The Secret Place

by Tana French

  Joanne said, an edge on it, ‘Excuse me, I know what I saw?’

  ‘I’m not saying that. I’m just saying I didn’t see him. I saw like a blur in the window, like when you get something sticky in your eye. That’s it.’

  ‘Well. Some people are more sensitive than others. And some people were closer to Chris. Excuse me if I don’t think it actually matters what you saw.’

  Gemma shrugged. Joanne said, to me, ‘He was there.’

  I couldn’t tell whether she meant it. Back in the common room, I would’ve sworn all their terror was real: started as play-acting, maybe, for notice or to blow off steam, but then snowballed into something too big and too true for them to control. But now, the shiver, the face on her, I couldn’t tell; could’ve been just that plastic layer over her, blurring whatever was real underneath; could’ve been plastic straight through. Probably even they didn’t know.

  I said, ‘Then that’s another reason why, whatever you know, you need to tell me. Chris would want you to.’

  ‘How would we know anything?’ Joanne, blank and slick as cellophane. They were giving up nothing till I earned it.

  But I knew the answer to that one. After Selena and Chris broke up, Joanne had posted her guard dogs on night watch, to make sure.

  I said, ‘Let’s say someone other than Selena was meeting up with Chris at night, the couple of weeks before he died. Who would you say it was?’

  Joanne’s face didn’t change. ‘Was there someone?’

  ‘I’m only saying if. Who would you guess?’

  Sliding looks at each other, under their lashes. If the fear had ever been real, it had leaked out of them. Something else had risen, forced it out: power.

  Joanne said, ‘Tell us if he was meeting someone, and we’ll tell you something good.’

  I said I know my shot when I see it. Sometimes you don’t even have to see it. Sometimes you feel it coming, screaming down the sky towards you like a meteor.

  I said, ‘He was, yeah. We’ve found texts between them.’

  More looks. Gemma said, ‘Texts like what?’

  ‘Texts arranging meetings.’

  ‘But there wasn’t any name?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t one of you, was it?’

  Joanne said sharply, ‘No. It wasn’t.’ Didn’t say, Or she’d’ve been in deep shit. We all heard it.

  ‘But you’ve got a fair idea who it might’ve been.’

  And I waited to hear Holly Mackey.

  Joanne stretched out on her back, arms behind her head, arching her chest up. Said, ‘Tell us what you think about Rebecca O’Mara.’

  Took my ear a second even to hear the question, past the burst of whatthefuck? Then I slammed my jaw shut and thought fast – there had to be a right answer. Said, ‘I haven’t thought about her much at all, to tell you the truth.’

  Skitter of hooded glances, little smirks. Good answer.

  Joanne said, ‘Because she’s sooo totally harmless.’

  ‘Such a good girl,’ Orla breathed.

  ‘So pure.’

  ‘So shy.’

  ‘I bet she acted like she was totally terrified of you, right?’ Joanne dipping her head, doing fake-simpery doe-eyes up at me. ‘Rebecca’d never do anything bold. She’s probably never even had a sip of booze in her life. Never even OMG looked at a guy.’

  Gemma laughed, low.

  I said, ‘That’s not true, no?’ My heart was starting a slow hard pound, jungle drums, carrying a message.

  ‘Well, I don’t know if she’s ever had booze – I mean, who cares. But she’s looked at a guy, all right.’

  Orla sniggered. ‘You should’ve seen the way she looked at him. It was pathetic.’

  I said, ‘Chris Harper.’

  Slowly, Joanne started to smile. She said, ‘Ding. You win the prize.’

  Orla said, ‘Rebecca was gooey for Chris.’

  I said, ‘And you think in the end they got together?’

  Joanne’s lip curled. ‘OMG, excuse me while I barf? No way. She was on a total loser there. Chris could’ve had anyone he wanted; he wasn’t going to go near some boring stick insect. They could’ve been stuck on a desert island and he’d’ve literally found a better-looking coconut to shag.’

  I said, ‘So that means she wasn’t the one meeting him. Right? Or . . . ?’

  The looks strobing again. ‘Well,’ Joanne said. ‘Not for looove. And not for you-know-what, either. She probably wouldn’t even know how.’

  ‘For what, then?’

  Titters. Orla sucking in her bottom lip. They weren’t going to say it unless I did first.

