The Secret Place

by Tana French

  McKenna said, ‘If you should wish to speak to me, Detectives – or to any more of the fourth-years – you will find us in the common room.’

  Meaning the nun had ratted us out. McKenna was taking over the fourth-years, damage control or no, and we were getting no more interviews without an appropriate adult.

  ‘Miss McKenna,’ I said. Held out a hand to keep her back, while Alison straggled down the corridor towards the common room. Even on her own, the kid walked like she was trailing after someone. ‘We’ll need to speak to some of the girls without a teacher present. There are elements of this case that they wouldn’t be comfortable discussing in front of school staff. It’s only background to the investigation, but we need them to speak freely.’

  McKenna was opening her mouth on Absolutely not. I said, ‘If unsupervised interviews are a problem, obviously, we can have the girls’ parents come in.’

  And start last year’s flap again, parents outraged, panicking, threatening to pull their daughters out of Kilda’s. McKenna swallowed the No. I added, for good measure, ‘It would mean we’d have to wait till the parents can get here, but it might be a good compromise solution. The girls would probably be more comfortable discussing breaches of school rules in front of their parents than in front of a teacher.’

  McKenna shot me a look that said You don’t fool me, you little bastard. Said, salvaging, ‘Very well. I will allow unsupervised interviews, within reason. If any girl becomes distressed, however, or if you receive any information that affects the school in any way, I expect to be informed immediately.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Thanks very much.’ As she turned away, I heard the surge of voices from the common room, hammering around Alison.

  ‘That arm’s gone down some more,’ Conway said. She tapped Joanne’s bedside locker. ‘Fake tan in there.’

  I said, ‘Joanne didn’t have any reason to create a diversion to get us out of the common room. She thought Orla had ditched the key a year ago.’

  It had only hit me when I looked at the arm again. ‘Huh,’ Conway said. Thought that over. ‘Coincidence and imagination, after all.’ She didn’t look as pleased as she should’ve been. Neither was I.

  It does that to you, being a detective. You look at blank space and see gears turning, motives and cunning; nothing looks innocent any more. Most times, when you prove away the gears, the blank space looks lovely; peaceful. But that arm: innocent, it looked just as dangerous.

  Chapter 16

  By the time Julia and Finn get to the back of the grounds, the music seeping out of the dance is long gone behind them. The moon catches flashes of light and snippets of colour strewn through the bushes, like a crop of sweets in a witch’s garden. Finn pulls out the nearest one and holds it up to the light: a Lucozade bottle, full of something dark amber. He uncaps it and sniffs.

  ‘Rum. I think. That OK for you?’

  There are always rumours about some guy who put some drug in some booze some year and raped some girl. Julia figures she’ll take the chance. ‘My favourite,’ she says.

  ‘Where’ll we go? There’s going to be a lot more people headed here, if they can get out.’

  No way is Julia bringing him to the glade. There’s a little rise among cherry trees, tucked away at the side of the grounds; the cherry blossom is out, which turns the place more romantic than Julia had in mind, but it has plenty of cover and a perfect view of the back lawn. ‘This way,’ she says.

  No one else has got there first. The rise is still. When a breeze flits through, cherry blossom falls like a shake of snow on the pale grass.

  ‘Ta-da,’ Julia says, sweeping a hand out. ‘Will this do?’

  ‘Works for me,’ Finn says. He looks around, the bottle swinging from one hand, the other tucked in the pocket of his navy hoodie – it’s cold, but there’s almost no wind, so it’s a mellow, clean cold that they can ignore. ‘I never even knew this was here. It’s beautiful.’

  ‘It’s probably covered in bird crap,’ Julia says, dampeningly. He doesn’t sound like he’s just playing Mr Sensitive to up his odds of getting into her bra, but you never know.

  ‘The element of risk. I like it.’ Finn points to a patch of clear grass among the cherry trees. ‘Over here?’

  Julia lets him sit down first, so she can get the distance right. He uncaps the bottle and passes it to her. ‘Cheers,’ he says.

  She takes a mouthful and discovers she hates rum as well as whiskey. She has no idea how the human race found out you could actually drink this stuff. She hopes she doesn’t just hate booze in general. Julia figures she’s ruled out enough vices already; this is one she was planning to enjoy.

