by French, Tana
They backed away. The whispering started before I got the door closed.
“Uggs,” Conway said, pulling out her gloves. “Fucking things should be banned.”
Gloves on. If that book and that key existed, the prints on them mattered.
One alcove each. Finger along the spines, skim, scoop the front row of books onto the floor and start on the back one. Fast, wanting to see something solid rise to the surface. Wanting it to be me who found it.
Conway had spotted the stare and giggle, or felt the shove in the air. She said, “Watch yourself. I was taking the piss out of you, before, but you want to be careful around this lot. That age, they’re dying to fancy someone; they’ll practice on any half-decent fella they can get. See that staff room? You think it’s a coincidence all the guy teachers are trolls?” She shook her head. “It’s to keep the crazy level down. Few hundred girls, hormones up to ninety . . .”
I said, “I’m no Justin Bieber. I’m not gonna start any riots.”
That got a snort. “It doesn’t take Justin Bieber. You’re not a troll and you’re not sixty: good enough. They want to fancy you, great, you can use that. Just don’t ever be alone with any of them.”
I thought of Gemma, the Sharon Stone leg-cross. I said, “I’m not planning to be.”
“Hang on,” Conway said, and the sudden lift in her voice had me on my feet before I knew it. “Here we go.”
Low shelf, back layer, hidden away behind slick bright colors. Old hardback, dust jacket gone tatty at the edges. St. Thérèse of Lisieux: The Little Flower and the Little Way.
Conway pulled it out, carefully, one fingertip. Dust came with it. Sepia young one in a nun veil on the front, pudgy-faced, thin lips curved in a smile that could have been shy or sly. The back cover didn’t close right.
I put two fingers on the book, top and bottom, held it steady while Conway eased open the back. The corner of the jacket flap had been folded in, taped to make a triangular pocket. Inside, when Conway gently hooked it open, was a Yale key.
Neither of us touched.
Conway said, like I’d asked, “I’m not calling it in yet. We’ve got nothing definitive.”
This was the moment to bring in the cavalry: the full search team scouring the school, the Forensics lads taking prints to match up, the social worker in the corner of every interview. This wasn’t a scrap of card, fifty/fifty chance of a bored teenager playing attention games. This was one girl, probably four, maybe eight, who had had the opportunity to be at the murder scene. This was real.
If Conway rang for the cavalry, she would have to show O’Kelly all the shiny new good stuff that justified him blowing his budget on a case turned cold. And bang, fast enough to make our heads spin, I would be headed home and she would be paired up with someone with years under his belt, O’Gorman or some other hint-dropper who would find a way to put his name on the solve, if there was a solve. Thanks for your help, Detective Moran, see you around next time someone drops a big fat clue into your hand.
I said, “We don’t know for sure that this was actually the key to the connecting door.”
“Exactly. I’ve got a copy of the real thing back at HQ, I can match it against that. Till then, I’m not calling out half the force for the key to someone’s ma’s booze cupboard.”
“And we’ve only got the text girl’s word on who put it here and when. It might not even have been here last May.”
“Might not.” Conway let the pocket drop closed. “I wanted to take this place apart, top to bottom. The gaffer said no. Said there was no evidence that anyone inside Kilda’s was involved. What he meant was, all the posh mummies and daddies would have a conniption about some dirty detective going through their little darlings’ undies. So yeah: for all we know, the key wasn’t there to find.”
I said, “Why would Joanne’s lot leave it here, all this time? Why not bin it when Chris got killed and people started asking questions?”
Conway shut the book. Delicate touch, when she needed it. “You should’ve seen this place, after the murder. The kids didn’t get left on their own for a second, in case Hannibal Lecter jumped out of a wardrobe and ate their brains. None of them would go to the jacks without five of their mates in tow. Our lot everywhere, teachers patrolling the corridors, nuns flapping about, everyone going off like fire alarms if they spotted anything out of the ordinary. This”—she flicked a finger at the book, no touching—“would’ve been the smart thing to do: leave the key, don’t risk getting caught moving it. And just a few weeks later, the school year finished up. When our girls came back in September, they were fourth-years. No code for this room, no good reason to be in it. Coming after the key would’ve been riskier than leaving it. How often do you think this book gets read? What’s the odds of anyone finding the key, or knowing what it was if they did?”
