Spend that half-hour standing here like a spare prick, with teenage girls giving me the sideways once-over and the snide commentary: bollix to that. Do a legger back round to the front of the school like this lot had terrified me off, hang around hoping no one would see me waiting for the big kids to give me my lift home: bollix to that, too.

‘And fuck Conway anyway,’ I said, out loud, not loud enough for any of the glancing girls to hear. If we weren’t working together, then I was flying solo.

I didn’t know where to start looking. I didn’t have to: they called to me. Voices out of the black-and-white dazzle, untwisting themselves from the breeze-rustles and the bats: Detective, Detective Moran! Over here! Silvery, gauzy, everywhere and nowhere. I turned like blind-man’s-buff. Heard giggles whirl like moths among the leaves.

Off in the tree-shadows, across the slope of lawn: pale flutters, hands waving, beckoning. Detective Stephen come here come here! I went, weaving between the watching eyes. Could’ve been anyone, I would’ve gone.

They grew outlines and features out of nothing, like Polaroids. Gemma, Orla, Joanne. Propped on their elbows, legs stretched out, hair hanging to the grass behind them. Smiling.

I smiled back. That I could do, at least. That I was great at. Beat Conway any day.

‘Did you miss us?’ Gemma. Neck arched.

‘Here,’ Joanne said. Shifted closer to Gemma, patted the grass where she’d been. ‘Come talk to us.’

I knew to run. I had better sense than to be in a lit room alone with Holly Mackey, never mind out here with these three. But them looking at me like they actually wanted me around, that made a nice change; that was sweet as cool water on burns.

‘Are we allowed to call you Detective Stephen?’

‘Duh, what’s he going to do, arrest us?’

‘You’d probably enjoy it. Handcuffs–’

‘Can we? Your card said Stephen Moran.’

‘What about Detective Steve?’

‘Ew, please! That’s like a porn name.’

I kept smiling, kept my mouth shut. They were different, out in the wild and the night. Skittery, slanty-glanced, swaying with breezes I couldn’t feel. Powerful. I knew I was outnumbered, back of my neck, the way you know it when three guys with a bad walk roll around the corner and pick up the pace towards you.

‘Come on. We’re bored.’ Joanne, crossed ankles rocking. ‘Keep us company.’

I sat down. The grass was soft, springy. The air under the trees smelled richer, seething with spores and pollen.

‘What are you doing still here?’ Gemma wanted to know. ‘Are you staying here tonight?’

‘Um, duh, exactly where would he stay?’ Joanne, rolling her eyes.

‘Gems wants him to share with her.’ Orla, giggling hard.

‘Hello? Was I asking you?’ No being a bitch around here without Joanne’s say-so. ‘It’s not like he could share with you, anyway. He’d have to be like a midget to fit in with your massive fat thighs.’

Orla cringed. Joanne laughed: ‘OhmyGod, you should see your face! Chill out, it was a joke, ever heard of them?’ Orla cringed smaller.

Gemma ignoring them, eyeing me, corner of smile. ‘He could share with Sister Cornelius. Make her night.’

‘She’d bite it off him. Offer it up to the Child of Prague.’

Three feet deeper into the trees, we would’ve been in darkness. Here in the borderlands the light was mixed and moving, edges of moonlight, overspill from the lawn floodlights. It did things to their faces. That throwaway cheapness that had turned my stomach earlier, all artificial colourings and flavourings: it didn’t look throwaway now, not out here. It looked harder, chilled to something solid and waxy. Mysterious.

I said, ‘We’ll be heading soon. Just finishing up a few things.’

‘It talks.’ Gemma, smiling wider. ‘I thought you were giving us the silent treatment.’

Joanne said, ‘You don’t look like you’re finishing anything up.’

‘Taking a break.’

She smirked like she knew better. ‘Did you get in trouble with Detective Bitchface?’

To them I wasn’t a detective any more, big bad authority. I was something else: something to play with, play for, dance for. Strange thing dropped into their midst out of the sky, who knew what it might do, what it might mean. They were circling me.

I said, ‘Not that I know of.’

‘OhmyGod, her attitude? It’s like, hello, just because you managed to save up for one suit that isn’t from Penney’s, it doesn’t actually make you queen of the world?’

Gemma said, ‘Do you have to work with her all the time? Or sometimes, if you’re good, do they let you work with someone who doesn’t eat live hamsters for fun?’

