The Secret Place

by Tana French

  Conway was leaning against the outside of the door, hands in her trouser pockets, not moving. Waiting for us. I knew then.

  You’re no idiot, Detective Conway; I’m betting you know the story on how Holly and I met Moran. Some of it, anyway. Want to hear the rest?

  She straightened up as we got close. Opened the door, held it for Mackey. Caught my eye. As she closed the door behind Mackey, he flicked a winner’s grin over his shoulder at me.

  Conway said, ‘I’ll take it from here.’

  Moran was brand-new out of uniform, doing floater work on a murder case. The D in charge was called Kennedy. Kennedy was good to young Stephen. Very good. Pulled him out of the deep end of the floater pool, gave him a shot at the big time. Most Ds wouldn’t’ve done it; most Ds would’ve stuck to tried and true, no newbies need apply. Bet Kennedy wishes he had . . .

  I only did what Mackey wanted me to do, back then. It never hit me, and it should’ve, that he would keep it tucked away in his back pocket: something he could use against me someday, if he ever needed to.

  I said – keeping it down: his ear was pressed to the back of that door – ‘Mackey’s trying to fuck with us.’

  ‘There’s no us. There’s me and my case, and then there’s some guy who’s been useful for the day and isn’t any more. Don’t worry: I’ll write your gaffer a nice note about what a good boy you were.’

  Like a punch in the jaw. It shouldn’t’ve hit me; she was right, it had only been one day. Got me goodo.

  It must’ve shown. The face on me pulled some fleck of guilt out of Conway. She said, ‘I’ll give you a lift back to HQ – give me your mobile number, I’ll text you when I’m done here. Till then, get a sandwich. Go for a nice walk, admire the grounds. See if you can get Chris’s ghost to pop up for you. Whatever.’

  The second your boy Moran saw his chance, he shagged Kennedy up the arse with no Vaseline. Fuck loyalty, fuck gratitude, fuck doing the right thing: all young Stephen cared about was his glorious career.

  I said, and I’d stopped caring about keeping it down, ‘You’re doing exactly what Mackey wants you to do. He wants me gone because he’s scared Holly’ll talk to me. You can’t see that?’ Nothing on Conway’s face. ‘He tried it on me, too: bitched about you, hoped I’d walk. You think I took any notice?’

  ‘Course you didn’t. You want to shake your booty in front of O’Kelly; doesn’t matter whose case you piggyback on to get there. Me, I’ve got something to lose here. And I’m not having you lose it for me.’

  Kennedy never saw it coming. At least you won’t get blindsided like he did. If you honestly haven’t got a strategy, you might want to get one fast . . .

  I gave Conway my phone number. She swung the door closed in my face.

  Chapter 24

  One of Julia’s more impressive talents has always been the ability to barf at will. It was cooler back in primary school, before anybody noticed that public puking might not be particularly dignified – it even earned her a decent chunk of dosh, one way and another – but it hasn’t totally lost its usefulness since then. She just saves it for special occasions, these days.

  Tuesday morning, April 23rd, Chris Harper has just over three weeks left to live. Julia eats the biggest and most varied breakfast she can handle, because an artiste has her pride, then waits till the middle of Home Economics and barfs pyrotechnically all over the classroom floor. Orla Burgess is within range, but Julia resists temptation: her plan doesn’t include Orla being sent back to the boarders’ wing to change. As Miss Rooney shoos her towards the nurse’s office, Julia – clutching her stomach – catches a flash of Holly and Becca baffled, Selena gazing out of the window like she hasn’t even noticed anything happening; Joanne’s flat-eyed smirk while she plans how to spread the word that that slut Julia Harte is pregnant; and Gemma giving her a look like a wink, amused and approving.

  She does wobbly legs and some mild gagging for the nurse, answers the usual questions about her period – you could break your leg and the nurse would still want to know when your last period was; Julia suspects that being a day overdue would get you ratted out to the nuns for interrogation – and a few minutes later she’s all tucked up in bed with a glass of flat ginger ale and a pathetic look. And the nurse leaves her alone.