“If Joanne or whoever didn’t bin the key, it’s a good bet she didn’t wipe down the book.”
“Nah. We’ll get prints.” Conway pulled a plastic evidence bag out of her satchel, shook it open with a snap. “Who d’you figure for the text? None of Holly’s lot are mad about Joanne.”
She held the bag open while I balanced the book into it, two-fingered. I said, “‘Who’ isn’t the bit that’s getting me. I’d love to know why.”
Wry glance from Conway, as she tucked the bag back into her satchel. “My scare speech wasn’t good enough for you?”
“It was good. But it wouldn’t scare anyone into texting us about this. What’s to be scared of? Why would the killer come after her for knowing this key was here?”
“Unless,” Conway said. She was pulling off her gloves, carefully, finger by finger. “Unless the killer’s Joanne.”
The first time we’d had a name to say. It sent a fine zing through the air, rippling the throws on the sofas, twitching the curtains.
I said, “You’re the boss. But if it was me, I wouldn’t go at her yet.”
I half expected a slap-down. Didn’t get one. “Me neither. If Joanne hid this, her buddies knew about it. Who d’you want to try? Alison?”
“I’d go for Orla. Alison’s nervier, all right, but that’s not what we need. One push and she’ll run crying to Daddy, and we’re bollixed.” The we flicked Conway’s eyebrow, but she said nothing. “Orla’s more solid, and she’s thick enough that we can run rings round her. I’d try her.”
“Mm,” Conway said. She was opening her mouth to say something else when we heard the sound.
Thin shrilling sound, dipping and rising like an alarm. Before I copped what it was, Conway was up and running for the door. The savage bright burst on her face as she passed me said Yes, said Action, said At fucking last.
Girls clotted halfway down the corridor, a dozen of them, more. Half of them out of their uniforms now, bright in hoodies and T-shirts, cheap bangles shaking; a few half changed, clutching buttons together, shoving into sleeves. All of them crowding and yammering, high and fast, Whatwhatwhat? In the middle of the clot someone was screaming.
We were taller than them. Over shining heads: Joanne and her lot, surrounded. Alison was the one screaming, back pressed against the wall, hands splayed in front of her face. Joanne was trying to do something, cradle her, ministering angel, who knows. Alison was too far gone even for that.
Holly, between heads, the only one not gawping at Alison. Holly was scanning faces, with eyes like her da’s. Holly was watching for someone to give something away.
Conway grabbed the nearest kid by the arm, little dark girl who leapt and screamed. “What’s the story?”
“Alison saw a ghost! She saw, she said, she said she saw Chris Harper, his ghost, she saw—”
The shrieks kept coming; the kid was jumping and rattling under them. Conway said, loud, so anyone who could hear anything could hear her: “You know why he’s back, right?”
The kid stared, openmouthed. Other
girls were starting to look at us, baffled, tennis-heading, trying to work out through the brain-battering noise why these adults weren’t stepping in and getting control and turning everything back to sane.
“Because someone here knows who killed him. He’s come back to make her talk. We see it all the time, on murder cases, all the time, amn’t I right?”
Conway shot me a look like a dig. I nodded. Said, “This is just the start. It’s gonna get worse.”
“They know, murder victims do, they don’t like it when someone keeps them from getting justice. Chris isn’t happy. He won’t be able to rest till everyone’s told us everything they know.”
The kid made a muffled whine. Gasps around us, a girl catching her friend’s arm, “OhmyGod—” High, trembling right on the edge of a scream to join Alison’s. “OhmyGod—”
“Murder victims, they’re raging. Probably Chris was a lovely guy, when he was alive, but he’s not like you remember him. He’s angry now.”
