The Secret Place

by Tana French

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  Conway said, ‘And if you’re the one who texted us, that means you’ve got Chris Harper’s secret phone.’

  Julia went still. Her face was a new kind of wary.

  ‘Ah, come on. Records say that text came from that phone. There’s not a lot of point in mucking about.’

  A tilt of the head, acknowledging. Julia leaned back and wriggled a phone out of her jeans pocket, slim little thing in a snappy orange case. ‘Not his phone. Just his SIM card.’

  She pulled the case away from the back of the phone and tapped a SIM card into her palm. Handed it to Conway.

  Conway said, ‘We’re going to need to hear the story.’

  ‘There’s no story.’

  ‘Where’d you get it?’

  ‘Don’t I have the right to an attorney, or something? Before I start telling you where I got a dead guy’s SIM?’

  I knew. I said, ‘You got his phone off Selena, after he died. She gave it to you, or you found it in her stuff. That’s why you think she killed Chris.’

  Julia’s eyes flicked away from me. Conway said, ‘We still don’t. And it’s pretty obvious you didn’t do the job, or you wouldn’t be climbing the walls thinking she did.’ That got a faint one-sided grin. ‘So dial down the paranoia and talk to me.’

  The night was turning that red jumper the colour of a banked fire, compressed and waiting. Julia said, ‘I was actually trying to get rid of Selena’s phone, the one we’d both used to text Chris. Imagine my surprise when this showed up.’

  Conway said, ‘When was this?’

  ‘The day after Chris got killed.’

  ‘What time?’

  An unconscious grimace, as she remembered. ‘Jesus. I started trying before noon – they had this big high-drama assembly to tell us about The Tragedy, we had to say a prayer or something . . . All I could think was I had to get Selena’s phone out of our room. Before you guys decided to search the place.’

  ‘What were you going to do with it?’

  Julia shook her head. ‘I hadn’t even thought that far. I just wanted it out. But I could not get a fucking second alone in there. I guess McKenna had given orders that none of us were allowed to be alone in case a maniac was roaming the corridors, I don’t know. I said I’d forgotten my French homework in my room, and they sent a prefect up with me – I had to pretend the shock had turned me into an airhead, ooo it was in my bag all along! Then I said I’d got my period, but they wouldn’t let me go to my room, they sent me to the nurse instead. And then when school ended, McKenna made this announcement – “All students will please report immediately to their activity groups, while remaining calm and blah blah blah stiff upper lip school spirit . . .”’

  She did a good McKenna, even if the wank mime was out of character. ‘I do drama group, so we had to go to the hall and pretend we were rehearsing. It was a mess, no one knew where they were supposed to be and all the teachers were trying to take like four groups at once and people were still crying – well, you were there.’

  That was to Conway, who nodded. ‘Loony bin,’ she said, to me.

  ‘Exactly. So I thought maybe I could just slide out and sneak up to my room, seeing as I had the key on me, right? But nooo, the corridors were riddled with nuns and I got sent back to the hall. I tried again during study, said I needed some book, and Sister Patricia came with me. And then it was practically lights-out, you guys were still doing whatever down in the grounds, and I still hadn’t got that fucking phone out of the way.’

  Julia’s voice was tightening towards something. ‘So Holly and Becca go to brush their teeth, and I’m messing around hoping Selena goes too. But she’s sitting on her bed, just sitting there staring into space. She’s not going anywhere, and Holly and Becs are gonna be back any minute. So I say, “Lenie, I need that phone.” She looks at me like I just landed in a UFO. I go, “The phone Chris gave you. We don’t have time to dick around. Come on.”

  ‘She’s still staring, so I’m just like, OK, forget this. I shove past her and I stick my hand down the side of her bed, where she kept the phone – it was this little foofoo pink thing, just like Alison’s; I guess that’s what Chris thought was appropriate for girls. I’m hoping to Jesus she hasn’t moved it, ’cause I don’t have time to try and figure out where, so I’m a happy girlie when I feel it there, right? Only then I pull it out, and it’s red.’

