by Tana French
She headed up the stairs, shouldering through the wave of bodies and books. Her back was set like a boxer’s. She looked like this was Internal Affairs and root canal rolled into one.
I went after her, up those stairs. Girls poured round me, flying hair and flying laughs. The air felt full and glossy, felt high, felt shot through with sun at mad-dash angles; sun swirling along the banisters like water, snatching colours and spinning them in the air; lifting me, catching me everywhere and rising. I felt different, changing. Like today was my day, if I could just figure out how. Like danger, but my danger, conjured up by a high-tower wizard specially for me; like my luck, sweet tricky urgent luck, tumbling through the air, heads or tails?
I’d never been anywhere like this before, but it felt like it took me back. It had that pull, all down the length of your bones. It made me think words I hadn’t thought since I was a young fella reading my way through the Ilac Centre library, thinking that would get me in between walls like these. Deliquescent. Numinous. Halcyon. Me, long-legged and clumsy and daydreaming, far off my patch so no one would see me, giddy with thrill like I was doing something bold.
‘We’ll start with the headmistress,’ Conway said, on the landing, when we could get side by side again. ‘McKenna. She’s a cow. First thing she asked me and Costello, when we got on the scene? Could we stop the media naming the school. Do you believe that? Fuck the dead kid, fuck gathering info to catch whoever did it: all she cared about was that this made her school look bad.’
Girls dodging past us, ‘’Scuse me!’ high and breathless. A couple of them threw looks back over their shoulders at one of us, or both; most were moving too fast to care. Lockers banging open. Even the corridors were lovely, high ceilings and plaster mouldings, soft green and paintings on the walls.
‘Here,’ Conway said, nodding at a door. ‘Put your game face on.’ And pushed the door open.
A curly blonde turned around from a filing cabinet, hitting the big-smile button, but Conway said, ‘Howya,’ and kept walking, past her and through the inner door. She closed it behind us.
Quiet, in there. Thick carpet. The room had been done up with plenty of time and money, to look like someone’s old-fashioned study: antique desk with green leather on top, full bookshelves everywhere, heavy-framed oil painting of a nun who was no oil painting. Only the fancy executive chair and the sleek laptop said office.
The woman behind the desk put down a pen and stood up. ‘Detective Conway,’ she said. ‘We’ve been expecting you.’
‘No flies on you,’ Conway said, tapping her temple. She picked up two straight chairs from against a wall, spun them both to the desk and sat down. ‘Nice to be back.’
The woman ignored that. ‘And this is . . . ?’
‘Detective Stephen Moran,’ I said.
‘Ah,’ said the woman. ‘I believe you spoke to the school secretary earlier today.’
‘That was me.’
‘Thank you for keeping us informed. Miss Eileen McKenna. Headmistress.’ She didn’t put out her hand, so I didn’t either.
‘Sometimes we like to bring in a fresh pair of eyes,’ Conway said. Her accent had got rougher. ‘A specialist. Yeah?’
Miss McKenna raised her eyebrows, but when no one gave her more, she didn’t ask. Sat down again – I waited to sit till she had – and folded her hands on the green leather. ‘And what can I do for you?’
Big woman, Miss Eileen McKenna. Not fat, just big, the way some women get in their fifties after years of being the boss: all out front, hoisted up high and solid, ready to sail through anything and not get wet. I could see her in a breaktime corridor, girls skittering away in front of her before they even knew she was coming. Lots of chin; lots of eyebrow. Iron hair and steely glasses. I don’t know women’s gear but I know quality, and the greeny tweed was quality; the pearls weren’t from Penney’s.
Conway said, ‘How’s the school getting on?’
Leaning back in her chair, legs sprawled, elbows out. Taking up as much of the office as she could. Prickly as fuck. History there, or just chemistry.
‘Very well. Thank you.’
‘Yeah? Seriously? ’Cause I remember you telling me the whole place was about to go . . .’ Nosedive move with her hand, long whistle. ‘All those years of tradition and whatever, down the tubes, if us plebs insisted on doing our jobs. Here was me feeling guilty. Nice to see it all turned out grand after all.’
