by French, Tana
“Um, do you . . . ? Like, do you have to?” She fumbled for a way to say no, but my hand was halfway to the bedside table and her mind was halfway on Conway’s fairy tale. “I guess it’s OK. I mean—”
“Thanks.” Not that I needed her permission; just staying the good cop. Cheerful smile, I gave her, and straight in. Orla opened her mouth to take it back, but Conway was moving in closer.
“We show up”—Conway gestured at the two of us—“O’Farrell swears it was a burglar. He was good; we nearly fell for it. But then we sit him down in his kitchen, start asking questions. Every time O’Farrell gives us some crap about his imaginary burglar, or about how much he loved his wife, there’s this weird noise outside the door.”
Joanne’s bedside table: hair straightener, makeup, fake tan, iPod, jewelry box. No books, old or new; no phone. Had to be on her.
“This noise, it’s like . . .” Conway raked her nails down the wall by Orla’s head, sudden and violent. Orla jumped. “It’s exactly like a dog clawing at the door. And it’s making O’Farrell jumpy as hell. Every time he hears it, he whips round, loses his train of thought; he’s looking at us like, Did yous hear that?”
“Sweating,” I said, “dripping. White. Looked like he was gonna puke.”
It was so easy, it startled me. Felt like we’d practiced for months, me and Conway, slaloming round the twists and kinks of the story side by side. Smooth as velvet.
It felt like joy, only a joy you didn’t go looking for and don’t want. That dream partner of mine, the one with the violin lessons and the red setters: this was what we were like together, him and me.
Orla’s bedside table: hair straightener, makeup, fake tan, iPod, jewelry box. Phone. No books. I left the door open.
Orla didn’t even notice what I was doing. Her mouth was hanging open. “Wasn’t the dog dead?” she wanted to know.
Conway managed not to roll her eyes. “Yeah. It was very dead. The techs had taken it away and all. That’s the point. Detective Moran here, he says to O’Farrell, ‘You got another dog?’ O’Farrell can’t even talk, but he shakes his head.”
Alison’s bedside table: straightener, makeup, yada yada, no books, no extra phone. Gemma’s bedside table: same story, plus a bottle of capsules of some herbal thing swearing to make her skinny.
“We go back to questioning him, but the noise keeps happening. We can’t concentrate, right? Finally Detective Moran gets pissed off. Jumps up, heads for the door. O’Farrell practically comes off his chair, roars at Moran, ‘Jesus God, don’t open that door!’”
She was good, Conway. The room had changed, dark places stirring, bright ones pulsing. Orla was mesmerized.
“But it’s too late: Moran’s already opening the door. Far as we can see, me and him, the hall’s empty. Nothing there. Then O’Farrell starts to scream.”
One big wardrobe, all along one side of the room. Inside, it was split into four sections. Tangled bright things spilling out.
“We look around, O’Farrell’s flying backwards off his chair, grabbing his throat. Howling like he’s being killed. First we think he’s putting it on, right, get out of being questioned? Then we see the blood.”
Breathy whine bursting out of Orla. I tried to check drawers without touching anything girly. Wished Conway was doing this bit. There were Tampax in there.
“It’s dripping out between his fingers. He’s on the floor, kicking, howling, ‘Get it off me! Get it off!’ Me and Moran, we’re like, What the fuck? We haul him outside—we don’t know what else to do, figure maybe the fresh air’ll help. He stops screaming, but he’s still moaning, holding his throat. We get his hands away. And I swear to God”—Conway was in close, eyes locked on Orla’s—“I’ve seen dog bites. That, on O’Farrell’s throat, that was a dog bite.”
Orla asked faintly, “Did he die?”
“Nah. Few stitches.”
“The dog was only little,” I said. Worked around someone’s bras. “Couldn’t do too much damage.”
“After the doctors got him cleaned up,” Conway said, “O’Farrell spilled his guts. Full confession. When we took him off in cuffs, he was still screaming, ‘Keep it away from me! Don’t let it get me!’ Grown man, begging like a kid.”
