The Secret Place

by Tana French

  ‘Plenty of nerve, plenty of arrogance, plenty of stupid, take your pick. Or she didn’t hand it off on purpose; she ditched it somewhere, the texter found it.’

  Voices, seeping down the corridor with the chicken-and-mushroom smell: the fourth-years talking over their dinner. Not happy girly chitchat. This was a low, flattened-out buzz, got into your ear and turned you edgy.

  I said, ‘Did Sophie say when we’ll get the records off it?’

  ‘Soon. Her contact’s working on it. I’ll e-mail her now, tell her we need the actual texts, not just the numbers. We could be out of luck – some of the networks dump that stuff after a year – but we’ll give it a shot.’ Conway was typing fast. ‘Meanwhile,’ she said.

  It was gone five o’clock. Meanwhile we go back to HQ, sort our paperwork, sign out. Meanwhile we get something to eat, get some kip, nice work today Detective Moran see you bright and early in the morning.

  No way we could leave Kilda’s, not now. Inside, all those girls, all jittering to start swapping stories and matching up lies the second our shadow lifted. Outside, the Murder lads, jaws ready to snap shut on this case the minute O’Kelly heard it was live again. In the middle, us.

  If we walked out of Kilda’s empty-handed, we’d never come back or we’d come back to a blank wall.

  But:

  I said, ‘We stick around much longer, McKenna’s going to get onto your gaffer.’

  Conway didn’t look up from her phone. ‘I know, yeah. She said that to me, down in Arnold’s room. Didn’t even bother being subtle: told me if we weren’t out by dinnertime, she’d ring O’Kelly and tell him we bullied her students into fits.’

  ‘It’s dinnertime now.’

  ‘Chillax. I wasn’t subtle either. I told her if she tries to throw us out before we’re good and ready, I’ll ring my journalist pal and tell him we’ve spent the day interviewing Kilda’s students about Chris Harper.’ Conway shoved her phone into her pocket. ‘We’re going nowhere.’

  I could’ve backslapped her, hugged her, something. I didn’t want my nads kicked in. ‘Fair play to you,’ I said, instead.

  ‘What, you thought McKenna was gonna make me her bitch? Thanks a bunch.’ But the big grin on me pulled one out of her, too. ‘So. Meanwhile . . .’

  I said, ‘Joanne?’

  Conway took a breath. Behind her, the curtains stirred; the cutlery mobile made a faint high ringing, soft and faraway.

  She nodded, once. ‘Joanne,’ she said.

  I said, ‘Witness or suspect?’

  A suspect, you need to caution her, get her to sign a rights sheet, before you go asking any questions. A suspect, you take her down to HQ, get everything on video. A suspect, if she wants a solicitor, she gets one. An underage suspect, you have an appropriate adult present; you don’t even think about dodging.

  Just now and again, we fudge it. No one can prove what you’re thinking inside your own mind. Once in a long while you keep it casual, just a chat with a witness, till your suspect gets in too deep for you, or him, to deny.

  If you get caught out, if the judge gives you a filthy look and says any officer with half a brain would’ve suspected this person, then you’re done. Everything you got, gone: thrown out.

  We were on the line. Plenty of reasons to think it might be Joanne; not enough to believe it was.

  ‘Witness,’ Conway said. ‘Be careful.’

  I said, ‘You too. Joanne’s not about to forget that you took her down a peg in front of the rest.’

  ‘Ah, for fuck.’ Conway’s head tossing up with irritation: she’d forgotten. ‘That’s me stuck in the back seat again. Next time we need to piss someone off, I’m gonna make you do it.’

  ‘Ah, no,’ I said. ‘You do it. You’ve got a gift.’ The face she made at me looked like a friend’s.

  In the common room the girls were neat around tables, heads bent over plates, homey rhythm of clinking cutlery. The nun had one eye on her food and one on them.

  Lovely and peaceful, till you looked hard. Then you saw. Runners jittering under tables, bared teeth gnawing at the edge of a juice glass. Orla curling in tight on herself, trying not to take up space. A heavy girl with her back to me looked like she was lashing into her food, but over her shoulder I caught a full plate of chicken pie chopped into tiny perfect squares, getting tinier with each vicious cut.