  ‘Good stuff,’ she says, giving it back.

  Finn takes a swig and manages to avoid making a face. ‘Better than the punch, anyway.’

  ‘True. Not saying much, but true.’

  There’s a silence, question-marked, but not uncomfortable. The ringing in Julia’s ears is starting to fade. Bats are on the hunt overhead; far away, maybe in the grove, an owl calls.

  Finn lies back on the grass, pulling up his hood so he won’t get dew or bird crap in his hair. ‘I heard the grounds are haunted,’ he says.

  Julia is not about to snuggle up for protection. ‘Yeah? I heard your mum is haunted.’

  He grins. ‘Seriously. You never heard that?’

  ‘Course I did,’ Julia says. ‘The ghost nun. Is that why you invited me out here? To look after you while you got your booze?’

  ‘I used to be petrified of her. The older guys made sure we all were, back in first year.’

  ‘Us too. Sadistic bitches.’

  Finn hands her the bottle. ‘They’d come into our dorm last thing before lights-out, right, and tell us the stories? The idea was, if they scared us enough, some poor kid wouldn’t have the guts to go to the jacks and he’d end up wetting his bed.’

  ‘Ever get you?’

  ‘No!’ But he’s grinning too. ‘They got plenty, though.’

  ‘Seriously? What’d they tell you? She came after guys with garden shears?’

  ‘Nah. They said she . . .’ Finn glances sideways at Julia. ‘I mean, the way I heard it, she was kind of a slut.’

  The word comes out practically radioactive with self-consciousness. Julia enquires, ‘Are you trying to see if I’ll get all shocked because you said “slut”?’

  Finn’s eyebrows go up and he stares, half shocked himself. She watches him coolly, amused.

  ‘Well,’ he says, in the end. ‘I guess. Sort of.’

  ‘Were you hoping I would or I wouldn’t?’

  He shakes his head. He’s starting to smile, at himself, snared. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Anything else you want to try shocking me with? You could go for “shit”. Or even “fuck”, if you’re feeling really crazy.’

  ‘I think I’m done. Thanks, though.’

  Julia decides to let him off the hook. She lies back on the grass beside him and spins the cap off the bottle. ‘The way we heard it,’ she says, ‘the nun was shagging like half the priests from Colm’s, and then some kid found out and ratted her out to the Father Superior. Him and the Mother Superior strangled the nun and hid her body somewhere in the grounds, nobody’s totally sure where, so she’s haunting both schools till she gets a proper burial. And if she catches anyone, she thinks it’s the kid who ratted her out, so she tries to strangle them and they go insane. Does that about cover what you heard?’

  ‘Well. Yeah. More or less.’

  ‘Saved you some trouble there,’ Julia says. ‘I think I’ve earned this.’ She has another sip. This one actually tastes OK. She decides, with relief, that she doesn’t hate rum after all.

  Finn reaches for the bottle, and Julia holds it out. His fingers skim over hers, tentative, light. Over the back of her hand, up to her wrist.

  ‘Ah-ah,’ Julia says, shoving the bottle at him and ignoring the leap of something in her stomach.

  Finn takes his hand back. ‘Why no
t?’ he asks, after a second. He’s not looking at Julia.

  Julia says, ‘Got a smoke?’

  Finn props himself up on an elbow and scans the back lawn; somewhere far off a high squeal falls into a giggle, but there’s nothing that sounds like nuns on the hunt. He fishes in his jeans pocket and pulls out a very battered packet of Marlboro Lights. Julia lights up – she’s pretty sure it looked expert – and hands the lighter back.

  ‘So . . . ?’ Finn says, and waits.

  ‘Nothing personal,’ Julia says. ‘Believe me. Me and a Colm’s guy is never going to happen, is all. No matter what you’ve probably heard.’ Finn tries to stay blank, but the eyelid-flicker tells her he’s heard plenty. ‘Yeah. So if you want to go back inside and find someone who’ll spend the evening with your hand up her top, feel free. I promise not to get my ickle feelings hurt.’

  She totally, no question, expects him to go. There are at least two dozen girls inside who would rugby-tackle the chance to have Finn Carroll’s tongue down their throats, and most of them are prettier than Julia to begin with. Instead Finn shrugs and pulls out a smoke of his own. ‘I’m here now.’

