The Secret Place

by Tana French

  Hand above head level. I thought of the Murder squad room. Wondered if Conway was thinking of it too.

  ‘Then you head out into the big bad world,’ she said, ‘everything looks different all of a sudden, and you’re fucked.’

  I ran a hand under the slats of Joanne’s bed-frame. ‘Orla and Alison, you mean? No way Joanne’s going to be hanging out with them in college.’

  Conway snorted. ‘Yeah, not a chance. Here, they’re useful; out there, they’ll be gone. And they’ll be devastated. I wasn’t thinking of them, though. I meant the gangs that actually genuinely care about each other. Like your Holly and her mates.’

  ‘I’d say they’ll still be mates on the outside.’ I hoped so. That something special, gilding the air. You want to believe it’ll last forever.

  ‘Could be. Probably, even. That’s not the point. The point is, right now, they don’t give a fuck about anyone except each other. Great, that’s cute, I bet they’re delighted with themselves.’ Conway threw a handful of bras back into a drawer, slammed it. ‘But when they get out there? That’s not going to be an option any more. They won’t be able to hang out of each other’s hole twenty-four-seven, ignore everyone else. Other people are going to start mattering, whether these four like that or not. The rest of the world’s gonna be there. It’s gonna be real. And that’s gonna fuck up their heads like they can’t even imagine.’

  She pulled out another drawer, hard enough that it nearly fell on her foot. ‘I don’t like bubbles.’

  Down the back of Joanne’s headboard: dust and nothing. I said, ‘How about the squad?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Murder’s a bubble.’

  Conway flipped out a T-shirt with a snap. ‘Yeah,’ she said. Jaw set like she was seeing fights ahead. ‘Murder’s a lot like here. The difference is, I’m there for good.’

  I thought about asking if that meant she was planning on making friends on the squad. Decided I had better sense.

  Conway said, like she’d heard me anyway, ‘And I’m still not gonna get all buddy-buddy with the squad lads. I don’t want to belong. I want to do my fucking job.’

  I did my fucking job – ran my hand over shiny posters; nothing – and thought about Conway. Tried to work out if I envied her, or felt sorry for her, or thought she was talking bollix.

  We were finishing up when Conway’s phone buzzed. Message.

  ‘Sophie,’ she said, slamming the wardrobe door. ‘Here we go.’ This time I went to her shoulder without waiting for an invitation.

  The e-mail said, Records for the number that texted Moran. My guy’s working on the actual texts, says they should still be in the system but might take him an hour or two. Probably all ‘OMGLOLWTFbwahaha!!!!’ but you want them, you’re getting them. Enjoy. S.

  The attachment was pages long; Chris had been getting plenty of use out of his special phone. He’d activated it at the end of August, just before he went back to school – good little Boy Scout, coming prepared. By the middle of September, two numbers were showing up. No calls, but plenty of texts and media messages back and forth with both, every day, a few times a day. ‘You were right,’ Conway said, hard-edged. I felt her think it: witnesses she should have found.

  ‘Ladies’ man, our Chris.’

  ‘And smart, too. See all these picture messages? Those weren’t pics of fluffy kitties. If one of his girls started threatening to tell the world, these would keep her nice and quiet.’

  I said, ‘That’ll be why none of them said it to you last year. They were hoping if they kept their mouths shut, no one would link these to them.’

  Conway’s head came round, suspicious, ready to shove my comfort up my hole. I kept my eyes on the screen till she turned back to it.

  October, both of Chris’s girls got the boot – same MO we’d seen on Joanne’s records: he ignored their texts, the flood of calls from one of them, till they gave up. As they faded, Joanne’s number kicked in. By the middle of November, Chris was two-timing her; after Joanne faded away in December, the other girl hung on a couple more weeks, but by Christmas she was history. January, a new number swapped a handful of texts and vanished: something that never got off the ground.

  Conway said, ‘I wondered all along. Why Chris hadn’t had a girlfriend in a year. Popular guy like him, good-looking, did fine with the girls before; it didn’t add up. I should’ve . . .’ Quick jerk of her head, angry. She didn’t bother finishing.