  That meteor, howling closer. All I had to do was get in the right place, hold out my hands.

  That morning. Smell of chalk and grass; me tying myself in knots like a balloon animal, trying to make myself into whatever eight different girls and Conway wanted – lot of good that had done me. Joanne, lip pulled up: I guess you think they’re all such angels, they’d never do drugs. I mean, God, Rebecca, she’s just so innocent . . .

  I said, ‘Drugs.’

  A change. I felt them tense up, waiting while I fumbled my way into place.

  ‘Rebecca was on drugs.’

  A hysterical giggle burst out of Orla. Joanne smiled at me, teacher at a good boy. Ordered, ‘Tell him.’

  After a moment Gemma sat up. Folded her legs under her, picked bits of grass off her tights. She said, ‘You’re not recording this or anything, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good, because this is totally off the record. Like, if you ever tell anyone I said any of this, I’m going to say it’s all bullshit and you made it up to get back in Detective Dildo’s good books.’

  Like I was a journalist. I was halfway through thinking naïve when she added, ‘And my dad’ll ring your boss and tell him the same thing. Which, trust me, you don’t want.’

  Not so naïve. I said, ‘Not a problem.’

  Joanne said, ‘Go on. Tell him.’

  ‘Well,’ Gemma said. Touched her tongue to her top lip, but it was autopilot, buying time while she got her head straight. ‘OK. You know about Ro, right? Ronan, who used to be a groundskeeper here?’

  ‘You guys arrested him,’ Orla put in helpfully. She was bright-eyed, loving it. ‘For selling drugs.’

  I said, ‘I know the story, yeah.’

  Gemma said, ‘He dealt a lot of stuff. Like, mostly hash and E, but if you wanted something else, he could usually get it.’

  Still messing with bits of grass snagged in her tights. I couldn’t tell for sure in the flexing light, but it looked like she’d gone red.

  Joanne said, ‘Gems’s diet wasn’t exactly working.’ Gave Gemma’s waist a malicious little pinch.

  ‘I just wanted to lose like a couple more pounds. Big deal; doesn’t everyone? So I asked Ronan if he could get me something to help.’

  Flicker of a glance, Gemma looking for something from me, badly scared of not getting it. I said, hoping, ‘Must’ve worked. You definitely don’t need to be losing any weight now.’

  Relief curving her mouth. This was a whole other world: admitting you had hassle getting thin was scarier than telling a cop you’d bought speed. ‘Yeah, well. Whatever. Anyway. How you bought stuff from Ronan was, right, Wednesday and Friday afternoons he was the only groundskeeper on shift, so you went down to the shed after school and you hung around outside till you saw him. Then you went in and he got the stuff out of this cupboard. You totally weren’t supposed to go into the shed unless you saw him there; he said he’d bar you if he caught you inside on your own. I guess in case someone robbed his stash.’

  Joanne and Orla were wiggling themselves along the grass, in closer to me. Open-mouthed, starry-eyed.

  ‘So this one Wednesday,’ Gemma said, ‘it’s pissing rain, and I go down and I can’t see Ro. I wait under the trees for a while, but in the end, come on, I’m not going to stand there all day freezing my nips off? So I head into the shed. I figure Ronan can just deal
with it. He knew me by then; I wasn’t some randomer.’

  Shiver from the other two, anticipating.

  Gemma said, ‘And there’s Rebecca O’Mara. Like, the last person you’d expect? She jumped a mile – I swear to God I thought she was going to faint. I start laughing and I’m like, “Oh my God, what are you doing here? Looking for your crack fix?”’

  Swirl of laughter, in the dark teeming air.

  ‘Rebecca’s all, “Oh, I was just getting out of the rain,” and I’m there, “Yeah, OK.” The school’s like half a minute away, and she’s wearing her coat and her hat, meaning she actually deliberately came out into the rain. And if she’s so shy, how come she’s hiding somewhere she’s going to run into big scary groundskeepers?’

  Gemma had herself back. The story was coming out easy, confident. It sounded true. ‘So I go, “Planning on doing some gardening?” – there were all these shovels and stuff in the corner where she was; she had one of them in her hand, like she’d grabbed it when I came in, in case I was a psycho rapist and she had to fight me off. And she actually goes, “Um, um, I guess, sort of, I was thinking about—” till I decide to put her out of her misery. I’m there, “Puh-lease, you didn’t think I was serious?” And she just stares at me for a moment, like, Bwuh? and then she goes, “I have to go,” and she runs out into the rain and heads back to the school.’