  The memory made Julia take a hard in-breath through her nose, bite down on her lip. She wasn’t someone you could pat on the head with the old You’re doing great. Conway gave her a second before she said, ‘Chris’s.’

  ‘Yeah. I’d seen it on him; it fell out of his pocket once, when we were . . . I go, “Lenie, what the fuck?” She looks at me and she’s like, “Huh?” I swear I nearly shoved the phone up her arse. I went, “Where did you get this? And where’s your one?” She looks at the phone and after a second she says – this is it, this is all she says – “Oh.”’

  Julia shook her head. ‘Just like that. “Oh.” I still feel sick thinking about it.’

  Conway said, ‘You figured she’d killed Chris.’

  ‘Duh, yeah, I did. I just— What was I supposed to think? I thought she’d been out meeting him and he told her about me, and she— And then when she was legging it back inside, she grabbed the wrong phone somehow. If they’d, I don’t know, if they’d taken off their clothes and their phones had ended up—’

  I said, ‘Or she might have taken it so we couldn’t link her to Chris.’

  ‘Yeah, no. Selena? Wouldn’t even occur to her. What freaked me out was where was her phone, like had she left it wherever Chris was? But I figured I couldn’t worry about that. I just grabbed the phone and I was out of there.’

  It jibed with Holly’s story, or partway. Holly had thought faster: like her dad, always on top of the just-in-case, never let the off-chance sneak up on her. She had swiped Selena’s phone early in the morning, before the full story got through to McKenna and the school went into lockdown. Between then and study time, someone else had found a way into that room.

  Conway said, ‘Where’d you put it?’

  ‘Locked myself in a toilet cubicle, deleted the shit out of the message folders, took out the SIM and stuck the phone in a cistern. I figured even if you found it, you couldn’t link it to us, and without the SIM you probably couldn’t link it to Chris either. That weekend when I went home, I left the phone on the bus. If no one stole it, it’s probably in the Dublin Bus lost and found.’

  She had guts, Julia. Guts and enough loyalty for a dozen. She was good stuff. I wished I knew how badly we were going to break her heart.

  ‘Why keep the SIM card?’ I asked.

  ‘I thought it could come in useful. I was pretty sure Selena was about to get arrested – even if by some miracle she hadn’t left evidence all over the place, I figured she’d go to pieces and confess. Do you even remember what a wreck she was?’

  ‘So was everyone else,’ Conway said. The sharp point on her voice said Should’ve known. ‘She wasn’t bawling or fainting: she looked to be in better nick than most.’

  Julia’s eyebrow flicked. ‘Yeah, if only you’d told me that back then. I was there expecting you guys to come for her any minute. I thought if there was at least a way to show you that she was the one who’d dumped Chris, and that he was a total dickhead to girls, Lenie might get – I don’t know, a lighter sentence or whatever. Otherwise everyone would just think he dumped her and she went psycho, lock the evil bitch up and throw away the key. I don’t know, I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly; I just figured keeping it couldn’t hurt, at least for now, and it might help.’

  If Julia had talked to any of the others, she would have known that the story had tangles, that not everything pointed straight to Selena. No way to guess what they would have done next, but they would have done it together.

  It had been months too late for that to happen. Chris had cracked the four of them right across. Even after he was gone, t
he fault line he made had kept widening, deep under the surface, while everything up on top shone beautiful as new. We were just finishing the job he had begun.

  I said, ‘Can you remember if anyone did manage to go up to the boarders’ wing before study period that day? We’ll check the logbook, but while we have you here: anything come to mind?’

  I had Julia’s attention. She was watching me hard. ‘What? You think someone else put that phone down behind Selena’s bed?’

  ‘If Selena didn’t take that phone off Chris, someone else did. And then somehow it got to where you found it.’

  ‘Like, someone tried to frame her?’

  Behind her shoulder, Conway’s eyes said Careful. I shrugged. ‘We can’t say that yet. I’d just like to know if anyone had the opportunity.’

  Julia thought. Shook her head, reluctantly. ‘I don’t think so. I mean, obviously I’d love to say yeah, but actually there’s not a chance in hell anyone would’ve got up there without a really good excuse. And even then, no way would she have been allowed on her own. Seriously, when I asked could I go get my French homework, Houlihan acted like I’d asked to go into a drug den and buy heroin.’