Miss McKenna said – to me, leaving Conway out – ‘As I’m sure you can imagine, most parents were disturbed by the thought of letting their daughters stay in a school where a murder had been committed. The fact that the murderer remained uncaught didn’t improve matters.’
Thin smile at Conway. Nothing back.
‘Ironically, neither did the ongoing police presence and the constant interviews – possibly they should have helped everyone to feel that the situation was under control, but in fact they prevented any return to normality. The persistent media intrusion, which the police were too busy to curb, exacerbated the problem. Twenty-three sets of parents removed their daughters from the school. Almost all the others threatened to, but I was able to persuade them that it would not be in their daughters’ best interests.’
I bet she had. That voice: like Maggie Thatcher turned Irish, shoulder-barging the world into its place with no room for argument. Made me feel like I should apologise quick, if I could work out what for. It’d take a parent with balls of steel to contradict that voice.
‘For several months it was touch and go. But St Kilda’s has survived more than a century of various ups and downs. It has survived this.’
‘Lovely,’ said Conway. ‘While it was surviving, anything come up that we should know?’
‘If anything had, we would have contacted you immediately. On which note, Detective, I should be asking you the same question.’
‘Yeah? Why’s that?’
‘I assume,’ Miss McKenna said, ‘that this visit is connected to the fact that Holly Mackey left school without permission, this morning, to speak to you.’
She was talking to me. I said, ‘We can’t go into details.’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to. But, just as you have the right to know anything that might be crucial to your job – hence the fact that I have always given consent for you to speak with the students – I have a right, even an obligation, to know anything that might be crucial to mine.’
Just the right amount of threat. ‘I appreciate that. You can be sure I’ll tell you if anything relevant comes up.’
Glint off the glasses. ‘With all due respect, Detective, I’m afraid I’ll have to be the judge of what is and isn’t relevant. It’s impossible for you to make that decision for a school and a girl about which you know nothing.’
That test-vibe drilling in from both sides, this time. Miss McKenna leaning in to see if I could be pushed; Conway watching, leaving me to it, to see the same thing.
I said, ‘It’s not the perfect answer, no. But it’s the best we can do.’
Miss McKenna eyed me up some more. Copped there was no point in pushing harder. Smiled at me instead. ‘Then we shall have to rely on your best.’
Conway shifted, getting comfortable. Said, ‘Why don’t you tell us about the Secret Place.’
Outside, the bell exploded again. Faint yelps, more running feet, classroom doors closing; then silence.
Wariness curling like smoke in Miss McKenna’s eyes, but her face hadn’t changed. ‘The Secret Place is a noticeboard,’ she said. Took her time, picked her words. ‘We established it in December, I believe. The students pin cards on it, using images and captions to convey their messages anonymously – many of the cards are very creative. It gives the students a place to express emotions that they don’t feel comfortable expressing elsewhere.’
Conway said, ‘A place where they get to slag off anyone they don’t like, no worries that they’ll get in hassle for bullying. Spread any rumour they want, no tracing it back. Maybe I’m jus
t too thick to get it, maybe your young ladies would never do anything that common, but this seems like one of the worst ideas I’ve heard in a long time.’ Piranha grin. ‘No offence.’
Miss McKenna said, ‘We felt it was the lesser of two evils. Last autumn, a group of girls set up a website that fulfilled the same function. The kind of behaviour you describe was, in fact, rife. We have one student whose father took his own life a few years ago. The site was brought to our attention by her mother. Someone had posted a photo of the girl in question, with the caption “If my daughter was this ugly I’d kill myself too.”’
Conway’s eye on me: Razor blades in their hair. Still beautiful now?
She was right. It startled me more than it should have, a shock like a splinter jamming under a nail. That hadn’t come in from outside, like Chris Harper. That had grown inside these walls.
Miss McKenna said, ‘Both the mother and the daughter were, understandably, very upset.’