All of them laughing, beckoning me or daring me to laugh back. I heard the small dull thud of Conway closing the door in my face. Watched those three faces dancing, every spark of it all for me.

I laughed. I said, ‘Jesus, have a heart. She’s not my partner. I’m only working with her for the day.’

Pretend collapses from relief, all of them fanning themselves: ‘Phew! OhmyGod, we were wondering how you survived, like if you were on Prozac…’

I said, ‘Another few days of this and I will be.’ We laughed harder. ‘That’s one reason I’m out here. I needed a chat and a laugh with people who won’t have my head melted.’

They liked that. Arched like cats, gratified. Orla – she bounced back fast; used to getting hit – she said, ‘We decided you’re a way better detective than her.’

‘Lickarse,’ said Gemma.

‘It’s true, though,’ said Joanne. Eyes on me. ‘Someone should tell your boss that Whatshername being such a B means she can’t actually do her job. She’d get a lot further if she had some basic manners. When she asks a question, it’s like, whoa, anyone got a lump of raw meat to throw, and maybe it’ll back off?’

Orla said, ‘We wouldn’t tell her the time unless we had to.’

‘When you ask us stuff,’ Joanne said, and twisted her head to one side to smile at me, ‘we want to talk to you.’

Last time I talked to her, we hadn’t been best buds, not like this. They wanted something from me, wanted to give me something, I couldn’t tell which. I said, sniffing my way, ‘Glad to hear it. You’ve been a lot of help to me so far; I don’t know what I’d’ve done without you.’

‘We like helping you.’

‘We’d be your spies any day.’

‘Undercover.’

‘We’ve got your phone number. We could text you anything suspicious we see.’

I said, ‘If you seriously want to give me a hand, you know how. You three, I’d say you know everything that happens in this school. Anything that could have to do with Chris, I’d only love to hear it.’

Orla hunching forward, glint of moonlight on her wet mouth: ‘Who’s in the art room?’

A zap of ‘Shhh!’ from Joanne. Orla shrank back.

Gemma, amused: ‘Oops. Too late.’ To me: ‘We weren’t going to just ask like that.’

‘But since Genius here did,’ said Joanne. Leaned back, throat arching. Pointed. ‘Who’s that?’

The art room, a flare of chilly white across the heavy slab of the school. Above it the stone balustrade was silhouetted against the sky, a ghost’s walk, black on near-black. In one window the wire school soared. In the next one was Mackey, slouching back, arms folded.

‘That,’ Joanne said.

I said, ‘Another detective.’

‘Ooo.’ Wrist-shake, mocking eyes. ‘I knew you’d got thrown out.’

‘Sometimes we change things up while we’re working. Keep everyone fresh.’

‘Who’re they talking to?’

‘Is it Holly Mackey?’

‘We told you they were weird.’

The glow on their faces, all eager and fascinated. Like I could be the one thing they’d been hoping to see. It made you want to be that, everything they were looking for, all at the same time. Chris Harper must have wanted the same thing.

Up in the art room, Conway strolled across the window, all long stride and sharp shoulders. I said, ‘Yeah. It’s Holly.’ Conway would’ve eaten the head off me; fuck Conway.

Hiss of in-breath. Glances circling, but I couldn’t catch them as they zipped past.

Orla breathed, ‘Did she kill Chris?’

‘OhmyGod.’

‘Here was us thinking it was Groundskeeper Willy.’

‘Well, up until today we did.’

‘But once you started asking us and them all those questions–’

‘Obviously we knew it wasn’t us–’

‘But we didn’t think–’

‘It was Holly Mackey?’

I would’ve only loved to have an answer for them. See their mouths pop open and their eyes go wide, see them overwhelmed by me, The Man, pulling out fountains of answers like a magician. I said, ‘We don’t know who killed Chris. We’re working hard on finding out.’

‘But who do you think?’ Joanne wanted to know.

Holly, slouched at that table, all blue eyes and bite and something hidden. Maybe Mackey had been right, not wanting her talking. Maybe he had been right and she would’ve talked to me.

I shook my head. ‘Not my job.’ Sceptical looks. ‘Seriously. I can’t go around with an idea stuck in my head, not till I’ve got evidence.’

