The Secret Place (27 page)

Conway said, ‘You got a pal at any of the mobile networks?’

‘Not yet.’ Neither did she, or she wouldn’t have asked. You stockpile useful pals, build yourself a nice fat list, over time. I felt it like a thump: us, two rookies, in the middle of this.

‘Sophie does.’ Conway was dialling again. ‘She’ll get us the full records on that number. By the end of the day, guaranteed.’

I said, ‘It’ll be unregistered.’

‘Yeah, it will. But I want to know who else it’s been texting. If Chris was meeting someone, he arranged it somehow. We never found out how.’ She slid down off the wall, phone to her ear. ‘Meanwhile, let’s go see if Little Miss Text’s fucking us around.’

McKenna came out of her office all ready to wave us goodbye, wasn’t a happy camper when she found out we weren’t goodbyeing anywhere. By now we were front-page headlines all round the school. Any minute the day girls would be heading home to tell their parents the cops were back, and McKenna’s phone would start ringing. She’d been banking on being able to say this little unpleasantness was over and done with: just a few follow-up questions, Mr and Mrs, don’t worry your pretty heads, all gone now. She didn’t ask how long it would be. We pretended not to hear her wanting to know.

A nod from McKenna, and the curly secretary gave us the key to the boarders’ wing, gave us the combinations to the common rooms, gave us signed permission for us to search. Gave us everything we wanted, but the smile had gone. Tight face, now. Tense line between her eyebrows. Not looking at us.

That bell went again, as we came out of her office. ‘Come on,’ Conway said, lengthening her stride. ‘That’s the end of classes. The matron’ll be opening the connecting door, and I don’t want anyone getting in that common room before we do.’

I said, ‘Combination locks on the common rooms. Were those there last year?’

‘Yeah. Years, they’ve had those.’

‘How come?’

Behind the closed doors, the classrooms had exploded into gabble and scraping-back chairs. Conway took the stairs down to the ground floor at a run. ‘The kids leave stuff there. There’s no locks on the bedroom doors, in case of fire or lesbians; the bedside tables lock, but they’re tiny. So a lot of stuff winds up in the common rooms – CDs, books, whatever. With the combination, anything gets robbed, there’s only a dozen people who could’ve done it. Easy enough to solve.’

I said, ‘I thought no one here did stuff like that.’

Wry sideways glance from Conway. ‘“We don’t attract that type.” Right? I said that to McKenna, said had there been problems with theft? She did the face, said no, none
whatsoever
. I said not since the combination locks, anyway, am I right? She did the face some more, pretended she didn’t hear me.’

Through the connecting door, standing open.

The boarders’ wing felt different from the school. White-painted, cooler and silent, a bright white silence floating down the stairwell. A tinge of some scent, light and flowery. The air nudged at me like I needed to back off, let Conway go on alone. This was girls’ territory.

Up the stairs – a Virgin Mary in her nook on the landing gave me an enigmatic smile – and down a long corridor, over worn red tiles, between closed white doors. ‘Bedrooms,’ Conway said. ‘Third- and fourth-years.’

‘Any supervision at night?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice. The matron’s room’s down on the ground floor, with the little kids. Two sixth-years on this floor, prefects, but they’re asleep, what’re they gonna do? Anyone who wasn’t a massive klutz could sneak out, no problem.’

Two oak doors at the end of the corridor, one on each side. Conway went for the left-hand one. Pushed buttons on the lock, no need to look at the secretary’s piece of paper.

Cosy enough to curl up in, the third-year common room. Storybook stuff. I knew better, I’d seen it on the board in black and white and every slap-sharp colour, but I still couldn’t picture bad things here: someone being bitch-whipped out of a conversation into one of those corners, someone snug in one of the sofas longing to cut herself.

Big squashy sofas in soft oranges and golds, a gas fire. Vase of freesias on the mantelpiece. Old wooden tables, for doing homework. Girls’ bits and bobs everywhere, hairbands, ice-creamy nail polish, magazines, water bottles, half-rolls of sweets. A meadow-green scarf with little white daisies hanging off the back of a chair, fine as a Communion veil, rising in the soft breeze through the window. A motion-sensor light snapped on like a warning, not a welcome:
You.  Watching you.