  Last week in February, the next run of texts started. One a day, then two, then half a dozen. All the one number. Conway scrolled down: March, April, the texts kept coming.

  She tapped the screen. ‘That’ll be Selena.’

  I said, ‘And he wasn’t two-timing her.’

  We left a second for what that meant. My theory, the girl who had caught Chris cheating, she was out. Conway’s was getting stronger.

  Conway said, ‘See that? No media messages, just texts. No tit pics here. Selena wasn’t giving Chris what he was after.’

  ‘Maybe he dumped her for that.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  April 22nd, Monday, the usual couple of texts back and forth during the day – setting up the meeting, probably. That night, Joanne had taken the video.

  Early on April 23rd, Chris texted Selena. She answered before school, he came straight back to her. No answer. Chris texted her again after school: nothing.

  He tried three more times the next day. Selena didn’t answer.

  Conway said, ‘Something went wrong, anyway, that night. After Joanne and Gemma went inside.’

  I said, ‘And she’s the one dumping him.’ Conway’s theory swelled bigger.

  It was the 25th, Thursday, when Selena finally got back to Chris. Just the one text. No answer.

  Over the next few weeks, she texted him six times. He didn’t answer any of them. Conway’s eyebrows were pulled together.

  Early on the morning of the 16th of May, Thursday, a text from Selena to Chris and, finally, one back. That night, Chris had been murdered.

  After that, nothing into his phone or out, for a year. Then, today, the text to me.

  Below the window, a tumble of high voices: girls outside, getting fresh air on their break between dinner and study. Nothing on our corridor. McKenna was keeping this lot where they were, under her eye.

  Conway said, ‘It goes bad the night of the twenty-second. Next day, Chris tries to apologise, Selena tells him to fuck off. He keeps trying, she ignores him.’

  ‘Over the next few days,’ I said, ‘she comes out of shock, starts getting mad. She decides she wants to confront Chris. By that time, though, he’s in a snot because she didn’t accept his apology; he’s decided to move on. Like that story Holly told us, with the muffin: he didn’t like not getting what he wanted.’

  ‘Or it’s started to sink in that this is serious shit, and he’s scared Selena’s going to tell. He figures the safest thing he can do is cut off contact; if she comes forward, he’ll call her a liar, claim the person she was texting wasn’t him, he never had anything to do with her.’

  ‘Finally,’ I said, ‘on the sixteenth of May, Selena finds a way to get him to meet up. Maybe he figures he needs to get the phone off her, in case there’s a way it can be traced back to him.’

  The rest turned in the air between us. On the grass below the window a huddle of little girls were chattering, indignant as small birds: She totally knew I wanted it and she like looked at me going for it and then she just barged right in front—

  Conway said, ‘I told you in the car I didn’t fancy Selena for it, didn’t think she could get the job done. I still don’t.’

  I said, ‘Julia’s very protective of Selena.’

  ‘You spotted that, yeah? I make noises about questioning Selena, say I don’t play nice; Julia’s straight in with the info about Joanne and Chris, throwing another ball for me to chase.’

  ‘Yeah. And I’d say it’s not just Julia: all four of them look after each other. If Chris did someth
ing to Selena, or tried to, and the others found out . . .’

  ‘Revenge,’ Conway said. ‘Or they saw Selena losing the plot, thought she’d go back to normal if Chris was gone and she felt safe again. And I’d say any of those three could get the job done just fine.’

  ‘Rebecca?’ But I remembered it, that lift of her chin, the glint that had told me Not so frail after all. Thought of the poem on her wall, of what her friends meant to her.

  ‘Yeah. Even her.’ After a second, carefully not looking at me: ‘Even Holly.’

  I said, ‘Holly’s the one who brought me that card. She could’ve just binned it.’

  ‘I’m not saying she did anything. I’m just saying I’m not ready to rule her out yet.’

  Made me prickle, the carefulness; like Conway thought I was going to throw a full-on hissy, demand she take my Holly off the list, start making calls to my big daddy Mackey. I wondered all over again what Conway had heard about me.

  I said, ‘Or it could be all three of them.’