‘Ahh.’ She pouted. ‘That’s so not fair. Here you’re asking us to–’

‘OhmyGod!’ Orla, shooting upright, clapping a hand over her mouth. ‘You don’t think it was Alison, do you?’

‘Is that where she is?’

‘Is she under arrest?’

They were open-mouthed. ‘No,’ I said. ‘She’s just a bit upset. The thing with Chris’s ghost, that got to her.’

‘Well, hello, yeah? It got to all of us, actually?’ Joanne, cold: I’d forgotten to put her top of the list. Bad boy.

‘Bet it did,’ I said, good and awed. ‘Did you see him?’

Joanne remembered to shiver. ‘Course I did. Probably he came back to talk to me. He was looking straight at me.’

It hit me then: every girl who had seen Chris’s ghost would’ve sworn the same. He had been looking at her. He had come because he wanted something from her, only her.

‘Like I told you’ – Joanne had her bereaved face on again – ‘if he hadn’t died, we would’ve been together again. I think he wants me to know he still cares.’

‘Ahhh.’ Orla, head to one side.

I asked her, ‘Did you see him?’

Her hand shot to her chest. ‘OhmyGod, yes! I almost had a heart attack. He was literally right there. I swear.’

I said, ‘Gemma?’

Gemma shifted on the grass. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure about ghosts.’

Joanne said, an edge on it, ‘Excuse me, I know what I saw?’

‘I’m not saying that. I’m just saying I didn’t see him. I saw like a blur in the window, like when you get something sticky in your eye. That’s it.’

‘Well. Some people are more sensitive than others. And some people were closer to Chris. Excuse me if I don’t think it actually matters what you saw.’

Gemma shrugged. Joanne said, to me, ‘He was there.’

I couldn’t tell whether she meant it. Back in the common room, I would’ve sworn all their terror was real: started as play-acting, maybe, for notice or to blow off steam, but then snowballed into something too big and too true for them to control. But now, the shiver, the face on her, I couldn’t tell; could’ve been just that plastic layer over her, blurring whatever was real underneath; could’ve been plastic straight through. Probably even they didn’t know.

I said, ‘Then that’s another reason why, whatever you know, you need to tell me. Chris would want you to.’

‘How would we know anything?’ Joanne, blank and slick as cellophane. They were giving up nothing till I earned it.

But I knew the answer to that one. After Selena and Chris broke up, Joanne had posted her guard dogs on night watch, to make sure.

I said, ‘Let’s say someone other than Selena was meeting up with Chris at night, the couple of weeks before he died. Who would you say it was?’

Joanne’s face didn’t change. ‘Was there someone?’

‘I’m only saying if. Who would you guess?’

Sliding looks at each other, under their lashes. If the fear had ever been real, it had leaked out of them. Something else had risen, forced it out: power.

Joanne said, ‘Tell us if he was meeting someone, and we’ll tell you something good.’

I said I know my shot when I see it. Sometimes you don’t even have to see it. Sometimes you feel it coming, screaming down the sky towards you like a meteor.

I said, ‘He was, yeah. We’ve found texts between them.’

More looks. Gemma said, ‘Texts like what?’

‘Texts arranging meetings.’

‘But there wasn’t any name?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t one of you, was it?’

Joanne said sharply, ‘No. It wasn’t.’ Didn’t say, Or she’d’ve been in deep shit. We all heard it.

‘But you’ve got a fair idea who it might’ve been.’

And I waited to hear Holly Mackey.

Joanne stretched out on her back, arms behind her head, arching her chest up. Said, ‘Tell us what you think about Rebecca O’Mara.’

Took my ear a second even to hear the question, past the burst of whatthefuck? Then I slammed my jaw shut and thought fast – there had to be a right answer. Said, ‘I haven’t thought about her much at all, to tell you the truth.’

Skitter of hooded glances, little smirks. Good answer.

Joanne said, ‘Because she’s sooo totally harmless.’

‘Such a good girl,’ Orla breathed.

‘So pure.’

‘So shy.’

‘I bet she acted like she was totally terrified of you, right?’ Joanne dipping her head, doing fake-simpery doe-eyes up at me. ‘Rebecca’d never do anything bold. She’s probably never even had a sip of booze in her life. Never even OMG looked at a guy.’

Gemma laughed, low.

I said, ‘That’s not true, no?’ My heart was starting a slow hard pound, jungle drums, carrying a message.

