The Secret Place

by Tana French

  Nothing happens. The clearing is just a patch of prissily trimmed grass; the cypresses are just trees that some gardener figured would be low-maintenance. The calling sound is still circling, but all the spookiness has leached out of it; it’s just some bird, yelping mindlessly because that’s all it knows how to do. Even the pain is nothing special, just a dull unemphatic rasp. Julia shifts her arse off a sharp pebble and grimaces over Chris’s bobbing shoulder. The moon has flattened to a disc of paper pasted to the sky, lightless.

  Chapter 25

  I stood there in the corridor, just stood, my stupid gob hanging open and a big cartoon bubble saying ‘!!??!!’ bouncing over my fat head. Stood till I copped that Mackey or Conway might come out and find me there. Then I moved. Past the Secret Place, cards jostling and hissing. Down the stairs. Caught myself moving slow and careful, like I’d taken a kicking and something hurt like fuck, if I could work out where.

  The foyer was dark, I had to grope my way to the main door. It felt heavier or the strength had gone out of me, I had to lean my shoulder on it and heave, feet slipping on the tiles, picturing Mackey watching and grinning from the stairs. I half-fell outside sweating. Let the door slam behind me. I didn’t know any other way back into the school, but I wasn’t going to need one.

  I thought about ringing a taxi to take me home. The picture of Mackey and Conway coming out and finding me gone, flounced off to have a little cry on my pillow, turned me red in the twilight. I left my phone in my pocket.

  Twenty to ten, and nearly dark. Outdoor lights were on, turning the grass whitish without actually illuminating it, doing strange eye-bending things in among the trees. I looked at that tree line and saw it the way the sixth-years had to see it, outline sharpened to slicing by the knowledge that it was about to sift away down the sky like a flower-fall, out of view. Something that would be there forever and ever; for other people, not for me. I was almost gone.

  I picked my way down the steps – that light turned them depthless, treacherous – and started walking, along the front of the school and down the side of the boarders’ wing. My feet crunched in pebbles, and that morning’s jumpy reflex – head turning, checking for the gamekeeper siccing the hounds on the unwashed – was back.

  I scrabbled through the mess for something good somewhere, couldn’t find it. Told myself if Mackey was right about Conway – course he was, Mackey has something on everyone, no need to invent it – then she had just done me a favour: better out than in. I told myself I’d be relieved in the morning, when I wasn’t wrecked and starving, when I hadn’t used up everything I had. Told myself in the morning I wouldn’t feel like something priceless had landed in my hand, been robbed away and smashed before I could close my fingers.

  Couldn’t make it stick. Cold Cases waiting for me outside these walls and Mackey had been right, the smirky fucker: now I was the kid who couldn’t hack twelve hours in the big leagues, and he and Conway between them would make sure everyone knew that. Cold Cases had looked so shiny to me, my first day, such a wide glittering sweep of step up. Now it looked like a dingy dead end. This here, this was what I wanted. One day, and gone.

  The only smudge of silver lining I could come up with: it was almost over. Even before Mackey’s backstabbing break, we’d been starting to go in circles. If he didn’t pull the plug soon, Conway would. I just had to wait out the last of their patience, then I could go home and try to forget today had ever happened. I’d’ve only loved to be one of those blokes who drink till days like this dissolve. Better: one of those blokes who texts his mates, days like this, Pub. Feels their circle click closed around him.

  Everyone knows a wife and kids tie you down. What people miss somehow is that mates, the proper kind, they do the same just as hard. Mates mean you’ve settled, made your bargain: this, wherever you are together, this is as far as you’re going, ever. This is your stop; this is where you get off.

  Not just where you are: they tie you down to who you are. Once you have mates who know you, right down under the this-and-that you decide people want to see today, then there’s no room left for the someday person who’ll magic you into being all your finest dreams. You’ve turned solid: you’re the person your mates know, forever.

  You like things to be beautiful, Conway had said, and been right. Over my own dead body was I going to stake myself down somewhere, being someone, that didn’t have all the beautiful I could cram into me. For ugly I could’ve stayed where I started, got myself a career on the dole and a wife who hated my guts and a dozen snot-faced brats and a wall-sized telly playing 24/7 shows about people’s intestines. Call me arrogant, uppity, me the council-house kid thinking I deserved more. I’d been swearing it since before I was old enough to understand the thought: I was going to be more.