Two alcoves of built-in bookshelves. Ceiling-high, every shelf layers deep in books.

‘Fuck’s
sake
,’ said Conway. ‘They couldn’t just have a telly?’

A spill of high voices down the corridor, and the door banged open behind us. We both whipped round, but the girls were smaller than our lot: three of them, jammed in the doorway, staring at me. One of them giggled.

‘Out,’ Conway said.

‘I need my
Uggs
!’

The kid was pointing. Conway picked up the boots, tossed them over. ‘Out.’

They backed away. The whispering started before I got the door closed.

‘Uggs,’ Conway said, pulling out her gloves. ‘Fucking things should be banned.’

Gloves on. If that book and that key existed, the prints on them mattered.

One alcove each. Finger along the spines, skim, scoop the front row of books onto the floor and start on the back one. Fast, wanting to see something solid rise to the surface. Wanting it to be me who found it.

Conway had spotted the stare and giggle, or felt the shove in the air. She said, ‘Watch yourself. I was taking the piss out of you, before, but you want to be careful around this lot. That age, they’re dying to fancy someone; they’ll practice on any half-decent fella they can get. See that staff room? You think it’s a coincidence all the guy teachers are trolls?’ She shook her head. ‘It’s to keep the crazy level down. Few hundred girls, hormones up to ninety
.
.
.’

I said, ‘I’m no Justin Bieber. I’m not gonna start any riots.’

That got a snort. ‘It doesn’t take Justin Bieber. You’re not a troll and you’re not sixty: good enough. They want to fancy you, great, you can use that. Just don’t ever be alone with any of them.’

I thought of Gemma, the Sharon Stone leg-cross. I said, ‘I’m not planning to be.’

‘Hang on,’ Conway said, and the sudden lift in her voice had me on my feet before I knew it. ‘Here we go.’

Low shelf, back layer, hidden away behind slick bright colours. Old hardback, dust jacket gone tatty at the edges.
St Thérèse of Lisieux: The Little Flower and the Little Way.

Conway pulled it out, carefully, one fingertip. Dust came with it. Sepia young one in a nun-veil on the front, pudgy-faced, thin lips curved in a smile that could have been shy or sly. The back cover didn’t close right.

I put two fingers on the book, top and bottom, held it steady while Conway eased open the back. The corner of the jacket flap had been folded in, taped to make a triangular pocket. Inside, when Conway gently hooked it open, was a Yale key.

Neither of us touched.

Conway said, like I’d asked, ‘I’m not calling it in yet. We’ve got nothing definitive.’

This was the moment to bring in the cavalry: the full search team scouring the school, the Forensics lads taking prints to match up, the social worker in the corner of every interview. This wasn’t a scrap of card, fifty/fifty chance of a bored teenager playing attention games. This was one girl, probably four, maybe eight, who had had the opportunity to be at the murder scene. This was real.

If Conway rang for the cavalry, she would have to show O’Kelly all the shiny new good stuff that justified him blowing his budget on a case turned cold. And bang, fast enough to make our heads spin, I would be headed home and she would be paired up with someone with years under his belt, O’Gorman or some other hint-dropper who would find a way to put his name on the solve, if there was a solve. Thanks for your help, Detective Moran, see you around next time someone drops a big fat clue into your hand.

I said, ‘We don’t know for sure that this was actually the key to the connecting door.’

‘Exactly. I’ve got a copy of the real thing back at HQ, I can match it against that. Till then, I’m not calling out half the force for the key to someone’s ma’s booze cupboard.’

‘And we’ve only got the text girl’s word on who put it here and when. It might not even have been here last May.’

‘Might not.’ Conway let the pocket drop closed. ‘I wanted to take this place apart, top to bottom. The gaffer said no. Said there was no evidence that anyone inside Kilda’s was involved. What he meant was, all the posh mummies and daddies would have a conniption about some dirty detective going through their little darlings’ undies. So yeah: for all we know, the key wasn’t there to find.’