‘Well, I don’t know if she’s ever had booze – I mean, who cares. But she’s looked at a guy, all right.’

Orla sniggered. ‘You should’ve seen the way she looked at him. It was pathetic.’

I said, ‘Chris Harper.’

Slowly, Joanne started to smile. She said, ‘Ding. You win the prize.’

Orla said, ‘Rebecca was gooey for Chris.’

I said, ‘And you think in the end they got together?’

Joanne’s lip curled. ‘OMG, excuse me while I barf? No way. She was on a total loser there. Chris could’ve had anyone he wanted; he wasn’t going to go near some boring stick insect. They could’ve been stuck on a desert island and he’d’ve literally found a better-looking coconut to shag.’

I said, ‘So that means she wasn’t the one meeting him. Right? Or…?’

The looks strobing again. ‘Well,’ Joanne said. ‘Not for looove. And not for you-know-what, either. She probably wouldn’t even know how.’

‘For what, then?’

Titters. Orla sucking in her bottom lip. They weren’t going to say it unless I did first.

That meteor, howling closer. All I had to do was get in the right place, hold out my hands.

That morning. Smell of chalk and grass; me tying myself in knots like a balloon animal, trying to make myself into whatever eight different girls and Conway wanted – lot of good that had done me. Joanne, lip pulled up: I guess you think they’re all such angels, they’d never do drugs. I mean, God, Rebecca, she’s just so innocent…

I said, ‘Drugs.’

A change. I felt them tense up, waiting while I fumbled my way into place.

‘Rebecca was on drugs.’

A hysterical giggle burst out of Orla. Joanne smiled at me, teacher at a good boy. Ordered, ‘Tell him.’

After a moment Gemma sat up. Folded her legs under her, picked bits of grass off her tights. She said, ‘You’re not recording this or anything, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Good, because this is totally off the record. Like, if you ever tell anyone I said any of this, I’m going to say it’s all bullshit and you made it up to get back in Detective Dildo’s good books.’

Like I was a journalist. I was halfway through thinking naïve when she added, ‘And my dad’ll ring your boss and tell him the same thing. Which, trust me, you don’t want.’

Not so naïve. I said, ‘Not a problem.’

Joanne said, ‘Go on. Tell him.’

‘Well,’ Gemma said. Touched her tongue to her top lip, but it was autopilot, buying time while she got her head straight. ‘OK. You know about Ro, right? Ronan, who used to be a groundskeeper here?’

‘You guys arrested him,’ Orla put in helpfully. She was bright-eyed, loving it. ‘For selling drugs.’

I said, ‘I know the story, yeah.’

Gemma said, ‘He dealt a lot of stuff. Like, mostly hash and E, but if you wanted something else, he could usually get it.’

Still messing with bits of grass snagged in her tights. I couldn’t tell for sure in the flexing light, but it looked like she’d gone red.

Joanne said, ‘Gems’s diet wasn’t exactly working.’ Gave Gemma’s waist a malicious little pinch.

‘I just wanted to lose like a couple more pounds. Big deal; doesn’t everyone? So I asked Ronan if he could get me something to help.’

Flicker of a glance, Gemma looking for something from me, badly scared of not getting it. I said, hoping, ‘Must’ve worked. You definitely don’t need to be losing any weight now.’

Relief curving her mouth. This was a whole other world: admitting you had hassle getting thin was scarier than telling a cop you’d bought speed. ‘Yeah, well. Whatever. Anyway. How you bought stuff from Ronan was, right, Wednesday and Friday afternoons he was the only groundskeeper on shift, so you went down to the shed after school and you hung around outside till you saw him. Then you went in and he got the stuff out of this cupboard. You totally weren’t supposed to go into the shed unless you saw him there; he said he’d bar you if he caught you inside on your own. I guess in case someone robbed his stash.’

Joanne and Orla were wiggling themselves along the grass, in closer to me. Open-mouthed, starry-eyed.

‘So this one Wednesday,’ Gemma said, ‘it’s pissing rain, and I go down and I can’t see Ro. I wait under the trees for a while, but in the end, come on, I’m not going to stand there all day freezing my nips off? So I head into the shed. I figure Ronan can just deal with it. He knew me by then; I wasn’t some randomer.’

Shiver from the other two, anticipating.