  The violin under Rebecca’s bed. The flute in Selena’s bit of wardrobe. I said, ‘What about during activities? Anyone go missing then?’

  ‘Seriously? You think I’d’ve noticed? If you’d seen the mess the place was in . . . Plus I was concentrating on trying to get that phone. Joanne and Orla do drama too, and I know they were both there because Joanne kept trying to burst into tears’ – Julia mimed puking – ‘and Orla had to comfort her and shit. But they’re the only ones I remember.’

  ‘We’ll try asking your mates.’ I said it nice and casual. The moonlight blazed into my face, felt like it was stripping me naked. I tried not to turn away. ‘Do they do drama as well, yeah? Or would they be able to tell us about other groups?’

  ‘We’re not actually surgically attached. Holly does dance. Selena and Becca do instrument practice.’

  So they would have had to go back to their room to get their instruments. Two of them together, to protect each other from the brain-eating maniac; they would have been allowed.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘How many people in those, do you know?’

  Julia shrugged. ‘Lots of people do dance. Like forty? Instruments, maybe like a dozen.’

  The odds said the rest had been day girls. We would check the logbook, but if the numbers held, Rebecca and Selena had been the only ones through that door.

  The sudden quiet, all the day’s jabbering and wailing fizzled away into that white silence. Rebecca holding out the phone she had taken to make sure that Selena was safe, that no one could ever link her to Chris. Holding it out like a gift, priceless. Like salvation.

  Or: Selena burrowing in the wardrobe for her flute, slow with shock and grief. Behind her back, Rebecca, light as a ghost and just as urgent, leaning over her bed. Selena was the one who had started keeping secrets. She was the one who had let Chris in, to start things cracking apart. It had been her fault.

  I looked at Conway, across that lone gallant slash of red. She was looking at me.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Your mates might remember someone leaving. Worth a shot, anyway.’

  ‘I’d say Selena was too upset to do much noticing,’ Conway said. ‘Let’s ask Rebecca.’ And she stood up.

  Mostly people look relieved. Julia looked taken aback. ‘What, that’s it?’

  ‘Unless there’s something else you want to tell us.’

  Blank second. Head-shake, almost reluctant.

  ‘Then yeah, that’s it. Thanks very much.’

  I stood up too, turned towards the path. Julia said, ‘What did I give you?’

  She was looking at nothing. I said, ‘Hard to tell at this point. We’ll have to see as we go.’

  Julia didn’t answer. We waited for her to stand up, but she didn’t move. After a minute we left her there, looking out over what used to be her kingdom; black hair and white face and that ember of red, and the white grass spread all around her.

  Chapter 28

  They’re eating breakfast when Holly feels the thread-tug of something gone wrong, deep in the weave of the school. Too many footsteps tumbling too fast, down a corridor; nun-voices too shrill outside the window, snapping to hushed too suddenly.

  No one else notices. Selena is ignoring her muesli and twisting at a loose pyjama button, Julia is eating cornflakes with one hand and doing her English homework with the other. Becca is gazing at her toast like it’s turned into the Virgin Mary, or maybe like she’s trying to lift it off the plate without touching it, which would be a hugely stupid idea but Holly doesn’t have time to worry about it right now. She nibbles her toast in circles, and keeps one eye on the window and the other on the door.

  Her toast is down to thumb-sized when she sees the two uniformed cops, hurrying down the edge of the back lawn, trying for out of sight but getting it just wrong.

  Someone says at another table, wide awake all of a sudden, ‘OhmyGod! Were those policemen?’ A suck of breath sweeping across the canteen, and then every voice rising at once.

  That’s when Matron comes in and tells them breakfast is over, and to go up to their rooms and get ready for school. Some people complain automatically, even if they’ve already finished their breakfast, but Holly can tell from Matron’s face – slanted towards the window, no time to hear whinge – that they’re on a loser. Whatever’s happening isn’t small.