‘So?’ Conway said. ‘Block the site.’
‘And the new one twenty-four hours later, and the next one, and the next? Girls need a safety valve, Detective Conway. Do you recall, a week or so after the incident’ – small snort of laughter from Conway: incident – ‘a group of students claimed to have seen Christopher Harper’s ghost?’
‘In the girls’ jacks,’ Conway said sideways, to me. ‘Fair enough; first place a young fella would go if he was invisible, am I right? A dozen young ones screaming their lungs up, hanging on to each other, shaking. I almost had to do the old slap in the face before they could tell me what was going on. They wanted me to go in with my gun and shoot it. How long’d it take to settle them, in the end? Hours?’
‘After that,’ Miss McKenna said – to me, again – ‘we could, of course, have forbidden any mention of Christopher Harper. And the “ghost” would have reappeared every few days, possibly for months. Instead, we arranged group counselling sessions for all the girls, with emphasis on grief management techniques. And we set up a photograph of Christopher Harper on a small table outside the assembly hall, where students could say a prayer or leave a flower or card. Where they could express their grief in an appropriate, controlled fashion.’
‘Most of them hadn’t even met him,’ Conway told me. ‘They didn’t have any grief to express. Just wanted an excuse to go mental. They needed a kick up the hole, not a pat on the head and poor-little-you.’
‘Possibly,’ said Miss McKenna. ‘But the “ghost” never made another appearance.’
She smiled. Pleased with herself. Everything back on track, nice and neat.
Not stupid. From what Conway had said, I’d been expecting some halfwit snob dyed certain-age-blonde, starved into a size zero and stitched into a frozen grin, running the school on big talk and hubby’s contacts. This woman was no halfwit.
‘So,’ she said, ‘we followed the same approach with the noticeboard. We diverted the impulse into a controllable, controlled safety valve. And, again, the results have been highly satisfactory.’
She hadn’t moved since she sat down. Straight-backed, hands folded. Massive.
‘“Controlled,”’ Conway said. She flipped a pen off the desk – Montblanc, black and gold – and started playing with it. ‘How?’
‘The board is monitored, obviously. We check it for any inappropriate material before the first class, again at breaktime, again at lunch and again after classes end for the day.’
‘Ever find any inappropriate material?’
‘Of course. Not often, but occasionally.’
‘Like what?’
‘Usually some variation on “I hate So-and-So” – So-and-So being either another student or a teacher. There is a rule against using names, or making another person identifiable, but of course rules do get broken. Generally in harmless ways – naming a boy the writer finds attractive, or declaring eternal friendship – but sometimes in crueller ones. And, in at least one case, in order to help, rather than to hurt. A few months ago, we found a card with a photograph of a bruise and the caption “I think So-and-So’s dad hits her.” Obviously we removed the card immediately, but we raised the issue with the girl involved. Discreetly, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Conway. She tossed the pen spinning in the air, caught it easily. ‘Discreetly.’
I asked, ‘Why the actual physical board? Why not just set up an official website of your own, with a teacher to moderate it? Anything that could hurt someone’s feelings, it never gets posted. Safer.’
Miss McKenna looked me over, picking out details – good coat but a couple of years old, good haircut but a week or two past its best – and wondering what kind of specialist, exactly. Unfolded and refolded her hands. Not wary of me, not that far, but being careful.
‘We considered that option, yes. Several teachers were in favour of it, for exactly the reason you mention. I was against. In part because it would have excluded our boarders, who have no unsupervised internet access; but primarily because young girls slip between worlds very easily, Detective. They lose their grasp on reality. I don’t believe they should be encouraged to use the internet more than necessary, let alone to make it the focus of their most intense secrets. I believe they should be kept firmly rooted in the real world as much as possible.’
Conway’s eyebrow was right up: The real world, this?
Miss McKenna ignored her. That smile again. Satisfied. ‘And I was right. There have been no more websites. The students actually enjoy the complications of the real-world process: the need to wait for a moment when no one can see them pin up a card, to find an excuse to visit the third floor without being noticed. Girls like to reveal their secrets, and they like to be secretive. The board provides the perfect balance.’