“Never made it to trial,” I said. “Wound up in a mental hospital instead. He’s still there.”
Orla said, and it came from the heart, “OhmyGod.”
“So,” Conway said. “When McKenna says there’s no such thing as ghosts, excuse us if we have a laugh.”
Nothing in the wardrobe drawers that didn’t belong there, not on a quick check. Plenty that did; these four could have started their own Abercrombie & Fitch outlet. Nothing in the pockets of the hanging clothes. “We’re not saying Alison actually saw Chris Harper’s ghost,” I said, reassuring. “Not for definite.”
“Jaysus, no,” Conway agreed. “She could’ve imagined the whole thing.”
“Well,” I said, poking through shoes. “She didn’t imagine that arm.” Nothing on the wardrobe floor.
“Nah, not that. I guess that could’ve maybe been allergies or whatever, though; who knows?” Shrug, unconvinced. “All I’m saying is, if I knew anything that had anything to do with Chris, and I kept it to myself, I wouldn’t fancy turning out the lights tonight.”
I dialed the number that had texted me. All the phones stayed dark. No ringing coming from under a bed, from a stack of clothes I’d skimmed over.
“Hate to admit it,” I said. Glanced over my shoulder, did a shiver. “Me neither.”
Orla’s eyes skimming the room, hitting the corners, the shadows. Real fear.
Conway’s story had hit the mark. And Orla wasn’t the only one she’d been aiming at. The ghost story, or as much of it as Orla could remember, would be round the fourth-years inside half an hour.
“Speaking of which.” Conway swept up her satchel, plopped herself down nice and comfy on Joanne’s bed, right on top of her uniform—Orla’s eyes widened, like Conway had done something daring. “You might want to take a look at this.”
Orla edged closer. “Have a seat,” Conway said, patting the bed. After a second Orla moved Joanne’s skirt carefully out of the way and sat down.
I swung the wardrobe shut, leaned against it. Got out my notebook. Kept an eye on the door for flickers of shadow moving behind it, out in the hall.
Conway flipped open the satchel, whipped out the evidence bag and smacked it down on Orla’s lap, all before Orla had a chance to work out what was going on. Said, “You’ve seen this before.”
Orla took one look at the Thérèse book and bit down on both lips, hard. Hiss of in-breath through her nose.
Conway said, “Do us a favor. Don’t try to tell us you don’t know what’s in there.”
Orla tried to shake her head and shrug and look innocent, all at once. It came out like some kind of spasm.
“Orla. Pay attention. I’m not asking you if this was yours. I’m telling you we already know. You try to lie about it, all that’ll happen is you’ll get us pissed off and you’ll get Chris pissed off. You want to do that?”
Trapped between thick and terrified, Orla dived for the only way out she could see. “It’s Joanne’s!”
“What is?”
“The key. That was Joanne’s. It wasn’t mine.”
And bingo. Straight in there, our Orla, dobbing her mates in as quick as she could. The flare of Conway’s nose said she smelled it too. “Same difference. Yous robbed it out of the nurse’s office.”
“No! Swear to God, we never stole anything.”
“Then how’d you get it? You telling me the nurse gave it to you ’cause she couldn’t resist your pretty faces?”
Orla’s face lit up with that thin malice. “Julia Harte had it. Probably she stole it, or one of them did. We got a copy off her—Joanne got it, I mean. Not me.”
Conway’s eyebrow was up. “Right. Joanne asked nicely, Julia said, ‘No problem, anything for you, darling.’ Yeah? ’Cause you’re all best buddies?”
Orla shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”
I hadn’t been there either, but I knew. Blackmail: Joanne had spotted Julia on her way in or out, Share or we tell.
“When was that?”
“Like, forever ago.”
“When’s forever?”
“After Christmas—last Christmas. I haven’t even, ohmyGod, thought about it all year?”
“How many times did you use it?”
Orla remembered she could get in trouble here. “I didn’t. I swear. I totally swear.”
“You gonna keep swearing when we find your prints all over it?”