  She must have put down the shovel, before she ran out. Shovel, or spade, or hoe. Left it there to come back for, now she knew what she wanted.

  The meteor in the palm of my hand. Beautiful. Burning me through, with a welcome white fire.

  If there was anything in my face, the tricky light would hide it for me. I made sure my voice stayed easy. ‘Did Ronan see her?’

  Shrug from Gemma. ‘Don’t think so. He didn’t get there till a few minutes later – he’d been waiting somewhere for the rain to ease off. He was kind of pissed off that I was inside, but he got over it.’ Smile, reminiscent.

  Joanne was close to me. ‘See? All that pure-and-innocent stuff, that is ohmyGod such crap. Everyone else totally falls for it, but we knew you wouldn’t.’

  I said, ‘Did Ronan sell anything else besides drugs? Booze? Cigarettes?’ Sometimes they’d had the odd smoke, Holly had said; and the packet hidden in Julia’s bit of wardrobe. Rebecca could still have had an innocent reason for being in that shed; guilty kind of innocent, but innocent all the same.

  Gemma snorted. ‘Right. And fizzy lollies.’

  Orla was giggling. ‘Phone credit.’

  ‘Mascara.’

  ‘Tights.’

  ‘Tampax.’

  That exploded the two of them, shrieking laughter, Orla fell over backwards onto the grass kicking her legs up. Joanne cut through it. Coldly: ‘He wasn’t a supermarket. Rebecca wasn’t buying chocolate chip cookies.’

  Gemma got herself together. ‘Yeah. He just sold the bad stuff.’ Lascivious curl on bad. ‘I’d love to know what she actually was buying.’

  Joanne shrugged. ‘Not diet pills, anyway. Unless she’s anorexic, and I don’t think she even has enough self-respect to bother. She doesn’t even wear makeup.’

  ‘Probably hash.’ Orla, knowing.

  ‘What kind of loser does hash by herself? OhmyGod, that’s so sad.’

  ‘She could’ve been buying for all four of them.’

  ‘Hello, like they’d send her? If they were all in on it, they’d send Julia or Holly. Rebecca was there because she wanted something.’

  ‘Ro’s hot body.’

  ‘Ew ew ew, pass the brain bleach?’

  They were on the edge of getting the giggles again. I said, ‘When was this?’

  That brought them back. Quick spatter of glances under their lashes. Joanne said, ‘We were wondering when you’d ask.’

  ‘Last spring?’

  Another fizzle of glances. Gemma said, ‘The next night, Chris got killed.’

  A second of silence, while that spread up and out, into the branches.

  ‘So,’ Joanne said. ‘See?’

  I saw.

  ‘You said someone was meeting up with Chris, after him and Selena broke up. Like I told you, no way would he meet up with Rebecca O’Mara because he was into her. But if she was buying something for him? She would totally have done it; she would’ve done anything for him. And he would’ve met up to get it. He might even have thrown her the odd charity snog, give her something to dream about.’

  Orla’s snuffly laugh.

  I said, ‘Did you ever see Rebecca going out on her own at night?’

  ‘No. So? We stopped watching the corridor like weeks before Chris got killed.’

  Chris’s tox screen had come back clean, Conway had said. No drugs in his gear.

  ‘And then,’ Joanne said. Sliding in closer, her legs brushing up against mine. I couldn’t see her eyes, through the floodlights glittering on their surfaces. ‘Maybe Rebecca thought they were like together or something. And when she found out they weren’t . . .’

  Moths whirling, out over the lawn.

  I said, carefully, ‘Rebecca’s only a little thing. Chris was a big strong guy. You think she could’ve . . . ?’

  Gemma said, ‘She’s a stroppy cow, is what she is, when she feels like it. If he really pissed her off . . .’

  ‘The papers said head injuries,’ Joanne said. ‘If he was sitting down, then it wouldn’t matter that she was smaller than him.’

  Orla said, practically lifting up off the grass with the thrill, ‘She could’ve hit him with a rock.’

  ‘Ew.’ Joanne, reproving. ‘We don’t actually know it was a rock. The papers never said.’ And looked at me, question marks popping out all over. Gemma and Orla watched too, eager, bubbling with curiosity.