  ‘I’m not kidding.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Your loss,’ Julia says. She lies back on the grass, feeling the damp tickle of it on the back of her neck, and blows smoke up at the sky. The rum is kicking in, making her arms go happily floppy. She considers the possibility that she underestimated Finn Carroll.

  Finn uncaps the bottle and has a swig. ‘So the ghost nun,’ he says. ‘Do you believe in stuff like that?’

  ‘Yeah, I do,’ Julia says. ‘Some of it. Maybe not the ghost nun – I bet the teachers just made her up to stop us doing this – but some stuff. How about you?’

  Finn takes another swig. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I mean, no, because there’s no scientific evidence, but I actually think I’m probably wrong. You know?’

  ‘More rum,’ Julia says, holding out her free hand. ‘I think I need to catch up.’

  Finn passes it over. ‘Like, OK: everyone in history’s thought they were the ones who finally knew everything. In the Renaissance, right, they were positive they knew exactly how the universe worked, till the next set of guys came along and proved that they were missing like a hundred important things. And then that set of guys were sure they had it all down, till another set came along and showed them parts they were missing.’

  He glances at Julia, checking if she’s laughing at him, which she isn’t, and if she’s listening. Which she is, completely.

  ‘So,’ he says, ‘it’s pretty unlikely, just mathematically, that we’re living in the one single era that happens to finally have everything figured out. Which means there’s a decent possibility that the reason we can’t explain how ghosts and stuff could exist is because we haven’t figured it out yet, not because they don’t. And it’s pretty arrogant of us to think it definitely has to be the other way round.’

  Finn takes a drag of his cigarette and squints at the blow of smoke like it’s turned fascinating. Even in the moonlight, Julia can see the deeper colour on his cheeks.

  ‘Well,’ he says. ‘Probably that all sounded totally stupid. You can tell me to shut up now.’

  Julia notices something that she never had room to spot before, through the whirl of Does he fancy me do I fancy him is he going to try would I let him how much would I let him. She really likes Finn.

  ‘Actually,’ she says, ‘since you mentioned it, it’s one of the least stupid things I’ve heard in ages.’

  He gives her a quick sideways glance. ‘Yeah?’

  Julia would love with all her heart to show him. Lift her hand, send the Lucozade bottle slowly rising through the rich moonlight. Upend it, set the falling droplets of rum spiralling like a tiny amber galaxy against the star-thick sky. See the slow sheer joy lighting his face right through. The thought of what would happen to her makes the back of her neck twitch.

  ‘OK,’ she says. ‘Here’s something I’ve never told anyone.’

  Finn turns his head to look at her properly.

  ‘Stuff like that, ghosts and ESP and stuff? I used to say it was all total bullshit. Like, I was fanatical about it. Once I went off on Selena, just because she was telling us about this thing in some magazine, about clairvoyance? I told her to prove it or shut up about it. When she couldn’t prove it, because obviously she couldn’t, I called her an idiot and told her she should try reading Just Seventeen because at least it’d be a step up from that crap.’

  Finn’s eyebrows are up.

  ‘Yeah, I know. I was a bitch. I apologised. But it was because I wanted her to prove it was all true. I wanted it to be real, so badly. If I hadn’t cared, I’d’ve been like, “Yeah, whatever, maybe just possibly clairvoyance happens, probably not.” But I couldn’t stand the idea of actually believing in all this amazing mysterious stuff, and then finding out that duhhh I was a big thicko sucker and there was nothing there.’

  It’s true: she’s never said this even to the others. With them she’s the one who’s always sure straight through – Julia figures Selena knows it’s more complicated than that, but they don’t talk about it. Something moves through her, unstoppable as the rum: tonight matters, after all.

  ‘Then what happened?’ Finn asks.

  Wariness shoots up in Julia. ‘Huh?’

  ‘You said, a minute ago: now you do believe in some of this stuff. So what changed?’

  Her fucking mouth, always open one sentence too long. ‘So,’ she says, lightly, rolling over onto her stomach to put out her smoke in the grass. ‘You don’t believe in the ghost nun, but you think she might be out here anyway. And I kind of believe in her, but I don’t actually think she’s here.’