  Julia works fast. She has it planned out: first Selena’s part of the wardrobe, then her bed, if she doesn’t score there she’ll pop out the bottom of Selena’s bedside locker – they figured out how to do it last term, when Becca lost her key – and if she still comes up blank then she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s going to do.

  It doesn’t get that far. When she slides her hand along the side of Selena’s mattress, between the bed and the wall, she finds a lump. Neat little slit in the mattress cover, and inside, surprise surprise, a phone. An adorable itsy-bitsy pink one, just like the one Alison bought off Joanne. Chris must have stocked up by the armful, one for each of the lucky babes he was planning on honouring with his glorious dick. Up until she saw that phone in her hand, Julia still thought there was a chance Gemma was lying.

  Selena hasn’t put a lock code on it, which might give Julia a flicker of guilt if she had room for that. Instead she goes to Messages and starts reading.

  Still thinking abt the dance wd love to see you again— It punches a hiss of breath out of her. She’s been wondering when and how Chris ever hooked Selena, been going over every trip to the Court, looking for just ten minutes when Lenie was unshielded, but it’s actually almost creepy how close the four of them stick together; she couldn’t put her finger on once when anyone even went to the loo alone. And all the time: the fucking Valentine’s dance. While Julia was outside, getting reckless on rum and Finn’s grin and the sparking cold-air newness in every breath, Selena was exploring a little new territory of her own. And something watched and – without any anger, or any mercy – started considering what their punishment would have to be.

  She keeps reading. Chris is excellent; Julia is almost impressed. He had Selena sussed dead on, right from the start. One sext, one hint of romance even, and she’d have been gone; so smart boy Chris never went near there. Instead he went for long texts about his emo sister’s problems, or how his parents didn’t understand him, or how it wounded him that he couldn’t show his true sensitive self to his shallow friends. Julia is glad she’s already puked herself empty.

  Selena is a sucker for anyone who needs her. Maybe some people would call it arrogance, thinking she’s so super-special she can help where no one else could, but the thing is sometimes she can. Julia should know. You can say anything to Selena and she, unlike apparently everyone else in the world, will never come back with something that makes you want to hit her and yourself for having opened your big stupid mouth. So people who never talk to anyone talk to her. That’s what she’s used to. That’s what Chris Harper smelled off her. And that’s what he used to wiggle his way close enough to shove his hand down her top.

  Because Selena was talking to him, too. Yesterday there was this drawing i wantd to show my dad when he dropd me off at my mums and he wouldnt even come inside for 1 sec to see it, he waitd in the car while i got it. Sometimes i feel like they wish i didnt exist cause then they wouldnt have to see each other.

  She has never said anything like that to Julia. Julia never had a clue that she felt that way.

  They’ve been meeting for more than a month. It gets more obvious with every text that Selena is gaga about Chris, gooey, stupid in love. Julia has a hard time deciding who is the world’s biggest moron: the one who’s fallen in love with Chris the Sleaze Harper, or the three who pranced along next to her while she did it without noticing one single thing. She grits her teeth and mashes her elbow along the wall next to her till it’s scraped raw.

  And then Julia gets to this morning. No wonder Selena looks spaced out. She just dumped Chris’s nasty arse.

  The rush of relief almost throws Julia flat on her back on the bed, but a second later it drains away. This won�
��t last. Selena can’t even get through the dump text without babbling about how much she loves Chris, and he’s already come back with a wild text demanding to know WTF and begging her to meet him tonight. Selena hasn’t answered, but another few days of oh-please-I-need-you-so-much and she will.

  Julia hears it clear as tapped bronze. Your chance. Your choice.

  It takes her a long humming minute to understand what that means. To hold in one hand what will happen if she does, and in the other what will happen if she doesn’t.

  Julia can’t breathe. She thinks like a howl: That’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not fair, whatever I do I’m going to get— I didn’t get off with Finn. I barely fucking touched him. I didn’t do anything I should have to pay for. The silence that meets her teaches her: this is not McKenna’s office. You don’t get to play with nitpicks, dodge whining around the edges of But-Miss-I-never-exactly-actually, not here. Unfair means nothing. She has been weighed up and the decision has been made. She has these few days before Selena takes Chris back, one last gift, in which to choose.