“I got it out a few times, or put it back. But for Joanne, and Gemma. Not for me.”
“You never snuck out? Not once?”
Orla went cagey. Ducked her head down.
“Orla,” Conway said, close above her. “You need me to explain again why keeping your mouth shut is a bad idea?”
Another flash of that fear. Orla said, “I mean, I went one time. All four of us went. We were meeting some guys from Colm’s out in the grounds, just for a laugh.” And a can and a spliff and a snog. “But it was so scary out there. I mean, it was really dark; I hadn’t realized it would be that dark. And there were all these noises in the bushes, like animals—the guys kept saying they were rats, ew? And we’d have been expelled if we got caught. And the guys . . .” A wiggle, uncomfortable. “I mean, they were weird, that night. Mean. They were, they kept . . .”
The guys had tried to push the girls. Drunk, maybe. Maybe not. No way to know how that had ended. Not our problem.
“So no thank you, no way was I going again. And I never went out on my own.”
“Joanne did, though. And Gemma.”
Orla sucked in her bottom lip and did the titter. That fear, forgotten, just like that: zapped away, the moment sex gossip came into the story. “Yeah. Only a few times.”
“They were meeting guys. Who?”
Hunched-up shrug.
“Chris? No, hang on—” Conway’s finger going up, warning. “Remember: you don’t want to lie on this one.”
Promptly: “Uh-uh. Not Chris. And they would’ve said if it was.”
“Was he there the night yous all went out?”
Headshake.
I said, “Is that how you guys knew Selena and Chris were together, yeah? Saw them outside one night?”
Orla swayed forward towards me, wet-lipped smirk widening, loving her moment. “Gemma saw them. Right here in the grounds. They were, like, all over each other. She said, if she’d watched for another five minutes, they’d’ve been . . .” Breathy snigger. “See? They were with each other. You guys were all ‘Oh, you’re just making it up.’ Obviously we couldn’t tell you how we knew, but see? We totally did know.”
This was some kind of triumph, apparently. “Fair play to yous,” I said.
Conway said, “When was this?”
Blank look. “Like, last spring? Maybe March or April? Before Chris . . . you know.”
My eye caught Conway’s for a second. “Yeah, we figured that much,” she said. “Did yous tell anyone you’d seen them?”
“We talked to Julia. We were like, ‘Em, excuse me, hello, that needs sorting out?’”
“And? Did she sort it out?”
“I guess.”
“Why?” I asked, all fascinated. “Why didn’t yous want Selena going out with Chris?”
Orla’s mouth popped open, popped shut. “Because. We just didn’t.”
“Did one of yous fancy him, yeah? Nothing wrong with that.”
That cringe again, hunching down into her shoulders. Something was scaring her worse than us and Chris combined. Joanne; had to be. Joanne had wanted Chris.
Conway tapped the book. “When was the last time any of yous snuck out?”
“Gemma was out like a week before what happened to Chris. I mean, how creepy is that? We were all, ‘OhmyGod, if there was like a serial killer stalking the school, he could totally have got her instead!’”
“You never went out after that? Any of yous? Ah-ah”—finger lifting again—“think about it before you go lying to us.”
Orla was shaking her head so hard her hair whipped her in the face. “No. I swear. None of us. After Chris, we weren’t exactly about to go wandering around out there. Joanne actually told me to go get that key and bin it or something, and I tried, but I was just taking the books out and oh! my God! one of the prefects came barging in? And she was all, ‘What are you doing in here?’ ’cause it was after lights-out ’cause I couldn’t exactly do it while everyone was in the common room? I almost had a heart attack. So after that, no way was I trying again.”
Conway lifted an eyebrow. “Joanne was OK with that?”
“Oh my God, she would’ve been so furious! I told her . . .” Snorty giggle from Orla, hand going over her mouth. “I told her I’d done it. I mean, it’s not like anyone could tell it was ours anyway, or even what it was . . .” Something dawned on her. “How’d you guys know?”
“DNA,” Conway said. “Go back to the common room.”