I said, ‘Why would Joanne’s lot leave it here, all this time? Why not bin it when Chris got killed and people started asking questions?’

Conway shut the book. Delicate touch, when she needed it. ‘You should’ve seen this place, after the murder. The kids didn’t get left on their own for a second, in case Hannibal Lecter jumped out of a wardrobe and ate their brains. None of them would go to the jacks without five of their mates in tow. Our lot everywhere, teachers patrolling the corridors, nuns flapping about, everyone going off like fire alarms if they spotted anything out of the ordinary. This’ – she flicked a finger at the book, no touching – ‘would’ve been the smart thing to do: leave the key, don’t risk getting caught moving it. And just a few weeks later, the school year finished up. When our girls came back in September, they were fourth-years. No code for this room, no good reason to be in it. Coming after the key would’ve been riskier than leaving it. How often do you think this book gets read? What’s the odds of anyone finding the key, or knowing what it was if they did?’

‘If Joanne or whoever didn’t bin the key, it’s a good bet she didn’t wipe down the book.’

‘Nah. We’ll get prints.’ Conway pulled a plastic evidence bag out of her satchel, shook it open with a snap. ‘Who d’you figure for the text? None of Holly’s lot are mad about Joanne.’

She held the bag open while I balanced the book into it, two-fingered. I said, ‘“Who” isn’t the bit that’s getting me. I’d love to know why.’

Wry glance from Conway, as she tucked the bag back into her satchel. ‘My scare speech wasn’t good enough for you?’

‘It was good. But it wouldn’t scare anyone into texting us about this. What’s to be scared of? Why would the killer come after her for knowing this key was here?’

‘Unless,’ Conway said. She was pulling off her gloves, carefully, finger by finger. ‘Unless the killer’s Joanne.’

The first time we’d had a name to say. It sent a fine zing through the air, rippling the throws on the sofas, twitching the curtains.

I said, ‘You’re the boss. But if it was me, I wouldn’t go at her yet.’

I half-expected a slap-down. Didn’t get one. ‘Me neither. If Joanne hid this, her buddies knew about it. Who d’you want to try? Alison?’

‘I’d go for Orla. Alison’s nervier, all right, but that’s not what we need. One push and she’ll run crying to Daddy, and we’re bollixed.’ The
we
flicked Conway’s eyebrow, but she said nothing. ‘Orla’s more solid, and she’s thick enough that we can run rings round her. I’d try her.’

‘Mm,’ Conway said. She was opening her mouth to say something else when we heard the sound.

Thin shrilling sound, dipping and rising like an alarm. Before I copped what it was, Conway was up and running for the door. The savage bright burst on her face as she passed me said
Yes
, said
Action
, said
At fucking last
.

Girls clotted halfway down the corridor, a dozen of them, more. Half of them out of their uniforms now, bright in hoodies and T-shirts, cheap bangles shaking; a few half-changed, clutching buttons together, shoving into sleeves. All of them crowding and yammering, high and fast,
Whatwhatwhat?
In the middle of the clot someone was screaming.

We were taller than them. Over shining heads: Joanne and her lot, surrounded. Alison was the one screaming, back pressed against the wall, hands splayed in front of her face. Joanne was trying to do something, cradle her, ministering angel, who knows. Alison was too far gone even for that.

Holly, between heads, the only one not gawping at Alison. Holly was scanning faces, with eyes like her da’s. Holly was watching for someone to give something away.

Conway grabbed the nearest kid by the arm, little dark girl who leaped and screamed. ‘What’s the story?’

‘Alison saw a ghost! She saw, she said, she said she saw Chris Harper, his ghost, she saw—’

The shrieks kept coming; the kid was jumping and rattling under them. Conway said, loud, so anyone who could hear anything could hear her: ‘You know why he’s back, right?’

The kid stared, open-mouthed. Other girls were starting to look at us, baffled, tennis-heading, trying to work out through the brain-battering noise why these adults weren’t stepping in and getting control and turning everything back to sane.