  Julia thinks about throwing the phone at the wall and lining the pieces up neatly on Selena’s bed. She thinks about going to Matron and telling her she needs to swap to a different room, today. She thinks about getting under the covers and crying. In the end she just sits there on Selena’s bed, watching the sunlight slide across her lap and her arm and the phone in her hand, waiting for ringing bells and brisk feet to make her move.

  ‘So?’ Holly wants to know, tossing her bag on the bed. ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘What did it look like? Puking my guts up.’

  ‘That was for real? We thought you were faking.’

  Julia glances at Selena before she can stop herself, but Lenie doesn’t look suspicious; she’s flopped down on her bed, still in her uniform, and is curled up staring at the wall. Julia is obviously the last thing on her mind.

  ‘What for? So I could be bored off my tits all day? I have a virus.’

  Becca is pulling clothes out of the wardrobe and singing to herself. She breaks off to say, ‘Want us to stay here with you? We were going to the Court, but that was ’cause we thought you’d come too.’

  ‘Go. I’d be shit company anyway.’

  ‘I’ll stay,’ Selena says, to the wall. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere.’

  Holly makes a face at Julia, tilts her head: What’s with her? Julia shrugs: How would I know?

  ‘Oh, yeah, I meant to ask—’ Becca’s head pops out of her uniform jumper, flyaway hair everywhere. ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Hello?’ Julia says. ‘I feel like crap. Remember? I just want to sleep.’

  Please can we meet tonite, Chris texted Selena. Same time same place I’ll be there.

  ‘OK,’ Becca says, not bothered by the edge on Julia’s voice. A year ago she would have flinched like she’d been hit. At least that, Julia thinks. At least one good thing. ‘Maybe tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m on,’ Holly says, throwing her blazer at the wardrobe. Julia says, ‘Depends how I feel.’ Selena is still staring at the wall.

  That night Julia doesn’t go to sleep. She curls up in a loose ball the way she usually sleeps, keeps her eyes shut and her breathing long and even, and listens. She has the back of her hand up against her mouth, where she can bite into it if she feels herself drowsing off.

  Selena isn’t asleep either. Julia’s back is to her, but she can hear her moving around, restless. Once or twice her breath has a wet sound, like she might be crying, but Julia can’t tell for sure.

  After a few hours, Selena sits up, very slowly, one move at a time. Julia hears her hold her breath, listening for the rest of them, and forces herself to stay slack and easy. Becca snores, a tiny delicate noise.

  After a long time, Selena lies down again. This time she’s definitely crying.

  Julia thinks of Chris Harper waiting in their grove, probably throwing rocks at rustles and pissing on the cypress trunks. She wants to pray for a tree to drop a branch on his head and smash his slimy brain all over the grass, but she knows it’s not going to work that way.

  On Wednesday afternoon, as they get their books ready for study period, Julia says, ‘Tonight.’

  ‘You’re over your virus, yeah?’ Holly asks, tossing a copybook on her pile. The sideways slant of her eye says she’s still not convinced.

  ‘If it comes back, I’ll make sure and aim for you.’

  ‘Whatever. I just don’t want you puking your guts when we’re right outside Matron’s room and getting us all caught.’

  ‘You’re all heart,’ Julia says. ‘Becs, you on?’

  ‘Course,’ Becca says. ‘Can I borrow your red jumper? I got jam on my black one, and it’s going to be freezing out.’

  ‘Sure.’ It’s nowhere near cold, but Becca loves borrowing things, lending things, all the small rituals that blur the four of them into one warm space. If she had the choice they’d all live in each other’s clothes. ‘Lenie,’ Julia says. ‘Tonight?’

  Selena looks up from her study schedule. She’s shadowy and thinner, the way she’s been all the last two days, like she’s in dimmer light than the rest of the room, but the thought of a night has raised a spark of what looks like hope. ‘Yeah. Definitely yeah. I need that.’

  ‘God, me too,’ Julia says. One more, she thinks. One last night.

