The Secret Place (2 page)

I took Holly there. Another kid would have been twitching all the way, playing head tennis, but none of this was new on Holly. She headed down the corridor like it was part of her gaff.

On the way I watched her. She was doing a grand job of growing up. Average height, or a little under. Slim, very slim, but it was natural: no starved look. Maybe halfway through getting her curves. No stunner, not yet anyway, but nothing ugly there – no spots, no braces, none of her face stuck on sideways – and the eyes made her more than another blonde clone, made you look twice.

A boyfriend who’d hit her? Groped her, raped her? Holly coming to me instead of to some stranger in Sex Crime?

Something to give you.
Evidence?

She shut the interview-room door behind us, flick of her wrist and a slam. Looked around.

I switched on the camera, casual push of the switch. Said, ‘Have a seat.’

Holly stayed put. Ran a finger over the bald-patch green of the sofa. ‘This room’s nicer than the ones before.’

‘How’re you getting on?’

Still looking around the room, not at me. ‘OK. Fine.’

‘Will I get you a cup of tea? Coffee?’

Shake of her head.

I waited. Holly said, ‘You’ve got older. You used to look like a student.’

‘And you used to look like a little kid who brought her doll to interviews. Clara, wasn’t it?’ That turned her head my way. ‘I’d say we’ve both got older, here.’

For the first time, she smiled. Little crunch of a grin, the same one I remembered. It had had something pathetic in it, back then, it had caught at me every time. It did again.

She said, ‘It’s nice to see you.’

When Holly was nine, ten, she was a witness in a murder case. The case wasn’t mine, but I was the one she’d talk to. I took her statement; I prepped her to testify at the trial. She didn’t want to do it, did it anyway. Maybe her da the detective made her. Maybe. Even when she was nine, I never fooled myself I had the measure of her.

‘Same here,’ I said.

A quick breath that lifted her shoulders, a nod – to herself, like something had clicked. She dumped her schoolbag on the floor. Hooked a thumb under her lapel, to point the crest at me. Said, ‘I go to Kilda’s now.’ And watched me.

Just nodding made me feel cheeky. St Kilda’s: the kind of school the likes of me aren’t supposed to have heard of. Never would have heard of, if it wasn’t for a dead young fella.

Girls’ secondary, private, leafy suburb. Nuns. A year back, two of the nuns went for an early stroll and found a boy lying in a grove of trees, in a back corner of the school grounds. At first they thought he was asleep, drunk maybe. Revved up to give him seven shades of shite, find out whose precious virtue he’d been corrupting. The full-on nun-voice thunder:
Young man!
But he didn’t move.

Christopher Harper, sixteen, from the boys’ school one road and two extra-high walls away. Sometime during the night, someone had bashed his head in.

Enough manpower to build an office block, enough overtime to pay off mortgages, enough paper to dam a river. A dodgy janitor, handyman, something: eliminated. A classmate who’d had a punch-up with the victim: eliminated. Local scary non-nationals seen being locally scary: eliminated.

Then nothing. No more suspects, no reason why Christopher was on St Kilda’s grounds. Then less overtime, and fewer men, and more nothing. You can’t say it, not with a kid for a victim, but the case was done. By this time, all that paper was in Murder’s basement. Sooner or later the brass would catch some hassle from the media and it would show up on our doorstep, addressed to the Last Chance Saloon.

Holly pulled her lapel straight again. ‘You know about Chris Harper,’ she said. ‘Right?’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Were you at St Kilda’s back then?’

‘Yeah. I’ve been there since first year. I’m in fourth year now.’

And left it at that, making me work for every step. One wrong question and she’d be gone, I’d be thrown away: got too old, another useless adult who didn’t understand. I picked carefully.

‘Are you a boarder?’

‘The last two years, yeah. Only Monday to Friday. I go home for weekends.’

I couldn’t remember the day. ‘Were you there the night it happened?’

‘The night Chris got killed.’

Blue flash of annoyance. Daddy’s kid: no patience for pussyfooting, or anyway not from other people.