  Finn is smart enough not to push. ‘Between the two of us, we’re basically guaranteed to get haunted.’

  ‘Is that why you’re hanging on here? In case she goes boo and gives me a heart attack?’

  ‘You’re not scared?’

  Julia arches an eyebrow. ‘What, because I’m a girl?’

  ‘No. Because you believe in it. Kind of.’

  ‘I’m out here every day. The ghost hasn’t got me yet.’

  ‘You’re out here in the daytime. Not at night.’

  Finn is testing; finding new ways to work out what he thinks of her, now that the normal ones are useless. They’re in new territory. Julia realises she likes it here.

  ‘This isn’t night,’ she says. ‘It’s nine o-fucking-clock. Babies are still out playing. If it was summer, it’d be daylight.’

  ‘So if I got up right now and went inside, you’d be totally fine out here by yourself.’

  It occurs to Julia that actually she probably should be scared, here on her own with a guy who’s already tried once. It occurs to her that a few months ago, after what happened with James Gillen, she would have been scared; she would have been the one leaving.

  She says, ‘As long as you left me the rum.’

  Finn pulls himself up off the grass with a sit-up and a jump. He brushes off his jeans and lifts an eyebrow at Julia.

  She waves up at him, from her nest. ‘Off you go and find yourself some nice tit. Have fun.’

  Finn pretends to start turning away. She laughs at him. After a minute he laughs back and drops down on the grass again.

  ‘Too scary?’ Julia asks. ‘All that way on your ownio, in the big bad dark?’

  ‘It’s nine o-fucking-clock. Like you said. If it actually was night, bet you’d be scared.’

  ‘I’m badass, baby. I can handle ghost nuns.’

  Finn lies back and passes Julia the bottle. ‘Right. Let’s see you out here at midnight.’

  ‘Bring it on.’

  ‘Yeah. Right.’

  That grin, like a dare. Julia’s never been any good at turning down a dare. Thin ice, she feels it, but the rum is dancing in her and what the hell, it’s not like she’s going to tell him anything. She says, ‘When’s the next social?’

  �
��What?’

  ‘Come on. March?’

  ‘Sometime in April. So?’

  She points up at the fancy-hands clock on the back of the school. ‘So at the next social, I’ll have a photo of that clock showing midnight.’

  ‘So you’ve done Photoshop. Fair play.’

  Julia shrugs. ‘Trust me or don’t. Yeah, I want to own you, but not that badly. I’ll get the photo straight up.’

  Finn turns his head, on the grass. Their faces are inches apart, and Julia thinks Oh God no because him trying to kiss her now would be more kick-in-the-teeth depressing than she wants to admit, but Finn is grinning, a wide-open wicked grin like a kid’s. ‘Bet you a tenner you don’t,’ he says.

  Julia grins back, the way she grins at Holly when an idea’s hit them both. ‘Bet you a tenner I do,’ she says.

  Their hands come up at the same time, slap together, and they shake. Finn’s hand feels good, strong, an even match to hers.

  She picks up the bottle and holds it up above her face, to the stars. ‘Here’s to my tenner,’ she says. ‘I’ll put it towards ghost-hunting equipment.’

  In the entrance hall the huge chandelier is off, but the sconce lights on the walls turn the air a warm old-fashioned gold. Above their reach, floors of darkness stretch upwards, untouched, echoing with Chris and Selena’s footsteps.

  Selena sits on the staircase. The steps are white stone, veined with grey; once upon a time they were polished – there are still traces between the banisters – but thousands of feet have worn them down till they’re velvety-rough, with dips in the middle.

  Chris sits down next to her. Selena has never been this close to him before, close enough to see the scattering of freckles along the tops of his cheekbones, the faintest shading of stubble on his chin; to smell him, spices and a thread of something wild and musky that makes her think of outside at night. He feels different from anyone she’s ever met: charged up fuller, electric and sparking with three people’s worth of life packed into his skin.

  Selena wants to touch him again. She slides her hands under her thighs to stop herself reaching out and pressing her palm against his neck. With a sudden leap of warning, she wonders if she fancies him; but she’s fancied guys, back Before, even snogged a few of them. This isn’t the same thing.