Gemma said, ‘And there’s Rebecca O’Mara. Like, the last person you’d expect? She jumped a mile – I swear to God I thought she was going to faint. I start laughing and I’m like, “Oh my God, what are you doing here? Looking for your crack fix?”’

Swirl of laughter, in the dark teeming air.

‘Rebecca’s all, “Oh, I was just getting out of the rain,” and I’m there, “Yeah, OK.” The school’s like half a minute away, and she’s wearing her coat and her hat, meaning she actually deliberately came out into the rain. And if she’s so shy, how come she’s hiding somewhere she’s going to run into big scary groundskeepers?’

Gemma had herself back. The story was coming out easy, confident. It sounded true. ‘So I go, “Planning on doing some gardening?” – there were all these shovels and stuff in the corner where she was; she had one of them in her hand, like she’d grabbed it when I came in, in case I was a psycho rapist and she had to fight me off. And she actually goes, “Um, um, I guess, sort of, I was thinking about-” till I decide to put her out of her misery. I’m there, “Puh-lease, you didn’t think I was serious?” And she just stares at me for a moment, like, Bwuh? and then she goes, “I have to go,” and she runs out into the rain and heads back to the school.’

She must have put down the shovel, before she ran out. Shovel, or spade, or hoe. Left it there to come back for, now she knew what she wanted.

The meteor in the palm of my hand. Beautiful. Burning me through, with a welcome white fire.

If there was anything in my face, the tricky light would hide it for me. I made sure my voice stayed easy. ‘Did Ronan see her?’

Shrug from Gemma. ‘Don’t think so. He didn’t get there till a few minutes later – he’d been waiting somewhere for the rain to ease off. He was kind of pissed off that I was inside, but he got over it.’ Smile, reminiscent.

Joanne was close to me. ‘See? All that pure-and-innocent stuff, that is ohmyGod such crap. Everyone else totally falls for it, but we knew you wouldn’t.’

I said, ‘Did Ronan sell anything else besides drugs? Booze? Cigarettes?’ Sometimes they’d had the odd smoke, Holly had said; and the packet hidden in Julia’s bit of wardrobe. Rebecca could still have had an innocent reason for being in that shed; guilty kind of innocent, but innocent all the same.

Gemma snorted. ‘Right. And fizzy lollies.’

Orla was giggling. ‘Phone credit.’

‘Mascara.’

‘Tights.’

‘Tampax.’

That exploded the two of them, shrieking laughter, Orla fell over backwards onto the grass kicking her legs up. Joanne cut through it. Coldly: ‘He wasn’t a supermarket. Rebecca wasn’t buying chocolate chip cookies.’

Gemma got herself together. ‘Yeah. He just sold the bad stuff.’ Lascivious curl on bad. ‘I’d love to know what she actually was buying.’

Joanne shrugged. ‘Not diet pills, anyway. Unless she’s anorexic, and I don’t think she even has enough self-respect to bother. She doesn’t even wear makeup.’

‘Probably hash.’ Orla, knowing.

‘What kind of loser does hash by herself? OhmyGod, that’s so sad.’

‘She could’ve been buying for all four of them.’

‘Hello, like they’d send her? If they were all in on it, they’d send Julia or Holly. Rebecca was there because she wanted something.’

‘Ro’s hot body.’

‘Ew ew ew, pass the brain bleach?’

They were on the edge of getting the giggles again. I said, ‘When was this?’

That brought them back. Quick spatter of glances under their lashes. Joanne said, ‘We were wondering when you’d ask.’

‘Last spring?’

Another fizzle of glances. Gemma said, ‘The next night, Chris got killed.’

A second of silence, while that spread up and out, into the branches.

‘So,’ Joanne said. ‘See?’

I saw.

‘You said someone was meeting up with Chris, after him and Selena broke up. Like I told you, no way would he meet up with Rebecca O’Mara because he was into her. But if she was buying something for him? She would totally have done it; she would’ve done anything for him. And he would’ve met up to get it. He might even have thrown her the odd charity snog, give her something to dream about.’

Orla’s snuffly laugh.

I said, ‘Did you ever see Rebecca going out on her own at night?’

‘No. So? We stopped watching the corridor like weeks before Chris got killed.’

Chris’s tox screen had come back clean, Conway had said. No drugs in his gear.