  Not faking. None of them knew about the hoe.

  More than that: no shake in their voices, no shadow sliding under their faces, when they talked about the moment that had robbed Chris Harper’s life away. They could’ve been talking about cheating on an exam. Till then, one snip of me had wondered if they were making up the Rebecca story to steer me away from one of them, but no. None of these had ever touched murder.

  I said, ‘That’s great. Thanks a million for telling me.’ Smiled at them all.

  ‘I wasn’t about to say it in front of Detective Bitchface,’ Gemma said. ‘I’d probably be in jail right now. You’re not going to get me in trouble, right? Because like I said—’

  ‘No trouble. I might ask you to give me a statement at some stage, if I really need one – no, hang on, it won’t get you in hassle. You can just say you went into the shed to get out of the rain, which is true, right? You won’t need to explain why you were outside to start with. Yeah?’

  Gemma didn’t look convinced. Joanne didn’t care about her. Leaning closer, fizzing with excitement: ‘So you think Rebecca did it. Right? That’s what you think.’

  I said, ‘I think I’d like to know what Rebecca was doing in there. That’s all.’

  Knelt up, dusted dirt and grass off my trousers. Kept it casual, but I was rattling with it, how badly I wanted to shoot up off that grass and leg it. I could have Rebecca. I could grope my way through streaks of light and whirling moths till I found her and Julia and Selena, dark eyes watching for me out of the dark under cypresses. I could ring the locals for a marked car and a social worker and have Rebecca in an interview room before Conway let go her pit-bull grab on Holly. If I worked it just right and kept my phone off, I could have a confession on O’Kelly’s desk before Conway tracked me down. By morning I could be the hotshot who, in twelve hours, had solved the big one that had stumped Conway for a year.

  Joanne said, ‘Stay and talk with us. We’ll have to go inside soon anyway; you can go talk to boring Rebecca then.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Orla said. ‘We’re way more interesting than her.’

  For a second I thought – the stupid swelled head on me – they might still be scared, want the big strong man to protect them. But they were comfy as cats on the grass.
All the fear had run right out of them, once they were the powerful ones taking me where they wanted me, to whisper their saved-up secret in my ear.

  I said, smiling, ‘I’d say you are, all right. But I’d better get this sorted out.’

  Joanne pouted. ‘We helped you. Now that you’ve got what you want off us, you’re just going to dump us and run?’

  ‘Typical guy,’ said Gemma, up to the branches, shaking her head.

  Joanne said, ‘I told you before. I don’t let guys treat me like crap.’

  Some first warning got to me, through the Go go go drumming in my ears. I said, ‘I’m under a bit of time pressure, is all. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’ve done for me. Believe me.’

  Joanne said, ‘Then stay.’ Lifted one finger and laid it on my knee. Cute nose-wrinkle smile, like a joke, but half a second too late. Orla sucked in breath, shocked, and giggled it out.

  Somehow I stopped myself from leaping and running. If I fucked up now, I was fucked a dozen ways.

  Gemma said, ‘Don’t look so terrified. We’re fun. Honest.’

  Smiling at me, her too. It looked friendly, but she was written in a code I couldn’t begin to read. They all were. That bad-alleyway prickle that had faded for a bit, while they had me busy feeling like something they wanted and loving it; that was rising hard up the back of my neck again.

  Joanne’s fingernail ran an inch higher up my thigh. All of them giggling, tongues nipped between sharp little teeth. It was a game, and I was part of it, but I couldn’t tell what part. I tried laughing. They laughed back.

  ‘So,’ Joanne said. Another inch. ‘Talk to us.’

  Smack her hand away, leg it back to the school like my arse was on fire, bang on the art-room door and beg Conway to let me back in if I promised to be good. Instead I said, ‘Let’s think this through for a second. Shall we?’

  Put on my stuffiest voice. Thought teacher, thought McKenna, thought everything they didn’t want. Picked them out one by one, looking them in the eye, separating them out: not triple and dangerous; just schoolgirls being very silly.

  ‘Gemma, I realise that it took a lot of courage for you to give me this information. And Joanne, I realise that Gemma probably wouldn’t have plucked up that courage without your support – and yours, Orla. So, after you’ve gone to considerable trouble to bring me this potentially valuable material, I’m not inclined to waste it.’