I asked, ‘Do you ever try and trace who put up a card? Like, if there was one that said “I’m on drugs”, you’d want to work out who wrote it. How would you go about that? Is there a CCTV camera on the board, anything like that?’
‘CCTV?’ Drawn out like a foreign word. Amusement, real or put on. ‘This is a school, Detective. Not a prison. And the students here don’t tend to be heroin addicts.’
I said, ‘How many students have you got?’
‘Almost two hundred and fifty. First year through sixth, two classes in each year, roughly twenty girls in each class.’
‘The board’s been up around five months. Statistically, in that amount of time, a few of your two hundred and fifty have had something in their lives that you’d want to know about. Abuse, eating disorders, depression.’ The words came out of my mouth strange. I knew I was right, but in that room they made a flat splat like I’d spit on the carpet. ‘And like you just said, girls want to tell their secrets. You’re telling me you never find anything more serious than “French class sucks”?’
Miss McKenna looked down at her hands, hiding behind her eyelids. Thought.
‘When identifying a writer is necessary,’ she said, ‘we have found that it can be done. We had one card that showed a pencil drawing of a girl’s stomach. The drawing had been sliced in a number of places by a sharp blade. The caption said, “I wish I could cut the whole thing off of me.” Obviously, we needed to identify the student. Our art teacher offered suggestions based on the style of the drawing, other teachers offered suggestions based on the handwriting of the caption, and within the day we had a name.’
‘And was she cutting?’ Conway asked.
Eyes hooded over again. Meaning yes. ‘The situation has been resolved.’
No drawing on our card, no handwriting. The cutter had wanted to be found. Our girl didn’t, or didn’t want to make it easy.
Miss McKenna said – to both of us, now – ‘I think this makes it clear that the board is a positive force, not a negative one. Even the “I hate So-and-So” cards are useful: they identify the students whom we need to watch for signs of bullying, in one direction or the other. This is our window into the students’ private world, Detectives. If you know anything about young girls, then
you’ll understand just how invaluable that is.’
‘Sounds deadly all round,’ said Conway. Tossed the pen again, whipped it out of the air. ‘Did the invaluable board get checked after school finished up yesterday?’
‘After classes end every day. As I told you.’
‘Who checked it yesterday?’
‘You would have to ask the teachers. They decide amongst themselves.’
‘We will. Do the girls know when it’s checked?’
‘I’m sure they’re aware that it is monitored. They see teachers looking at it; we don’t attempt to conceal the fact. We haven’t announced the precise schedule, however, if that is your question.’
Meaning our girl wouldn’t have known we could narrow it down. She would have thought she could vanish, into the stream of bright faces tumbling down that corridor.
Conway said, ‘Were any of the girls in the main school after classes ended?’
Silence again. Then: ‘As you may know, Transition Year – fourth year – involves large amounts of practical work. Group projects. Experiments. So forth. Often, fourth-years’ homework requires access to school resources. The art room, the computers.’
Conway said, ‘Meaning there were fourth-years here yesterday evening. Who and when?’
The full-on headmistress stare. Full-on cop stare coming back. Miss McKenna said, ‘Meaning no such thing. I have no knowledge of who was in the main building yesterday. The matron, Miss Arnold, holds a key to the door connecting the school to the boarders’ wing, and makes a note of any girl who is given permission to enter the main building after hours; you would need to ask her. I am simply telling you that, on any given evening, I would expect at least a few fourth-years to be here. I understand that you feel the need to find sinister meaning everywhere, but believe me, Detective Conway, there will be nothing sinister about some poor child’s Media Studies project.’
‘That’s what we’re here to find out,’ Conway said. She stretched, big, back arching, arms going over her head and out. ‘That’ll do for now. We’ll need a list of girls who had access yesterday after school. Fast. Meanwhile, we’re taking a look at this invaluable board.’