“Selena and Chris,” Conway said, watching down the corridor as the common-room door shut behind Orla. “Not bullshit after all.”
She didn’t sound happy about it. I knew why. Conway figured she should have got to this a year ago.
I said, “Unless Orla’s lying. Or Gemma lied to her.”
“Yeah. I don’t think so, but.” Neither did I. “Let’s see what Selena has to say.”
We’d get nothing out of Selena. I could feel it, in with that feeling that she was at the heart of the mystery: she was wrapped so deep in layers of it, we would never get through them to her. “Not Selena,” I said. “Julia.”
Conway started to give me the glare. Changed her mind—I’d been right about Orla—nodded instead. “OK. Julia.”
Orla was at the center of the common-room gabble, flopped on a sofa with one hand on her chest like she had the vapors, eating up the attention. Joanne looked ready to kill: Orla had come clean about not binning the key. Holly’s lot hadn’t moved, but their eyes were on Orla.
A nun—civvies and headgear and a grim puggy underbite—was supervising from a corner, letting them talk but keeping a tough eye on where the chat was going. For a second I was surprised at McKenna, delegating this, but then I copped. Day girls had got home, boarders had rung home. McKenna’s phone was going like goodo. She was up to her glasses in damage control.
Sooner not later, some pissed-off daddy with pull was going to ring the brass. The brass was going to ring O’Kelly. O’Kelly was going to ring Conway and take her head off.
“Julia,” Conway said, past the nun. “Let’s go.”
A beat, and then Julia got up and came. No glance back at her mates.
Their room was two doors down from Orla’s. It had that same feeling, left in a hurry: bedside tables open, clothes dropped in the dash. This time, though, I knew straight off what bit belonged to who, no need to check the bedside photos. Bright red bed linen, vintage poster of Max’s Kansas City: Julia. Old-looking patchwork quilt, poem written out poster-size in careful art-project calligraphy: Rebecca. Hanging mobile made of curled silver forks and spoons, good black-and-white photo that looked like a rock against low sky, till you looked twice and it was an old man’s profile: Holly. And Conway had been bang on about Selena: no dream catcher, but over her bed was a print of some medium-quality old oil, unicorn bending to drink at a dark lake by moonlight. Conway caught it to
o. Her eyes met mine, and the shadow of a private grin flipped back and forth between us. Before I knew it, it felt good.
Julia bounced down on her bed, propped herself up on her pillow, hands behind her head. Stretched out her legs—she was in jeans, a bright orange T-shirt with Patti Smith on, hair down—and crossed her ankles. Nice and comfy. “Hit me,” she said.
Conway didn’t fuck about with fairy tales this time. She whipped out the evidence envelope, dangled it from finger and thumb in front of Julia’s face. Stood over her and watched. I got out my notebook.
Julia took her time. Let Conway hold the bag while she read the book’s title. “Is this a hint? I should be more virtuous?”
Conway said, “Are we gonna find your prints on that?”
Julia pointed at the book. “You think this is my bedtime reading? Seriously?”
“Cute. Don’t do that again. We ask, you answer.”
Sigh. “No you are not going to find my prints on this OK thank you for asking. The only way I read about saints is when I’m forced to for essays. And even then I do, like, Joan of Arc. Not some simpering wimp.”
“Wouldn’t know the difference,” Conway said. “You can explain it to me some other time. Inside that book there’s a key to the connecting door between here and the school. Belonged to Joanne and her gang, last year.”
One of Julia’s eyebrows flicked; that was all. “OMG. I’m like totally shocked.”
“Yeah. Orla says it’s a copy of one you had.”
Julia sighed. “Oh, Orla,” she said to the air. “Who’s a predictable little girl? You are! Yes you!”
“You’re saying Orla’s lying?”
“Um, duh? I’ve never had a key to that door. But Joanne isn’t stupid. She knows that anyone who had that key could’ve been outside the night Chris died, plus anyone who had that key is in huge trouble with McKenna, like possibly expelled trouble. Of course she’s going to share the love.”
“Joanne didn’t tell us. Orla did.”