A shiver swayed them. Teeth and sharp shards of bone, they saw, coming to rip the warm flesh off them. “OhmyGod—”
McKenna, surging through the boiling girls, massive. Conway dropped the kid’s arm like a hot snot, stepped back smooth and fast.
McKenna boomed, “Quiet!” and the jabber fizzled to nothing. Only Alison’s shrieks were left, exploding like fireworks into the shocked air.
McKenna didn’t look at us. She got Alison’s shoulders and spun her, face-to-face. “Alison! Quiet!”
Alison swallowed a shriek, choked on it. Stared up at McKenna, gulping and red-faced. Swaying, like she was hanging from McKenna’s big hands.
“Gemma Harding,” McKenna said, not taking her eyes off Alison. “Tell me what happened.”
Gemma found her jaw. “Miss, we were just in our room, we weren’t doing anything—”
She sounded years younger, looked years younger, a shaken little girl. McKenna said, “I’m not interested in what you weren’t doing. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“Alison just went to the loo, and then we heard her screaming out here. We all ran out. She was . . .”
Gemma’s eyes zipping around the others, finding Joanne, grabbing for signals. McKenna said, “Continue. At once.”
“She was just—she was up against the wall and she was screaming. Miss, she said, she said she saw Chris Harper.”
Alison’s head fell back. She made a high whining noise. “Alison,” McKenna said sharply. “You will look at me.”
“She said he grabbed her arm. Miss, there’s—there’s marks on her arm. I swear to God.”
“Alison. Show me your arm.”
Alison scrabbled at the sleeve of her hoodie, limp-fingered. Finally managed to pull it up to her elbow. Conway swept girls out of our way.
First it looked like a grip mark, like someone had got hold of Alison and tried to drag her away. Bright red, wrapped around her forearm: four fingers, a palm, a thumb. Bigger than a girl’s hand.
Then we got in close.
Not a grip mark. The red skin was puffy and bubbled, thick with tiny blisters. A scald, an acid burn, a poison weed.
The press of girls rippled, necks craning. Moaned.
McKenna said acidly, “Were any of you unaware that Alison suffers from allergies? Please, raise your hands.”
Stillness.
“Did any of you somehow miss the incident last term when she required medical attention after borrowing the wrong brand of tanning product?”
Nothing.
“No one?”
Girls looking at sleeves twisted round their thumbs, at the floor, sideways at each other. They were starting to feel silly. McKenna was bringing them back.
“Alison has been exposed to a substance that triggered her allergies. Presumably, if she has just been to the toilet, it was either a hand soap or a product used by the cleaning staff. We will investigate this and make sure the trigger is removed.”
McKenna still hadn’t looked at us. Bold kids get ignored. Talking to us too, though, or at us.
“Alison will take an antihistamine and will be fully recovered within an hour or two. The rest of you will go to your common rooms and will write me a three-hundred-word essay on allergy triggers, to be done by tomorrow morning. I am disappointed in all of you. You are old enough and intelligent enough to deal with this kind of situation with good sense rather than silliness and hysteria.”
McKenna took one hand off Alison’s shoulder—Alison slumped against the wall—and pointed down the corridor. “You may go now. Unless any of you have anything useful to share?”
“Miss,” Joanne said. “One of us should stay with her. In case—”
“No, thank you. Common rooms, please.”
They went pressed together in clumps, arm-linking and whispering, throwing back glances. McKenna stared them out of sight.
Said to us, “I assume you realize what caused this.”
“Haven’t a notion,” said Conway. She moved in, between McKenna and Alison, till McKenna let go. “Alison. Did anyone say something about Chris Harper’s ghost, before you went to the toilet?”
Alison was white and purple-shadowed. She said faintly, “He was in that door. Doing pull-ups off the top of the frame. His legs were waving.”
Always doing something, Selena had said. I don’t believe in ghosts. Felt the shiver rise up between my shoulder blades anyway.