  While they get dressed Holly watches the window. One movement and she’s there, face to the glass: McKenna and Father Voldemort, in a smoke-whirl of black robe, heading down the grass at charge speed.

  Whatever’s happened, it’s happened to a Colm’s boy.

  Something blue-white zips along Holly’s bones. The face on Joanne as she held out that screen, tongue-tip curling, wet-fanged at the delicious thought of doing damage. The way she licked up the shock Holly couldn’t help showing, every drop. Joanne would do bad stuff, stuff that comes from places most people would never know how to imagine.

  Don’t worry. We’ll get him.

  Holly knows how to imagine the places where bad stuff begins. She’s had practice.

  ‘What the fuck?’ says Julia, craning against her shoulder. ‘There’s people in the bushes, look.’

  Off in the haze of layered greens beyond the grass, a flick of white. Like Technical Bureau boiler suits.

  ‘They look like they’re looking for something,’ Selena says, leaning in at Holly’s other side. Her voice has that floppy, hard-work sound it’s had for the last couple of weeks; it gives Holly the plunk of guilt she’s starting to get used to. ‘Are they police too? Or what?’

  Other people have noticed: excited jabber is filtering through the walls, feet go thumping down the corridor. ‘Maybe some guy was running away from the cops and he threw something over the wall,’ Julia says. ‘Drugs. Or a knife he used to stab someone, or a gun. If only we’d been out last night. Now that would’ve made life more interesting.’

  They don’t feel it, what’s prickling at Holly’s scalp. The tug in the air has hooked them – Lenie is buttoning her shirt too fast, Jules is bouncing on her toes as she leans against the window – but they don’t understand what it means: bad things.

  Trust your instincts, Dad always says. If something feels dodgy to you, if someone feels dodgy, you go with dodgy. Don’t give the benefit of the doubt because you want to be a nice person, don’t wait and see in case you look stupid. Safe comes first. Second could be too late.

  All the school feels crammed with dodgy, like cicada noises zizzing through a hot green afternoon, so shrill and many that you’ve got no chance of picking out any single one and seeing it straight. Joanne would go a long long way to get Selena in bad trouble.

  I don’t get pissed off with people like her. I get rid of them.

  The bell for school goes. ‘Come on,’ Becca says. She hasn’t come to the window; she’s been plai
ting her hair in a calm methodical rhythm, like there’s a pearly bubble of cool air between her and that fizz. ‘You guys aren’t even ready. We’re going to be late.’

  Holly’s heartbeat has reared up to match the cicada pulse. Selena’s made it so easy for Joanne. Whatever Joanne’s done, she did it knowing: all it’ll take is one sentence to a teacher or to the detectives who’ll be patient in the corner of everything from now on, one fake slip of the tongue, and oopsie!

  ‘Shit,’ Holly says, when they reach the bottom of the stairs. Through the open connecting door they can hear the net of school noise, pulled tighter and higher today. Someone squeals, And a police car!! ‘Forgot my poetry book. Hang on—’ and she’s squeezing back up the stairs against the flow and yammer, hand already outstretched to dive down the side of Selena’s mattress.

  Two hundred and fifty of them bundle whispering into the hall. They settle instantly like good girls, hands all demure, like they’re not sucking up every detail of the two plainclothes police being bland in back corners, like that eager boil isn’t simmering just below their smooth eyes. They’re jumping to know.

  That groundskeeper guy Ronan you know how he you-know-what, I heard cocaine I heard gangsters came looking for him I heard there were cops with guns right out there on the grounds! I heard they shot him I heard the shots I heard I heard— Selena catches Julia’s sideways grin – the grounds, like it’s some scary jungle full of drug lords and probably aliens – and manages to come up with one back. Actually she barely has the energy to pretend she cares about whatever pointless drama is going on here. She wishes she knew how to puke on demand like Julia, so she could go back to their room and be left alone.

  But McKenna coming up behind the podium has her mouth and her eyebrows rearranged into her special solemn face, carefully mixed stern and sad and holy. Back when they were in first year and a fifth-year got killed in a car crash over the Christmas break, they all came back in January to that face. They haven’t seen it since.