The Secret Place (50 page)

‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘You said, in there, that you saw one of Selena Wynne’s gang do something. You were pointing at one of them. Which one?’

We braced and waited, me and Conway, to hear
Julia
.

Alison let out a little sigh. She said, ‘Holly.’

That easy. On the corridors above us and below, the older girls and the younger ones had gone back into their common rooms and closed the doors. There was no sound anywhere, none at all. That white silence came sifting down again, piling into little drifts in the corners, slipping down our backs to collect in the folds of our clothes.

Holly was a cop’s kid. Holly was my star witness. Holly was the one who had brought me that card. Even after I’d seen her here, deep in her own world, I had somehow thought she was on my side.

‘OK,’ I said. Easy and loose, like it was nothing, nothing at all. Felt Conway’s eyes, on me, not on Alison. ‘What’d you see?’

‘After the assembly. The one where they told us about Chris. I was
.
.
.’

Alison was getting that look again, the one from earlier: slack and dazed, like someone after a seizure. ‘Stick with me,’ I said, smiling away. ‘You’re doing great. What happened after the assembly?’

‘We were coming out of the hall, into the foyer. I was right beside Holly. She looked round, just quickly, like she was checking if anyone was watching her. So I noticed that, you know?’

Observant, just like I’d told her that morning. Prey animal’s fast eyes.

‘And then she stuck her hand down her skirt, like in the waist of her tights?’ A snigger, limp and automatic. ‘And she pulled out this
thing
. Wrapped in a tissue.’

Making sure she wouldn’t leave prints. Just like Mystery Girl had done with the hoe. I nodded along, all interested. ‘That’d catch your eye, all right.’

‘It was just weird, you know? Like, what would you keep down your
tights
? I mean, ew? And then I kept looking because some of it was sticking out of the tissue, and I thought it was my phone. It was the same as mine. But I checked my pocket, and my phone was there.’

‘What did Holly do next?’

Alison said, ‘The lost-and-found bin’s in the foyer, right at the door of reception. It’s this big black bin with a hole at the top, so you can put things in but you can’t get them out? You have to go to Miss O’Dowd or Miss Arnold and they have the key. We were going past reception, and Holly kind of ran her hand across the bin – like she was just doing it for no reason, she didn’t even look at it, but then the phone wasn’t in her hand any more. Just the tissue.’

I saw Conway’s eyes close for a second on the
Should’ve searched
. She said, from her corner, ‘How come you didn’t say this to me last year?’

Alison flinched. ‘I didn’t know it had anything to do with Chris! I never thought—’

‘Course you didn’t,’ I said soothingly. ‘You’re grand. When did you start to wonder?’

‘Just a couple of months ago. Joanne was
.
.
. I’d done something she didn’t like, and she said, “I should call the detectives and tell them your phone used to text with Chris Harper. You’d get in
sooo
much trouble.” I mean, she was just saying it, she wouldn’t have actually
done
it?’

Alison was looking anxious. ‘Course not,’ I said, all understanding. Joanne would’ve dropped Alison in a shredder feet first, if it had suited her.

‘But I started thinking. Like, “OhmyGod, what if they actually did look at my phone, they’d totally think I’d been with Chris!” And then I thought about that phone I saw Holly with. And I went, like, “What if she was getting rid of it because she was scared of the same thing?” And then I was like, “OhmyGod, what if she actually
was
with Chris?”’

I said, ‘Did you talk about it to Holly? Or anyone else?’

‘OhmyGod, no way, not to Holly! I said it to Gemma. I thought she’d know what to do.’

‘Gemma’s smart, all right.’ Which she was. Alison hadn’t worked out that the phone might have been Selena’s. Gemma would have. ‘What’d she say?’

Alison squirmed. Down to her lap: ‘She said it was none of our business. To just shut up and forget the whole thing.’

Conway shaking her head, jaw clenched. I said, ‘And you tried. But you couldn’t manage.’