  ‘Or all four,’ Conway said. She pressed her fingers to her nose, rubbed them along her cheekbones. ‘Fuck.’

  She looked like today was starting to close over her head. She was longing to leave: go back to Murder and turn in her paperwork, sit in the pub with a mate till her head was wiped clear, start fresh in the morning.

  She said, ‘This fucking place.’

  ‘Long day,’ I said.

  ‘You want to go, go.’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘Do whatever you do. Go home. Get your glad rags on and go clubbing. There’s a bus stop down the main road, or you can phone a taxi. Send me the receipt, I’ll put it on expenses.’

  I said, ‘If I’ve got the choice, I’m staying.’

  ‘I’m gonna be here a while. I don’t know how long.’

  ‘No problem.’

  Conway looked at me, eyebag to eyebag. Fatigue had rasped the coppery sheen off her skin, left her bare and hard and dusty.

  She said, ‘Ambitious little fucker, aren’t you?’

  It stung, places where it shouldn’t have, because it was true and because it wasn’t all the truth. I said, ‘It’s your case. No matter what I do, it’s your name going on the solve. I just want to work it.’

  Second of silence, while Conway looked at me. She said, ‘If we get a suspect and we bring her back to base, the lads are gonna give me hassle. About the case, about you, whatever. I can deal with that. If you add to the hassle because you want to be one of the lads, you’re gone. Clear?’

  What I’d felt in the squad-room air that morning: not just your normal Murder-squad edge, fast Murder-squad pulse. Something more, beating faster and sharper around Conway. And not just today. Her every day had to be a fight.

  I said, ‘I’ve ignored eejits before. I can do it again.’ Hoped to Jaysus the squad room would be empty whenever we walked in there. Last thing I wanted to do was pick between pissing off Conway and pissing off the Murder lads.

  Conway kept up the stare for another moment. Then: ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You better be good at it.’ She clicked her phone to black, slid it back into her pocket. ‘Time to talk to Selena.’

  I glanced around the beds. Shoved Alison’s locker back into place, pulled Joanne’s duvet straight. ‘Where?’

  ‘Her room. Keep it casual, keep her relaxed. If she comes out with it . . .’

  If Selena said rape, then parent or guardian, support officer, video camera, all the bells and whistles. I asked, ‘Who does the talking?’

  ‘I do. What’re you looking at? I can do sensitive. And you think she’ll talk to you about a rape? You stay back and try to disappear.’

  Conway slammed the window shut. Before we got out of the room, the smell of body sprays and hot hair was rising around us again.

  To keep the girls occupied, God help them, McKenna had started a singalong. Their voices straggled down the corridor to meet us, thin and threadbare. O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today . . .

  The common room was too hot, even with the windows open. The dinner plates were scattered around, mostly barely touched; the smell of cooled chicken pie turned me starving and queasy at the same time. The girls’ eyes were glazed and ricocheting, to each other, the windows, to Alison huddled in an armchair under a pile of hoodies.

  Half of them were barely moving their lips. Queen of the angels and queen of the may . . . It took them a second to notice us. Then the voices faltered and died.

  ‘Selena,’ Conway said, barely a nod to McKenna. ‘Got a minute?’

  Selena had been singing along, absently, gazing into nowhere. She looked at us like she was trying to work out who we were, before she got up and came.

  ‘Remember, Selena,’ McKenna told her, as she passed, ‘if at any point you feel in need of support, you can simply put a stop to the interview and ask to have me or another teacher present. The detectives are aware of that.’

  Selena smiled at her. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, reassuring.

  ‘She is, of course,’ Conway said cheerfully. ‘Hang on for us in your room, yeah, Selena?’

  As Selena wandered off down the corridor: ‘Julia,’ Conway said, beckoned. ‘Come here a sec.’

  Julia had her back to us, hadn’t moved when we came in. In the second when she turned around, she looked wrecked: grey and tense, all the spark faded out of her. By the time she reached us she’d found a last bit of zip somewhere, gave us the smart eye again.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Conway pulled the door to behind her. Quietly, so as not to reach Selena: ‘How come you never told me you had a thing going with Finn Carroll?’