  ‘Joanne,’ Conway said.

  Joanne threw a tsk and a disgusted eye-roll at the ceiling, but she came. She was wearing the same outfit as Orla, give or take: short jeans shorts, tights, pink hoodie, Converse. On Orla they looked like she’d been dressed by someone with a grudge; on Joanne they looked like she’d been made that way, all in one mould.

  We went back to her room. ‘Have a seat,’ I said, held out a hand to her bed. ‘Sorry we’ve no chair, but we’ll only be a few minutes.’

  Joanne stayed standing, arms folded. ‘I’m actually eating dinner?’

  In a bit of a fouler, our Joanne. Orla was in big trouble. ‘I know,’ I said, nice and humble. ‘I won’t keep you. I have to tell you, I’ve got a couple of questions that you might not like, but I need answers, and I’m not sure anyone’s got them but you.’

  That caught her in the curiosity, or in the vanity. Long-suffering sigh, and she dropped onto her bed. ‘OK. I guess.’

  ‘I appreciate it,’ I said. Sat down on Gemma’s bed, facing Joanne, staying well away from the thrown-off clothes. Conway melted off into the background, leaning against the door. ‘First off, and I know Orla’s already told you this: we’ve found your key to the connecting door between here and the main building. Yous were sneaking out at night.’

  Joanne had her mouth half-open to deny it and her outraged face half-on – autopilot – when Conway held up the Thérèse book. ‘Covered in fingerprints,’ she said.

  Joanne put the outraged look away for later. ‘So?’ she said.

  I said, ‘So this is confidential. We’re not about to pass it on to McKenna, get you in trouble. We’re just sorting what’s important from what’s not. OK?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Lovely. So what’d yous do, when you snuck out?’

  A little reminiscent smirk, slackening Joanne’s mouth. After a moment she said, ‘Some of the Colm’s day boys came in over the back wall. I mean, I don’t normally hang out with day boys, but Garret Neligan knew where his parents kept their drinks and . . . stuff, so whatever. We did that a couple of times, but then Garret’s mum caught him and she started locking stuff up, so we didn’t bother any more.’

  Stuff. Garret had been getting into Mammy’s meds. ‘When was this?’

  ‘Like last March? After that, we didn’t actually use the key that much. At Easter Gemma met this student guy at a club, so she went out to hook up with him a bunch of times – she thought she was totes amazeballs because she’d caught someone who was in OMG college, but of course he dumped her the second he found out how old she actually was? And obviously after Chris they changed the lock, so it wasn’t even any use any more.’

  I said, ‘You have to realise that this puts you and your mates front and centre for having put up that card on the Secret Place. Any of you could have been out in the grounds when Chris was killed. Any of you could have seen something. Seen it happen, even.’

  Joanne’s hands shot up. ‘Excuse me, whoa? Can we put the brakes on here? We weren’t the only ones who had a key. We got ours from Julia Harte.’

  I did dubious. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So where would we find hers?’

  ‘Like I’d know? Even if I had a clue where they kept it, which I don’t actually pay attention to what those weirdos do, this was a year ago. They probably threw it away once the locks got changed. That’s what I told Orla to do, except she’s too useless to even get that right.’

  ‘Julia says they never had a key.’

  Joanne’s face was starting to pinch in, turn vicious. ‘Um, hello, she would, wouldn’t she? That’s total crap.’<
br />
  ‘Could be,’ I admitted, shrugging. ‘But we can’t prove it. We’ve got proof that you and your mates had one, no proof that Julia and hers did. When it’s one person’s word against another’s, we’ve got to go with the evidence.’

  ‘Same as with Chris and Selena,’ Conway said. ‘You lot say they were going out, she says they weren’t, not one speck of evidence says they ever went near each other. What do you expect us to believe?’

  The viciousness congealed into something solid, a decision. ‘OK. Fine.’

  Joanne pulled out her phone, pushed buttons. Thrust it at me, arm’s length.

  ‘Is this proof?’

  I took it. It felt hot from her hand, clammy.

  A video. Dark; the rustle and bump of footsteps through grass. Someone whispering; a tiny snort of laughter, a hissed Shut up!

  ‘Who’s with you?’ I asked.