Head-shake.

I said, ‘So you made that card. Put it up on the Secret Place.’

Alison stared, bewildered. Shook her head.

‘Nothing wrong with that. It was a good idea.’

‘But I didn’t! I swear to God, I didn’t!’

I believed her. No reason she would lie, not now. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘OK.’

Conway said, ‘Well done, Alison. Probably you were right to begin with and it’s nothing to do with Chris, but Detective Moran and I will have a chat with Holly, clear it up. First we’ll take you back down to Miss Arnold. You’re looking a bit pale.’

Keep her isolated, so she couldn’t spread the story. I stood up, kept my smile nailed in place. One of my feet had gone to sleep.

Alison pulled herself up by the banister rail, but she stayed there, holding onto it with both thin hands. In the white air her face looked greenish. She said, to Conway, ‘Orla told us about that case you did. With the—’ A shudder twisted her. ‘The, the dog. The ghost dog.’

‘Yeah,’ Conway said. More hair had come out of her bun. ‘Nasty one, that was.’

‘Once the guy confessed. Did the dog – did it keep coming back for him?’

Conway examined her. Said, ‘Why?’

Alison’s face looked bonier, fallen in. ‘Chris,’ she said. ‘In there, in the common room. He was there. In the window.’

Her certainty hooked me in the spine, pulled a shiver. The hysteria rising up again, somewhere behind the air: gone for now, not for good.

‘Yeah,’ Conway said. ‘I got that.’

‘Yeah, but
.
.
. he was there because of me. Earlier, too, out here in the corridor. He came to get me, because I hadn’t told you about Holly with the phone. In the common room’ – she swallowed – ‘he was looking right at me. Grinning at—’ Another shudder, rougher, wrenching at her breath. ‘If you hadn’t come in then, if you hadn’t
.
.
. Is he
.
.
. is he going to come back for me?’

Conway said, stern, ‘Have you told us everything? Every single thing you know?’

‘I swear. I
swear
.’

‘Then Chris won’t be coming back for you. He might hang around the school, all right, because there’s plenty of other people keeping secrets that he wants them to tell us. But he won’t be back for you. You probably won’t even be able to see him any more.’

Alison’s mouth opened and a little rush of breath came out. She looked relieved, right to the bone, and she looked disappointed.

Far away down the corridor, through the silence, a long soft wail. For a second I thought it was coming from a girl, or something worse, but it was only the creak of the common-room door opening.

McKenna said, and I know a deeply fucked-off woman when I hear one, ‘Detectives. If it’s not too much trouble, I would like to speak with you. Now.’

‘We’ll be there in ten minutes,’ Conway said. To McKenna, but she was looking at me. Those dark eyes, and the silence falling like snow between us, so thick I couldn’t read them.

To me: ‘Time to go.’

Chapter 20

An April afternoon, finishing up after-school volleyball. It’s spring, the grounds are exploding with bluebells and daffodils in every corner, but the sky is thick and grey, and it’s airless without actually being warm; the sweat won’t dry off their skins. Julia flips her ponytail up to cool the back of her neck. Chris Harper has just under a month left to live.

They’re picking up the volleyballs, taking their time because the showers will be full anyway by the time they get inside. Behind them, the Daleks are taking down the nets, slowly, bitching about something – Gemma calls, ‘.
.
.
thighs like two walruses shagging,
disgusting
.
.
.’ but it’s not clear if she’s talking about someone else or about herself.

Julia calls, ‘Saturday night. We’re going, yeah?’ It’s the social evening at Colm’s.

‘Can’t,’ Holly yells back, from a corner of the courts. ‘I asked. Family time blah blah.’

‘Same,’ Becca says, tossing a ball into the bag. ‘My mum’s home. Although she’d actually probably be delighted if I put on an entire makeup counter and a miniskirt and went.’

‘Make her day,’ Julia says. ‘Come home drunk, E’d up and pregnant.’

