Secret Place (9780698170285)

by French, Tana

  Conway pulled open a drawer, raked through the neat stacks of knickers. “No shit. And it’s probably landfill by now; no way we can prove he ever had it to begin with. We wave the records at Joanne, she says she was texting someone she met online or fuck only knows what she’ll come up with. And there’s nothing we can do.”

  I said, “Unless we track down someone else Chris was contacting on the secret phone. Get her to come clean.”

  Conway laughed, short and harsh. “Right. Get her to come clean. Easy as that. ’Cause that’s how this case rolls.”

  “Worth a shot.”

  She slammed the drawer on the mess she’d made. “Jaysus, you’re a little ray of sunshine, aren’t you? Like working with bleeding Pollyanna—”

  “What do you want me to say? ‘Ah, fuck it, it’s never gonna work, let’s go home’?”

  “Do I look like quitting to you? I’m going nowhere. But if I have to listen to you being fucking chirpy, I swear to God—”

  Both of us glaring, Conway shoving her face and her finger in close, me still against the wall so I couldn’t have backed off if I’d wanted to. We were on the edge of a full-on barney.

  I don’t argue, not with people who have my career in their hands. Not even when I should; definitely not over bugger-all.

  I said, “You’d rather have Costello, yeah? Depressing fucker like him? How’d that work out for you?”

  “You shut your—”

  A buzz from Conway’s jacket. Message.

  She wheeled away instantly, grabbing for her pocket. “That’s Sophie. Joanne’s phone records. About bloody time.” She hit buttons, watched the download, knee jiggling.

  I stayed well back. Waited, heart going ninety, for Fuck off home.

  Conway glanced up, impatient. “What’re you doing? Come see this.”

  Took me a second to cop: the fight was over, gone.

  I took a breath, moved in at her shoulder. She tilted the phone so I could see the screen.

  There it was. October, November, a year and a half back: one number going back and forth with the phone that had been Joanne’s, over and over again.

  No calls, just messages. Text from the new number, text to it, media message from, text from, from, from, to. Chris chasing, Joanne playing it cool.

  First week of December, the pattern changed. Text to the new number, text to, text to, text to, text to. Chris ignoring, Joanne pressing, Chris ignoring harder. Then, when she finally gave up, nothing.

  Down the corridor outside, rattle of a trolley, clinking plates, warm smell of chicken and mushrooms making my mouth water. Someone—I pictured a frilly apron—was bringing dinner up to the fourth-years. McKenna wasn’t going to have them heading down to the canteen, spreading stories and panic like flu, yammering away with no nun to listen in. She was keeping them corralled nice and safe in their common room, everything under control.

  Joanne’s phone records went blank till mid-January. Then a mix of other numbers, to and from, calls and texts. No sign of Chris’s number. Just what you’d expect off a girl’s normal phone; off Alison.

  “Sophie, you fucking star,” Conway said. “We’ll get her on to the network, see if that number links to—”

  I felt her go still. “Hang on a second. Two nine three—” She snapped her fingers at me, staring at the screen. “Your phone. Show me that text.”

  I pulled it up.

  That triumph lifting Conway’s head again, making her profile into something off a statue. “Here we go. I knew I’d seen that number.” She held out the two phones, side by side. “Have a look at this.”

  That memory. She was right. The number that had told me where to find the key was the same number that had been playing phone footsie with Joanne.

  “Fuck me,” I said. “Didn’t see that coming.”

  “Me neither.”

  “So either Joanne’s secret romance wasn’t with Chris at all, it was with one of our other seven—”

  Conway shook her head. “Nah. A breakup would explain why the two gangs hate each other, yeah, but you can’t tell me we wouldn’t have got even one hint from somewhere. Gossip, or Joanne giving it loads of ‘So-and-so’s a big dyke, she tried to jump my sexy body,’ trying to get the ex in shite. Nah.”

  I said, “—or else someone just texted me off Chris Harper’s secret phone.”

  A moment of silence.

  Conway said, “Looks like it.” Something in her voice, but I couldn’t tell whether it was exhilaration or anger, or smelling blood. Whether there was a difference, for her.