  If I had to get there without friends, I could do it. Had been doing it. I’d never met anyone who brought me somewhere I wanted to stay, looked at me and saw someone I wanted to be for good; anyone who was worth giving up the more I wanted down the line.

  It landed inside me then, there under the dead weight of the shadow of Kilda’s, too late. That light I had seen on Holly and her mates, so bright it hurt, the rare thing I had come into that school looking to find and to envy: I had thought it came to them showering down with the echoes from high ceilings, reflected onto them in the glow of old wood. I had been wrong. It had come from them. From the way they gave things up for each other, stripped branches off their futures and set them ablaze. What had felt like beautiful to me on the other side of today, balustrades and madrigals, those were nothing. I had been missing the heart of it, all along.

  Mackey had taken one sniff of me, known the whole story. Seen me in school turning down a spliff and a laugh, in case getting caught cost me my chance at getting out; seen me at training college, big friendly smile and vague excuse to wander away from the big friendly guys who were going to be in uniform for life. Watched me fuck Kennedy over, and known exactly what was missing out of a person who would do that.

  And Conway must have smelled it off me too. All day, when I’d been thinking how we clicked, thinking we were getting on like a house on fire. Thinking against my own will that this tasted like something brand-new.

  Out the back of the school. Clusters of dark shapes tossed across the green-white grass, restless and stirring, for a moment my eye went wild trying to make sense of them – I thought big cats released for the night, thought another art project, thought ghosts got loose from Holly’s model school – before one threw back her head, floodlight glossing long hair, and laughed. The boarders. Conway had told McKenna to let them out before bedtime. McKenna had been smart enough to do it.

  Rustles under the trees, a shake in the hedge. They were everywhere, watching me. A trio on the grass glanced across, chins turning over shoulders, huddled in tight to whisper. Another laugh, this one fired straight at me.

  Half an hour, maybe, till someone called time on the interview and I got to hunch in Conway’s passenger seat like a kid caught spray-painting, for the long silent drive home. Spend that half-hour standing here like a spare prick, with teenage girls giving me the sideways once-over and the snide commentary: bollix to that. Do a legger back round to the front of the school like this lot had terrified me off, hang around hoping no one would see me waiting for the big kids to give me my lift home: bollix to that, too.

  ‘And fuck Conway anyway,’ I said, out loud, not loud enough for any of the glancing girls to hear. If we weren’t working together, then I was flying solo.

  I didn’t know where to start looking. I didn’t have to: they called to me. Voices out of the black-and-white dazzle, untwisting themselves from the breeze-rustles and the bats: Detective, Detective Moran! Over here! Silvery, gauzy, everywhere and nowhere. I turned like blind-man’s-buff. Heard giggles whirl like moths among the leaves.

  Off in the tree-shadows, across the slope of lawn: pale flutters, hands waving, beckoning. Detective Stephen come here come here! I went, weaving between
the watching eyes. Could’ve been anyone, I would’ve gone.

  They grew outlines and features out of nothing, like Polaroids. Gemma, Orla, Joanne. Propped on their elbows, legs stretched out, hair hanging to the grass behind them. Smiling.

  I smiled back. That I could do, at least. That I was great at. Beat Conway any day.

  ‘Did you miss us?’ Gemma. Neck arched.

  ‘Here,’ Joanne said. Shifted closer to Gemma, patted the grass where she’d been. ‘Come talk to us.’

  I knew to run. I had better sense than to be in a lit room alone with Holly Mackey, never mind out here with these three. But them looking at me like they actually wanted me around, that made a nice change; that was sweet as cool water on burns.

  ‘Are we allowed to call you Detective Stephen?’

  ‘Duh, what’s he going to do, arrest us?’

  ‘You’d probably enjoy it. Handcuffs—’

  ‘Can we? Your card said Stephen Moran.’

  ‘What about Detective Steve?’

  ‘Ew, please! That’s like a porn name.’