‘The night Chris got killed,’ I said. ‘Were you there?’

‘I wasn’t
there
there. Obviously. But I was in school, yeah.’

‘Did you see something? Hear something?’

Annoyance again, sparking hotter this time. ‘They already
asked
me that. The Murder detectives. They asked all of us, like, a thousand
times
.’

I said, ‘But you could have remembered something since. Or changed your mind about keeping something quiet.’

‘I’m not
stupid
. I know how this stuff works. Remember?’ She was on her toes, ready to head for the door.

Change of tack. ‘Did you know Chris?’

Holly quieted. ‘Just from around. Our schools do stuff together; you get to know people. We weren’t close, or anything, but our gangs had hung out together a bunch of times.’

‘What was he like?’

Shrug. ‘A guy.’

‘Did you like him?’

Shrug again. ‘He was there.’

I know Holly’s da, a bit. Frank Mackey, Undercover. You go at him straight, he’ll dodge and come in sideways; you go at him sideways, he’ll charge head down. I said, ‘You came here because there’s something you want me to know. I’m not going to play guessing games I can’t win. If you’re not sure you want to tell me, then go away and have a think till you are. If you’re sure now, then spit it out.’

Holly approved of that. Almost smiled again; nodded instead.

‘There’s this board,’ she said. ‘In school. A noticeboard. It’s on the top floor, across from the art room. It’s called the Secret Place. If you’ve got a secret, like if you hate your parents or you like a guy or whatever, you can put it on a card and stick it up there.’

No point asking why anyone would want to. Teenage girls: you’ll never understand. I’ve got sisters. I learned to just leave it.

‘Yesterday evening, me and my friends were up in the art room – we’re working on this project. I forgot my phone up there when we left, but I didn’t notice till lights-out, so I couldn’t get it then. I went up for it first thing this morning, before breakfast.’

Coming out way too pat; not a pause or a blink, not a stumble. Another girl, I’d’ve called bullshit. But Holly had practice, and she had her da; for all I knew, he took a statement every time she was late home.

‘I had a look at the board,’ Holly said. Bent to her schoolbag, flipped it open. ‘Just on my way past.’

And there it was: the hand hesitating above the green folder. The extra second when she kept her face turned down to the bag, away from me, ponytail tumbling to hide her. The nerves I’d been watching for. Not ice-cream-cool and smooth right through, after all.

Then she straightened and met my eyes again, blank-faced. Her hand came up, held out the green folder. Let go as soon as I touched it, so quick I almost let it fall.

‘This was on the board.’

The folder said ‘Holly Mackey, 4L, Social Awareness Studies’, scribbled over. Inside: clear plastic envelope. Inside that: a thumbtack, fallen down into one corner, and a piece of card.

I recognised the face faster than I’d recognised Holly’s. He had spent weeks on every front page and every TV screen, on every department bulletin.

This was a different shot. Caught turning over his shoulder against a blur of autumn-yellow leaves, mouth opening in a laugh. Good-looking. Glossy brown hair, brushed forward boyband-style to thick dark eyebrows that sloped down at the outsides, gave him a puppydog look. Clear skin, rosy cheeks; a few freckles along the cheekbones, not a lot. A jaw that would’ve turned out strong, if there’d been time. Wide grin that crinkled his eyes and nose. A little bit cocky, a little bit sweet. Young, everything that rises green in your mind when you hear the word
young
. Summer romance, baby brother’s hero, cannon-fodder.

Glued below his face, across his blue T-shirt: words cut out of a book, spaced wide like a ransom note. Neat edges, snipped close.

I know who killed him

Holly watching me, silent.

I turned the envelope over. Plain white card, the kind you can buy anywhere to print off your photos. No writing, nothing.

I said, ‘Did you touch it?’

Eyes to the ceiling. ‘Course not. I went into the art room and got that’ – the envelope – ‘and a balsa knife. I pulled out the tack with the knife, and I caught the card and the tack in the envelope.’