  ‘Gemma.’ Joanne was sitting back, arms folded, swinging her crossed foot and watching us. Anticipating.

  Faint grey shapes, jiggling as Joanne’s movement jolted the phone. Bushes in moonlight. Clumps of small whitish flowers, folded up for the night.

  Another whisper. The footsteps stopped; the phone stilled. Shapes came into focus.

  Tall trees, black around a pale clearing. Even in blurry dark, I recognised the place. The cypress grove where Chris Harper had died.

  In the moonlit heart of it, two figures, pressed so close they looked like one. Dark jumpers, dark jeans. Brown head bent over a flood of fair hair.

  A branch bobbed across the screen. Joanne shifted the phone out of its way, zoomed in tight.

  Night smudged the faces. I glanced at Conway; tiny dip of her chin. Chris and Selena.

  They moved apart like they could hardly bear to move at all. Pressed their palms together, shoulders rising and falling with their quick breathing. They were amazed by each other, stunned silent, all in the circle of stirring cypresses and night wind. The world outside was gone, nothing. Inside that circle the air was unfurling new colours, it was changing to something that cascaded and fountained pure gold and dazzle, and every breath changed them too.

  I used to dream of that, when I was a young fella. Never had it. Even when I was sixteen years old and ninety per cent dick, I kept away from the girls in my school; scared that if I went beyond the odd snog and grope, I’d wake up the next morning a daddy in a council flat, stuck to the sticky linoleum forever. Dreamed of it instead. Dreams I can still taste.

  By the time I got away and found other girls, it was too late. When you stop being a kid, you lose your one chance at that too-tender-to-touch gold, that breathtaken everything and forever. Once you start growing up and getting sense, the outside world turns real, and your own private world is never everything again.

  Chris wove his fingers in Selena’s hair, lifted it so that it fell strand by strand. She turned her head to touch her lips to his arm. They were like underwater dancers, like time was holding still just for them and every minute gave them a million years. They were beautiful.

  Close to the phone, Joanne or Gemma snickered. The other one made a tiny gagging noise. Something like that in front of them, feet away, the real thing, and they couldn’t even see it.

  Selena raised her fingers to Chris’s cheek, and his eyes closed. Moonlight ran down her arm like water. They moved closer, faces tilting together, lips opening.

  Beep, end of the video.

  ‘So,’ Joanne said. ‘Is that, like, enough evidence that Selena and all of them had a key? And that she was doing it with Chris?’

  Conway took the phone off me and messed with it, hitting buttons. Joanne flipped out a palm. ‘Excuse me, that’s mine?’

  ‘You’ll get it back when I’m done.’ Joanne tsked and threw herself back against the wall. Conway ignored her. To me: ‘Twenty-third of April. Ten to one in the morning.’

  Three and a half weeks before Chris died. I said, ‘So you and Gemma saw Selena leaving her room, and you followed her?’

  ‘Gemma saw them out in the grounds by accident the first time, like a week before – she was meeting some guy, I don’t even remember who. After that, we took turns watching the corridor at night.’ Grim project-manager voice on Joanne; I could picture her going for the jugular if one of the others had the nerve to doze off at her post. ‘This night, Alison saw Selena sneak out of their room, so she woke me up and I followed Selena.’

  ‘You brought Gemma along?’

  ‘Um, I wasn’t exactly about to go out there by myself? And anyway, I needed Gemma to show me where they were having their little makeout sessions. By the time we got dressed, Selena was well gone. She couldn’t wait to get the action started. Some people are just sluts.’

  More midnight traffic than a train station, these grounds. McKenna was in for a coronary if she ever heard this. ‘So you tracked them down,’ I said, ‘and you filmed this clip. Just the one?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s not enough for you?’

  ‘What happened after you stopped filming?’

  Joanne prissed up her mouth. ‘We went back in. I wasn’t going to stand there and watch them do it. I’m not a perv.’

  Conway’s phone buzzed. ‘Sent myself the video,’ she told me. To Joanne: ‘Here.’ She tossed the mobile over.

  Joanne made a big deal of wiping off the working-class germs on her duvet. I asked, ‘What were you planning to do with this clip?’

  Shrug. ‘I hadn’t decided yet.’