  I kept smiling, kept my mouth shut. They were different, out in the wild and the night. Skittery, slanty-glanced, swaying with breezes I couldn’t feel. Powerful. I knew I was outnumbered, back of my neck, the way you know it when three guys with a bad walk roll around the corner and pick up the pace towards you.

  ‘Come on. We’re bored.’ Joanne, crossed ankles rocking. ‘Keep us company.’

  I sat down. The grass was soft, springy. The air under the trees smelled richer, seething with spores and pollen.

  ‘What are you doing still here?’ Gemma wanted to know. ‘Are you staying here tonight?’

  ‘Um, duh, exactly where would he stay?’ Joanne, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Gems wants him to share with her.’ Orla, giggling hard.

  ‘Hello? Was I asking you?’ No being a bitch around here without Joanne’s say-so. ‘It’s not like he could share with you, anyway. He’d have to be like a midget to fit in with your massive fat thighs.’

  Orla cringed. Joanne laughed: ‘OhmyGod, you should see your face! Chill out, it was a joke, ever heard of them?’ Orla cringed smaller.

  Gemma ignoring them, eyeing me, corner of smile. ‘He could share with Sister Cornelius. Make her night.’

  ‘She’d bite it off him. Offer it up to the Child of Prague.’

  Three feet deeper into the trees, we would’ve been in darkness. Here in the borderlands the light was mixed and moving, edges of moonlight, overspill from the lawn floodlights. It did things to their faces. That throwaway cheapness that had turned my stomach earlier, all artificial colourings and flavourings: it didn’t look throwaway now, not out here. It looked harder, chilled to something solid and waxy. Mysterious.

  I said, ‘We’ll be heading soon. Just finishing up a few things.’

  ‘It talks.’ Gemma, smiling wider. ‘I thought you were giving us the silent treatment.’

  Joanne said, ‘You don’t look like you’re finishing anything up.’

  ‘Taking a break.’

  She smirked like she knew better. ‘Did you get in trouble with Detective Bitchface?’

  To them I wasn’t a detective any more, big bad authority. I was something else: something to play with, play for, dance for. Strange thing dropped into their midst out of the sky, who knew what it might do, what it might mean. They were circling me.

  I said, ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘OhmyGod, her attitude? It’s like, hello, just because you managed to save up for one suit that isn’t from Penney’s, it doesn’t actually make you queen of the world?’

  Gemma said, ‘Do you have to work with her all the time? Or sometimes, if you’re good, do they let you work with someone who doesn’t eat live hamsters for fun?’

  All of them laughing, beckoning me or daring me to laugh back. I heard the small dull thud of Conway closing the door in my face. Watched those three faces dancing, every spark of it all for me.

  I laughed. I said, ‘Jesus, have a heart. She’s not my partner. I’m only working with her for the day.’

  Pretend collapses from relief, all of them fanning themselves: ‘Phew! OhmyGod, we were wondering how you survived, like if you were on Prozac . . .’

  I said, ‘Another few days of this and I will be.’ We laughed harder. ‘That’s one reason I’m out here. I needed a chat and a laugh with people who won’t have my head melted.’

  They liked that. Arched like cats, gratified. Orla – she bounced back fast; used to getting hit – she said, ‘We decided you’re a way better detective than her.’

  ‘Lickarse,’ said Gemma.

  ‘It’s true, though,’ said Joanne. Eyes on me. ‘Someone should tell your boss that Whatshername being such a B means she can’t actually do her job. She’d get a lot further if she had some basic manners. When she asks a question, it’s like, whoa, anyone got a lump of raw meat to throw, and maybe it’ll back off?’

  Orla said, ‘We wouldn’t tell her the time unless we had to.’

  ‘When you ask us stuff,’ Joanne said, and twisted her head to one side to smile at me, ‘we want to talk to you.’

  Last time I talked to her, we hadn’t been best buds, not like this. They wanted something from me, wanted to give me something, I couldn’t tell which. I said, sniffing my way, ‘Glad to hear it. You’ve been a lot of help to me so far; I don’t know what I’d’ve done without you.’

  ‘We like helping you.’

  ‘We’d be your spies any day.’