“I think maybe I screamed. Anyway he saw me. He jumped down and came running down the corridor, really fast, and he grabbed me. He was laughing right into my face. I screamed more and I kicked him, and he disappeared.”
She sounded almost peaceful. She was wrung out, like a little kid after puking its guts.
“That will do,” McKenna said, in a voice that could have scared grizzlies. “Whatever allergy trigger you touched, it caused a brief hallucination. Ghosts do not exist.”
I said, “Is your arm sore?”
Alison gazed at her arm. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s really sore.”
“Unsurprisingly,” McKenna said coldly. “And will continue to be until it is treated. On which note, Detectives, please excuse us.”
“He smelled like Vicks,” Alison told me, over her shoulder as McKenna marched her off. “I don’t know if he used to smell like Vicks before.”
Conway watched them go. Said, “What’s the betting the Ugg kids spread the word we were in their common room?”
“No takers. And it had plenty of time to get round.”
“To Joanne. Who had to guess what we were after.”
I nodded after Alison. Footsteps rattling around the stairwell, echoing; her and McKenna were taking the stairs at a snappy old pace. “That wasn’t put on.”
“Nah. Alison’s suggestible, but. And she was half hysterical to start with, after the interview and all.” Conway was keeping her voice down, head tilted backwards to listen to the popcorn crackle of voices from the common rooms. “She’s headed for the jacks, Joanne gives it loads about Chris’s ghost being all stirred up—she knows Alison inside out, remember, knows exactly how to get her going. Then she sticks fake tan on her hand, gives Alison’s arm a squeeze. It’s a decent bet Alison’ll go mental over one thing or the other. Joanne’s hoping there’ll be enough chaos that we’ll leg it out of the common room, leave the door open, she’ll have a chance to nip in there and swipe the book.”
Sixteen-year-old kid, I almost said: would she be up to that? Copped myself on in time. Said, instead, “Alison’s wearing long sleeves.”
“So Joanne got her before she put on the hoodie.”
It could work; maybe, just about, with plenty of luck. I said, “Joanne didn’t try to go for the common room, but. She stayed right here, in the middle of the action.”
“Maybe she was betting we’d take Alison away, she could take her time.”
“Or Joanne had nothing to do with it. The ghost was Alison’s imagination and the arm’s accidental, like McKenna said.”
“Could be. Maybe.”
The footsteps had faded out of the stairwell. That white silence was sifting down again, filling the air with corner-of-the-eye shapes, making it hard to believe that anything in here was as simple as imagination and accident.
I said, “Does McKenna live here?”
“Nah. Got more sense. But she’s not going home till we do.”
We. “Hope she likes canteen food.”
Conway flipped her bag open, checked the book tucked away inside. “Things happening,” she said. Didn’t even try to hide the blaze of satisfaction. “Told you.”
12
In a way they were right: it’s not the same the second time they sneak out, or the third. It turns out that doesn’t matter. The glade where they lie and talk always has that other one behind it, a promise waiting for the right moment to be kept. It colors everything.
I never thought I’d have friends like you guys, Becca says, deep inside the third night. Never. You’re my miracles.
Not even Julia bats that away. Their four hands are twined together on the grass, loose and warm.
Late in January, half past ten at night. Fifteen minutes till lights-out, for third-years and fourth-years at Kilda’s and at Colm’s. Chris Harper—brushing his teeth, half thinking about the cold soaking into his feet from the tiled floor of the bathroom, half listening to a couple of guys giving a first-year hassle in a toilet cubicle and wondering whether he can be arsed stopping them—has just under four months left to live.
A breadth of darkness away in Kilda’s, snow brushes at the dorm-room window, small fitful flakes, not sticking. Winter has clamped down hard: early sunsets, petty sleet and the streaming cold that’s been going around mean it’s been a week since Julia and Holly and Selena and Becca felt daylight, and they’re jiggly with confinement and leftover sniffles. They’re arguing about the Valentine’s dance.
“I’m not going,” Becca says.