‘And then,’ Joanne said. Sliding in closer, her legs brushing up against mine. I couldn’t see her eyes, through the floodlights glittering on their surfaces. ‘Maybe Rebecca thought they were like together or something. And when she found out they weren’t…’

Moths whirling, out over the lawn.

I said, carefully, ‘Rebecca’s only a little thing. Chris was a big strong guy. You think she could’ve…?’

Gemma said, ‘She’s a stroppy cow, is what she is, when she feels like it. If he really pissed her off…’

‘The papers said head injuries,’ Joanne said. ‘If he was sitting down, then it wouldn’t matter that she was smaller than him.’

Orla said, practically lifting up off the grass with the thrill, ‘She could’ve hit him with a rock.’

‘Ew.’ Joanne, reproving. ‘We don’t actually know it was a rock. The papers never said.’ And looked at me, question marks popping out all over. Gemma and Orla watched too, eager, bubbling with curiosity.

Not faking. None of them knew about the hoe.

More than that: no shake in their voices, no shadow sliding under their faces, when they talked about the moment that had robbed Chris Harper’s life away. They could’ve been talking about cheating on an exam. Till then, one snip of me had wondered if they were making up the Rebecca story to steer me away from one of them, but no. None of these had ever touched murder.

I said, ‘That’s great. Thanks a million for telling me.’ Smiled at them all.

‘I wasn’t about to say it in front of Detective Bitchface,’ Gemma said. ‘I’d probably be in jail right now. You’re not going to get me in trouble, right? Because like I said–’

‘No trouble. I might ask you to give me a statement at some stage, if I really need one – no, hang on, it won’t get you in hassle. You can just say you went into the shed to get out of the rain, which is true, right? You won’t need to explain why you were outside to start with. Yeah?’

Gemma didn’t look convinced. Joanne didn’t care about her. Leaning closer, fizzing with excitement: ‘So you think Rebecca did it. Right? That’s what you think.’

I said, ‘I think I’d like to know what Rebecca was doing in there. That’s all.’

Knelt up, dusted dirt and grass off my trousers. Kept it casual, but I was rattling with it, how badly I wanted to shoot up off that grass and leg it. I could have Rebecca. I could grope my way through streaks of light and whirling moths till I found her and Julia and Selena, dark eyes watching for me out of the dark under cypresses. I could ring the locals for a marked car and a social worker and have Rebecca in an interview room before Conway let go her pit-bull grab on Holly. If I worked it just right and kept my phone off, I could have a confession on O’Kelly’s desk before Conway tracked me down. By morning I could be the hotshot who, in twelve hours, had solved the big one that had stumped Conway for a year.

Joanne said, ‘Stay and talk with us. We’ll have to go inside soon anyway; you can go talk to boring Rebecca then.’

‘Yeah,’ Orla said. ‘We’re way more interesting than her.’

For a second I thought – the stupid swelled head on me – they might still be scared, want the big strong man to protect them. But they were comfy as cats on the grass. All the fear had run right out of them, once they were the powerful ones taking me where they wanted me, to whisper their saved-up secret in my ear.

I said, smiling, ‘I’d say you are, all right. But I’d better get this sorted out.’

Joanne pouted. ‘We helped you. Now that you’ve got what you want off us, you’re just going to dump us and run?’

‘Typical guy,’ said Gemma, up to the branches, shaking her head.

Joanne said, ‘I told you before. I don’t let guys treat me like crap.’

Some first warning got to me, through the Go go go drumming in my ears. I said, ‘I’m under a bit of time pressure, is all. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’ve done for me. Believe me.’

Joanne said, ‘Then stay.’ Lifted one finger and laid it on my knee. Cute nose-wrinkle smile, like a joke, but half a second too late. Orla sucked in breath, shocked, and giggled it out.

Somehow I stopped myself from leaping and running. If I fucked up now, I was fucked a dozen ways.

Gemma said, ‘Don’t look so terrified. We’re fun. Honest.’

Smiling at me, her too. It looked friendly, but she was written in a code I couldn’t begin to read. They all were. That bad-alleyway prickle that had faded for a bit, while they had me busy feeling like something they wanted and loving it; that was rising hard up the back of my neck again.

Joanne’s fingernail ran an inch higher up my thigh. All of them giggling, tongues nipped between sharp little teeth. It was a game, and I was part of it, but I couldn’t tell what part. I tried laughing. They laughed back.