  ‘Undercover.’

  ‘We’ve got your phone number. We could text you anything suspicious we see.’

  I said, ‘If you seriously want to give me a hand, you know how. You three, I’d say you know everything that happens in this school. Anything that could have to do with Chris, I’d only love to hear it.’

  Orla hunching forward, glint of moonlight on her wet mouth: ‘Who’s in the art room?’

  A zap of ‘Shhh!’ from Joanne. Orla shrank back.

  Gemma, amused: ‘Oops. Too late.’ To me: ‘We weren’t going to just ask like that.’

  ‘But since Genius here did,’ said Joanne. Leaned back, throat arching. Pointed. ‘Who’s that?’

  The art room, a flare of chilly white across the heavy slab of the school. Above it the stone balustrade was silhouetted against the sky, a ghost’s walk, black on near-black. In one window the wire school soared. In the next one was Mackey, slouching back, arms folded.

  ‘That,’ Joanne said.

  I said, ‘Another detective.’

  ‘Ooo.’ Wrist-shake, mocking eyes. ‘I knew you’d got thrown out.’

  ‘Sometimes we change things up while we’re working. Keep everyone fresh.’

  ‘Who’re they talking to?’

  ‘Is it Holly Mackey?’

  ‘We told you they were weird.’

  The glow on their faces, all eager and fascinated. Like I could be the one thing they’d been hoping to see. It made you want to be that, everything they were looking for, all at the same time. Chris Harper must have wanted the same thing.

  Up in the art room, Conway strolled across the window, all long stride and sharp shoulders. I said, ‘Yeah. It’s Holly.’ Conway would’ve eaten the head off me; fuck Conway.

  Hiss of in-breath. Glances circling, but I couldn’t catch them as they zipped past.

  Orla breathed, ‘Did she kill Chris?’

  ‘OhmyGod.’

  ‘Here was us thinking it was Groundskeeper Willy.’

  ‘Well, up until today we did.’

  ‘But once you started asking us and them all those questions—’

  ‘Obviously we knew it wasn’t us—’

  ‘But we didn’t think—’

  ‘It was Holly Mackey?’

  I would’ve only loved to have an answer for them. See their mouths pop open and their eyes go wide, see them overwhelmed by me, The Man, pulling out fountains of answers like a magician. I said, ‘We don’t know who killed C
hris. We’re working hard on finding out.’

  ‘But who do you think?’ Joanne wanted to know.

  Holly, slouched at that table, all blue eyes and bite and something hidden. Maybe Mackey had been right, not wanting her talking. Maybe he had been right and she would’ve talked to me.

  I shook my head. ‘Not my job.’ Sceptical looks. ‘Seriously. I can’t go around with an idea stuck in my head, not till I’ve got evidence.’

  ‘Ahh.’ She pouted. ‘That’s so not fair. Here you’re asking us to—’

  ‘OhmyGod!’ Orla, shooting upright, clapping a hand over her mouth. ‘You don’t think it was Alison, do you?’

  ‘Is that where she is?’

  ‘Is she under arrest?’

  They were open-mouthed. ‘No,’ I said. ‘She’s just a bit upset. The thing with Chris’s ghost, that got to her.’

  ‘Well, hello, yeah? It got to all of us, actually?’ Joanne, cold: I’d forgotten to put her top of the list. Bad boy.

  ‘Bet it did,’ I said, good and awed. ‘Did you see him?’

  Joanne remembered to shiver. ‘Course I did. Probably he came back to talk to me. He was looking straight at me.’

  It hit me then: every girl who had seen Chris’s ghost would’ve sworn the same. He had been looking at her. He had come because he wanted something from her, only her.

  ‘Like I told you’ – Joanne had her bereaved face on again – ‘if he hadn’t died, we would’ve been together again. I think he wants me to know he still cares.’

  ‘Ahhh.’ Orla, head to one side.

  I asked her, ‘Did you see him?’

  Her hand shot to her chest. ‘OhmyGod, yes! I almost had a heart attack. He was literally right there. I swear.’

  I said, ‘Gemma?’

  Gemma shifted on the grass. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure about ghosts.’