‘Well done. And then?’

‘I put it up my shirt till I got back to my room, and then I put it in the folder. Then I said I felt sick and went back to bed. After the nurse came round, I sneaked out and came here.’

I asked, ‘Why?’

Holly gave me an eyebrows-up stare. ‘Because I thought you guys might want to
know
. If you don’t care, then you can just throw it away, and I can get back to school before they find out I’m gone.’

‘I care. I’m only delighted you found this. I’m just wondering why you didn’t take it to one of your teachers, or your dad.’

A glance up at the wall clock, catching the video camera on the way. ‘Crap. That actually reminds me. The nurse comes round again at breaktime, and if I’m not there, they will
freak out
. Can you phone the school and say you’re my dad and I’m with you? Say my granddad’s dying, and when you rang to tell me, I did a runner without telling anyone because I didn’t want to get sent to the guidance counsellor to talk about my
feelings
.’

All worked out for me. ‘I’ll ring the school now. I’m not going to say I’m your dad, though.’ Exasperated explosion of sigh from Holly. ‘I’ll just say you had something you wanted to pass on to us, and you did the right thing. That should keep you out of hassle. Yeah?’

‘Whatever. Can you at least tell them I’m not allowed to talk about it? So they won’t bug me?’

‘No problem.’ Chris Harper still laughing at me, enough energy running in the turn of those shoulders to power half Dublin. I slid him back in the folder, closed it over. ‘Did you tell anyone about this? Your best friend, maybe? It’s grand if you did; I just need to know.’

A shadow sliding down the curve of Holly’s cheekbone, turning her mouth older, less simple. Layering something under her voice. ‘No. I didn’t tell anyone.’

‘OK. I’m going to make this call, and then I’ll take your statement. Do you want one of your parents to sit in?’

That brought her back. ‘Oh, Jesus, no. Does someone have to sit in? Can’t you just do it?’

‘What age are you?’

She thought about lying. Decided against it. ‘Sixteen.’

‘We need an appropriate adult. Stop me intimidating you.’

‘You don’t intimidate me.’

No shit. ‘I know, yeah. Still. You hang on here, make yourself a cup of tea if you fancy one. I’ll be back in two minutes.’

Holly thumped down on the sofa. Coiled into a twist: legs curled under, arms wrapped round. Pulled the end of her ponytail round to the front and started biting it. The building was boiling as per usual, but she looked cold. She didn’t watch me leave.

Sex Crime, two floors down, keep a social worker on call. I got her in, took Holly’s statement. Asked your woman, in the corridor afterwards, would she drive Holly back to St Kilda’s – Holly gave me the daggers for that. I said, ‘This way your school knows for definite you were actually with us; you didn’t just get a boyfriend to ring in. Save you hassle.’ Her look said I didn’t fool anyone.

She didn’t ask me what next, what we were going to do about that card. She knew better. She just said, ‘See you soon.’

‘Thanks for coming in. You did the right thing.’

Holly didn’t answer that. Just gave me the edge of a smile and a little wave, half sarcastic, half not.

I was watching that straight back move away down the corridor, social worker duckfooting along beside her trying for a chat, when I copped: she’d never answered my question. Swerved out of the way, neat as a rollerblader, and kept right on moving.

‘Holly.’

She turned, hauling her bag strap up her shoulder. Wary.

‘What I asked you earlier. Why’d you bring this to me?’

Holly considered me. Unsettling, that look, like the follow-you stare off a painting.

‘Back before,’ she said. ‘The whole year, everyone was
tiptoeing
. Like if they said one single wrong word, I’d have a nervous breakdown and get taken away in a straitjacket,
foaming
. Even Dad – he pretended to be totally not bothered, but I could see him worrying, all the time. It was just,
ahhh
!’ A gritted noise of pure fury, hands starfished rigid. ‘You were the only one who didn’t act like I was about to start thinking I was a
chicken
. You were just like,
OK, this sucks, but big deal, worse stuff happens to people all the time and they survive. Now let’s get it done.
’