  Julia’s jaw tightened. ‘Bloody Joanne. Right?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Last year, I asked you about relationships with Colm’s guys. How come you said nothing?’

  ‘Because there was nothing to say. It wasn’t a relationship; Finn and I never touched each other. We just liked each other. As actual human beings. And that’s exactly why we didn’t tell anyone we were hanging out, which we barely even were anyway, only for like two seconds. But we knew everyone would be like, “OMG, hee-hee-hee, Finn and Julia sitting in a tree . . . ” And we didn’t feel like putting up with that bullshit. OK?’

  I thought of Joanne and Gemma, snickering low in the darkness, and I believed her. So did Conway. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Fair enough.’ And as Julia turned away: ‘What’s Finn at these days? He doing OK?’

  Just for a second, the slash of grief turned Julia’s face into an adult’s. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said, and went back into the common room and closed the door.

  Selena was waiting outside her room. The low sun through the window at the end of the corridor sent her shadow towards us, floating over the glowing red tiles. The singing had started up again. O virgin most tender, our homage we render . . .

  Selena said, ‘It’s break time. We should be outside. People are getting sort of fidgety.’

  ‘I know, yeah,’ Conway said, brushing past her and getting comfortable on Julia’s bed. Sitting differently this time, one foot tucked under her, teenager curled up for a chat. ‘Tell you what: when we finish up with all this, I’ll ask McKenna if she’d let yous have a late break outside. How’s that?’

  Selena glanced down the corridor, dubious. ‘I guess.’

  In danger defend us, in sorrow befriend us . . . Raggedy, splintering at the edges. I thought I saw that flash of wide-awake silver in Selena’s face again, saw her seeing something we shouldn’t miss.

  If it was there, Conway didn’t spot it. ‘Great. Have a seat.’ Selena sat on the edge of her bed. I shut the door – the singing vanished – and melted into a corner, got out my notebook to hide behind.

  ‘Lovely.’ Conway pulled out her phone, tapped at the screen. ‘Have a look at this,’ she said, and passed it to Selena.

  It hit her. Even if I hadn’t been able to hear it – bumping footsteps, rustling branches – I’d’ve known what it was, by Selena.

  She went white
, not red. Her head reared back, away from the screen, and her face had a terrible, violated dignity to it. The shorn hair, nothing to hide behind, made her look stripped naked. I felt like I should look away.

  ‘Who?’ she said. She pressed her other hand down over the phone, palm covering the screen. ‘How?’

  ‘Joanne,’ Conway said. ‘Her and Gemma followed you. I’m sorry for hitting you with this, it’s a dirty trick, but it seems like it’s the only way to get you to stop claiming you weren’t going out with Chris. And I can’t afford to waste any more time on that. OK?’

  Selena waited, like she couldn’t hear anything else, till the muffled sounds from under her palm ended. Then she loosened her hands – it took an effort – and passed the phone back to Conway.

  ‘OK,’ she said. Her breath was still coming hard, but she had her voice under control. ‘I was meeting Chris.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Conway said. ‘I appreciate that. And he gave you a secret phone that you used to keep in touch. Why was that?’

  ‘We were keeping things private.’

  ‘Whose idea was that?’

  ‘Chris’s.’

  Conway shifted an eyebrow. ‘You didn’t mind?’

  Selena shook her head. Her colour was starting to come back.

  ‘No? Me, I would’ve minded. I’d’ve figured, either this guy thinks I’m not good enough to take out in public, or he wants to keep his options open. Either way, I’m not happy.’

  Selena said simply, ‘I didn’t think that.’

  Conway left a pause, but that was it. ‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘Would you say it was a good relationship?’

  Selena had herself back. She said, slowly, turning over the words before she let them out, ‘It was one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever had. That and my friends. Nothing’s ever going to be like that again.’

  The words dissolved and spread into the air, turned it those still, backlit blues. She was right; course she was. You don’t get a second first time. It seemed like she shouldn’t have had to know that, not yet. Like she should have had the chance to leave that glade behind, before she realised she could never go back.