‘I’m saving those for her birthday.’

‘Lenie?’

‘I’m at my dad’s.’

‘Well, fuck,’ Julia says. ‘Finn Carroll owes me that tenner, and I need it. My earbuds are going.’

‘I’ll sub you,’ Holly says, spiking the last ball at the bag and missing. ‘It’s not like I’m going to get any shopping in this weekend anyway.’

‘I want to rub it in, though. That smug bastard.’ Julia has just noticed how much she’s looking forward to seeing Finn.

‘He’ll be at the debating next week.’

For a second Julia considers going to the social on her own, but no. ‘I know, yeah. I’ll catch him then.’

They give the courts one more scan, and head off. ‘Water,’ Julia says, as they pass the tap by the gate, and peels off from the other three. Up ahead, Ms Waldron calls, ‘Chop-chop, girls! Hup, two, three, four, march!’ The others drift on, Becca spinning in circles swinging the bag of volleyballs, leaving Julia to catch up.

She drinks out of her hand, splashes her face and her neck. The water is underground-cold and gives her a quick, pleasurable shiver. A stream of geese pour overhead, honking, and Julia squints up to see them against the clouds.

She’s turning away from the tap when the Daleks march up. Joanne stops right in front of Julia, folds her arms and stares. The other three fan out and stop one step behind Joanne, fold their arms and stare.

They’re blocking Julia in. None of them say anything.

Julia says, ‘Are we doing something? Or is this it?’

Joanne’s lip curls – Julia figures she thinks it makes her look superior, but if she did it in front of a mirror just once, she’d never do it again. She says, ‘Don’t show off.’

Julia says, ‘Bored already.’

Joanne’s pale flat stare gets paler and flatter. Julia remembers – amused, like it was a different person, some small silly cousin – how a few months ago that stare would have had her zinging adrenaline.

Joanne says, ominously, ‘We want to talk to you.’

‘They talk?’ Julia enquires, nodding at the rest of them. ‘I thought they were your robot bodyguards.’

Orla does an outraged noise, and Gemma throws Joanne a slantwise look. Joanne’s face is pinching up. She says, tight as spitting, ‘You tell that fat slut Selena to stay
away
from Chris Harper.’

Which is not what Julia was expecting. ‘Loser say what?’

‘Don’t act innocent. We know all about it.’ Nods from the robots.

Julia leans back against the wire fence and blots water off her face with the neck of her T-shirt. She’s starting to enjoy herself. This is the problem with hoovering up gossip the way the Daleks do: every now and then, you’re going to end up having an eppy over something totally imaginary. ‘What do you care what Selena does?’

‘That’s not your problem.
Your
problem is to make sure she backs off, before she ends up in big trouble.’

Obviously this is meant to be terrifying. More impressive nods; Alison even says, ‘Yeah,’ and then cringes.

‘You fancy Chris Harper,’ Julia says, grinning.

Joanne’s chin jams out at a furious angle. ‘Ex
cuse
me, if I fancied him, I’d be going out with him? Not that it’s any of your business.’

‘Then why do you care what Selena does with him?’

‘Because. Everyone knows Chris Harper wouldn’t even look at someone like her if she wasn’t letting him
do
it to her. He is
way
out of her league. She needs to go find some spotty dickhead like Fintan Whatshisname who’s always drooling at her.’

Julia laughs, a real laugh, spontaneous, bubbling up towards the hanging grey cloud. ‘So you’re here because she’s getting uppity and she needs putting back in her place? Seriously?’

The more furious Joanne gets, the more bits of her stick out – elbows, tits, arse – and the uglier she gets. ‘Um, wake up and smell the coffee? We’re doing you a favour. You seriously think a guy like Chris is actually going to go
out
with a mess like Selena? Hel
lo
? The second he gets bored of shagging her, he’s going to dump her flat on her fat backside and send dirty photos to all the guys. Tell her to leave him alone or she’ll be sorry.’