  Conway said, ‘Wild guess. You used it to blackmail Selena into dumping Chris. “Stay away from him, or this goes to McKenna.”’

  Joanne’s top lip pulled up, that near-animal snarl. ‘Um, excuse me, no I didn’t?’

  I said – leaning forward, move her off Conway – ‘It would’ve been for Selena’s own good if you had. That there, that wasn’t the healthiest way for her to be spending her nights.’

  Joanne thought that over, decided she liked it. Did something with her face that was meant to look virtuous, came out looking stuffed. ‘Well. I would’ve if I’d had to. But I didn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘That’ – Joanne flicked a finger at the phone – ‘that was the last time Selena and Chris met up. I’d already had a chat with Julia, and after this she sorted it out. End of.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t, like, take Julia’s word for it, if that’s what you mean. I’m not stupid. That’s why I got the video: just in case she needed a little nudgie. We watched the corridor for weeks after, and Selena never went out on her own. The four of them still went out together, to do whatever they did out there – I heard they’re witches, so maybe they were like sacrificing a cat or something, I literally don’t even want to know?’ Exaggerated wiggle of disgust. ‘And Julia went out a couple of times – she had this thing with Finn Carroll, which, I mean, nobody actually wants to be with a ginger but I guess if you look like Julia you take whatever you can get. But Selena had stopped going. So obviously her and Chris had broken up. Like, surprise?’

  ‘Any idea who did the breaking?’

  Shrug. ‘Do I look like I care? I mean, obviously I hoped for Chris’s sake that he’d suddenly got some standards, but . . . Guys: they only care about one thing. If Chris was getting it off Selena, and he didn’t have to, like, be seen with her, why would he dump her? So I figure it had to be Selena. Either Julia knocked some sense into her, or else Selena copped that, hello, Chris was only using her for an easy you-know-what and a pig like her was never going to be his actual girlfriend.’

  Chris’s face bent over Selena’s, holy with wonder. He’d been good, but that good?

  ‘Why didn’t you want them going out together?’ I asked.

  Joanne said coolly, ‘I don’t like her. OK? I don’t like any of them. They’re a bunch of freaks, and they act like that’s totally OK; like they’re so special, they can just do whatever they want. I thought Selena should find out that it doesn’t work like that. Like you said, I was actually
doing her a favour.’

  I did puzzled. ‘You were fine with Julia and Finn, but. Any particular reason why Selena and Chris was a problem?’

  Shrug. ‘Finn was OK, if you go for that kind of thing, but he wasn’t a big deal. Chris was. Everyone was into him. I wasn’t going to let Selena think someone like her had a right to get someone like that. Hello, Earth calling whale: just because you do whatever disgusting stuff you did to even get Chris to look at you, that doesn’t mean you get to keep him.’

  I said, ‘It wasn’t because you’d been going out with Chris, just a few months earlier.’

  Joanne didn’t miss a beat. Gusty sigh, eye-roll. ‘Hello, haven’t we been over this already? Am I imagining things? Am I out of my mind? I never went out with Chris. Only in his dreams.’

  Conway lifted the evidence bag with Alison’s phone, waggled it at Joanne. ‘Try again.’

  Half a second where Joanne went rigid. Then she turned her head away from Conway, folded her arms deliberately.

  ‘Oh, ouch,’ Conway said, hand to her heart. ‘That’s put me in my place.’

  ‘Joanne,’ I said, leaning in. ‘I know this is none of our business, or anyway it wouldn’t be normally. But if you were close enough to Chris that he might have told you anything that could be important, then we need to know. Make sense?’

  Joanne thought. I could see her trying out the star-witness seat, liking the feel.

  I said, ‘That phone that my partner’s got, that was yours till you sold it to Alison. And we’ve got records of a million texts back and forth between that number and Chris’s secret phone.’

  Joanne sighed. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘All right.’

  She rearranged herself on the edge of the bed. Hands folded, ankles crossed, eyes down. She was getting into character: bereaved girlfriend. ‘Chris and I were together. For a couple of months, the autumn before last.’

  It practically exploded out of her. She’d been only dying to tell, for a year now. Held it in because it might get her suspected, because she didn’t want to admit she’d been dumped, because we were adults and the enemy, who knew. Finally, we’d given her the excuse to talk.