  They run. Julia takes off the second her feet hit the grass below the window, and feels the rush of the others build behind her. They stream down the great front lawn like wild birds thrown across the sky. In front of them the guardhouse glows yellow, but they’re safe as houses: the night watchman never takes his eyes off his laptop except to do his rounds at midnight and again at two, and anyway they’re invisible, they’re soundless, they don’t cast shadows; they could sneak up close enough to touch him, they could press their faces against the glass and singsong his name, he’d never blink. They’ve done it before, when they wanted to see what he did in there. He plays online poker.

  They swing right, white pebbles fly up under their feet and they’re in under the trees, faster and faster down the paths, chests burning, ribs aching, Julia running like she wants to take them skimming right off the surface of the path and up, into the cartwheel moon. By the time they collapse in the clearing, she’s run everything else out of her mind.

  They’re all laughing, with what little breath they’ve got left. ‘Jesus,’ Holly says, doubling over with her hand pressed to a stitch. ‘What was that? Are you, like, going out for cross-country next year?’

  ‘You just pretend Sister Cornelius is coming up behind you,’ Julia says. The moon is almost full, just one blurred edge for the next night to fill in, and she feels like she could leap the waist-high bushes from a standing start, up and over with her feet pedalling slow underwater circles in midair, down on her toes as light as a dandelion seed. She isn’t even out of breath. ‘“Girls! I have told you and informed you and let you know that you should never run on grass and herbaceous plants and – and verdant pastures—’

  That explodes them. ‘“The Bible tells us that our Lord Jesus never ran or jogged or galloped—”’ Becca is helpless with panting and laughter.

  Holly stabs a finger. ‘“—and who are you to think or believe that you are better than Our Lord? Well?”’

  ‘“You, Holly Mackey—”’

  ‘“—whatever class of a name that is, there’s no saint named Holly, I think we’ll have to call you Bernadette from now on—”’

  ‘“—you, Bernadette Mackey, stop running this instant—”’

  ‘“—and moment and minute—”’

  ‘“—and tell me what Our Lord would have thought of you! Well?”’

  Julia realises Selena hasn’t joined in. She’s sitting up, with her arms clasped round her knees and her face tilted up to the sky. The moonlight hits her full on, burning her out to something you can only half-see, a ghost or a saint. She looks like she’s praying. Maybe she is.

  Holly is watching Se
lena too, and she’s stopped laughing. She says, quietly, ‘Lenie.’

  Becca props herself up on one elbow.

  Selena doesn’t move. She says, ‘Mm.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Julia throws it at the side of Selena’s head like a rock: Shut up. This is my night my last night ever don’t you dare wreck it.

  Selena turns her head. For a second her eyes, still and tired, meet Julia’s. Then she says, to Holly, ‘What?’

  ‘Something’s up. Isn’t it?’

  Selena watches Holly tranquilly, like she’s still waiting for the question, but Holly is sitting up straight and she’s not backing down. Julia’s nails dig into the earth. She says, ‘You look like you’ve got a headache. Is that it?’

  Those tired eyes move back to her. After a long moment: ‘Yeah,’ Selena says. ‘Becs, do my hair?’

  Selena loves having someone play with her hair. Becca scoots over behind her and carefully takes out her elastic; hair spills down her back almost to the grass, a hundred kinds of white-gold, glinting. Becca shakes it out like delicate fabric. Then she starts running her fingers through it, in a steady, confident rhythm. Selena sighs. She’s left Holly’s question behind.

  Julia’s hand is clamped around a smooth oval pebble that her nails dug out of the ground. She rubs damp dirt off it. The air is warm, flickering with tiny moths and with smells: a million hyacinths, the deep-water tang of the cypresses, the earth on her fingers and the cold stone in her palm. By now they have noses like deer. If someone tried to sneak up on them, he wouldn’t get within twenty metres.

  Holly has lain back, one knee crossed over the other, but her hanging foot is bobbing restlessly. ‘How long have you had a headache?’

  ‘Jesus,’ Julia says. ‘Leave her alone.’

  Becca stares over Selena’s shoulder, big-eyed, like a little kid watching her parents fight. Holly says, ‘Well, excuse me. She’s been like this for days, and if you have a headache that lasts that long, you’re supposed to go to a doctor.’