‘So,’ Joanne said. Another inch. ‘Talk to us.’

Smack her hand away, leg it back to the school like my arse was on fire, bang on the art-room door and beg Conway to let me back in if I promised to be good. Instead I said, ‘Let’s think this through for a second. Shall we?’

Put on my stuffiest voice. Thought teacher, thought McKenna, thought everything they didn’t want. Picked them out one by one, looking them in the eye, separating them out: not triple and dangerous; just schoolgirls being very silly.

‘Gemma, I realise that it took a lot of courage for you to give me this information. And Joanne, I realise that Gemma probably wouldn’t have plucked up that courage without your support – and yours, Orla. So, after you’ve gone to considerable trouble to bring me this potentially valuable material, I’m not inclined to waste it.’

They were looking at me like I’d gone flash-bang and turned two-headed. Joanne’s finger had stopped moving.

‘If I don’t have an opportunity to interview Rebecca O’Mara before all of you students are called inside, then I’ll have to liaise with Detective Conway, and I’ll have no option but to bring her into the loop. I assume you gave me this information because you wanted me to utilise it. Not because you wanted to hand the credit for any results to Detective Conway. Am I correct?’

Three identical pairs of eyes, staring. Not a move, not a blink.

‘Orla? Am I correct?’

‘What? Um, yeah? I guess?’

‘Very good. Gemma?’

Nod.

‘Joanne?’

Finally, finally, a shrug, and her hand came off my leg. Conway’s smackdown, way back in the art room, was paying off. ‘Whatever.’

‘Then I think we’re all agreed.’ I handed out a thin smile for each of them. ‘Our top priority is for me to speak to Rebecca. Our chat will have to wait.’

Nothing. Just those eyes, still staring.

I stood up, evenly, no sudden moves. Brushed myself down, straightened my jacket. Then I turned around and walked away.

It was like turning my back on jaguars. Every inch of me was waiting for the claws, but nothing came. Behind me I heard Joanne say, pompous and pitched just loud enough for me to hear, ‘Potentially valuable material,’ and a triple spurt of giggles. Then I was out, on the endless white-green lawn.

My heart was going like bongos. That drunken dizzy rushed up and over me; I wanted to let my knees fold, sink down on the cool grass.

I didn’t do it. Not just the watchers all round. What I had told the three of them was true: somewhere out there, in the dapple of black and white and murmurs, was Rebecca. She was now or never.

It was exactly what Conway would expect out of me. It was what Mackey would put money on.

The white glare of the art room, staring down at me. Laughter, joyful, somewhere far away among the trees.

I owed Conway fuck-all. I’d brought her the key to her make-or-break case, she’d used me while I was useful and then kicked me out of the car going ninety.

The moon pinwheeling above the school. I felt like I was dissolving, fingers and toes sifting away.

She was everything Mackey had warned me about. She was the lifetime kibosh on my daydream partner, the one with the red setters and the violin lessons. She was edge and trouble, everything I had always wanted far from.

I know my shot when I see it. I saw it bright as day.

I found my phone.

Text, not ring. If Conway saw my number come up, she’d think I wanted to whinge about the wait; she’d let it ring out.

I could feel something happening to me. A change.

Message icon on my screen. Conway, a few minutes back, while I’d been too busy to notice. She must have pulled the plug, or Mackey had. I was just in time.

Got anything yet? Stalling him long as I can but lights out is 1045 get a move on

‘What the fuck,’ I said out loud.

The grin came on top of it, grin like my face was splitting open and every colour of light bursting out.

Idiot, me, supersize idiot and I could’ve punched myself in the head for it. For a second there I forgot all about Rebecca, didn’t care.

Go for a nice walk, admire the grounds, Conway had said to me outside the door of the art room. See if you can get Chris’s ghost to pop up for you. Meaning Get outside and talk to those girls, stir them up as hard as you can, see what you can get out of them. Clear as day, if I’d been looking. I’d been so busy staring at how Mackey could’ve used me to fuck me up, I’d missed what she was waving in front of my face.

Conway had trusted me: not just trusted me through all Mackey’s doom-peddling, but trusted me to know she would. I could’ve punched myself all over again for not doing the same for her. Made my stomach turn cold, how close I had come to too late.

I texted her back. Meet me out the front. Urgent. Don’t let Mackey come.