  The day had changed again, shifted under our eyes into something new. We weren’t looking for a witness, in that roomful of shining hair and restless feet and watching eyes. We were looking for a killer.

  “The way I see it,” I said, “there’s three ways that could’ve happened. One: Joanne killed Chris, took his phone, she used it to text us about the key because she wants to get caught—”

  Conway snorted. “She does in her arse.”

  “Yeah, me neither. Two: the killer—Joanne or someone else—took the phone, handed it on to someone else.”

  “The same way Joanne sold her own to Alison. That’d fit her.”

  “Three,” I said. “Someone else killed Chris, took the phone, has it still.”

  Conway started pacing again, but steady this time, none of that restless looking for something to wreck. She was focusing. “Why, but? She has to know the phone’s evidence. Hanging on to it is dangerous. Why not bin it, a year ago?”

  “Dunno. But it mightn’t be the actual phone she kept. She might’ve ditched the phone, just hung on to the SIM card. That’s a lot safer. Then today, she needs an anonymous number to text us from, swaps Chris’s SIM into her own phone . . .”

  “Why hang on to any of it?”

  I said, “Say it’s Theory Two, the killer passed it on to someone else. Maybe the other girl had a feeling there was something dodgy about it, something to do with Chris; she hung on to the phone, or just the SIM card, in case she ever felt like turning it in to us. Or maybe she didn’t cop there was a connection, just liked the idea of having an anonymous number stashed away. Or maybe it just had credit left on it, like the one Joanne sold Alison.”

  Conway nodded. “OK. That’ll work with Theory Two. I don’t see how it works with One or Three. Which means the girl who texted you isn’t the killer.”

  I said, “That says the killer’s got plenty of nerve. Handing Chris’s phone off to someone else, instead of binning it, when it could put her in jail.”

  “Plenty of nerve, plenty of arrogance, plenty of stupid, take your pick. Or she didn’t hand it off on purpose; she ditched it somewhere, the texter found it.”

  Voices, seeping down the corridor with the chicken-and-mushroom smell: the fourth-years talking over their dinner. Not happy girly chitchat. This was a low, flattened-out buzz, got into your ear and turned you edgy.

  I said, “Did Sophie say when we’ll get the records off it?”

  “Soon. Her contact’s working on it. I’ll e-mail her now, tell her we need the actual texts, not just the numbers. We could be out of luck—some of the networks dump that stuff after a year—but we’ll give it a shot.” Conway was typing fast. “Meanwhile,” she said.

  It was gone five o’clock. Meanwhile we go back to HQ, sort our paperwork, sign out. Meanwhile we get something to eat, get some kip, nice work today Detective Moran see you bright and early in the morning.

  No way we could leave Kilda’s, not now. Inside, all those girls, all jittering to start swapping stories and matching up lies the second our shadow lifted. Outside, the Murder lads, jaws ready to snap shut on this case the minute O’Kelly heard it was live again. In the middle, us.

  If we walked out of Kilda’s empty-handed, we’d never come back or we’d come back to a blank wall.

 
; But:

  I said, “We stick around much longer, McKenna’s going to get onto your gaffer.”

  Conway didn’t look up from her phone. “I know, yeah. She said that to me, down in Arnold’s room. Didn’t even bother being subtle: told me if we weren’t out by dinnertime, she’d ring O’Kelly and tell him we bullied her students into fits.”

  “It’s dinnertime now.”

  “Chillax. I wasn’t subtle either. I told her if she tries to throw us out before we’re good and ready, I’ll ring my journalist pal and tell him we’ve spent the day interviewing Kilda’s students about Chris Harper.” Conway shoved her phone into her pocket. “We’re going nowhere.”

  I could’ve backslapped her, hugged her, something. I didn’t want my nads kicked in. “Fair play to you,” I said, instead.

  “What, you thought McKenna was gonna make me her bitch? Thanks a bunch.” But the big grin on me pulled one out of her, too. “So. Meanwhile . . .”

  I said, “Joanne?”

  Conway took a breath. Behind her, the curtains stirred; the cutlery mobile made a faint high ringing, soft and faraway.

  She nodded, once. “Joanne,” she said.

  I said, “Witness or suspect?”

  A suspect, you need to caution her, get her to sign a rights sheet, before you go asking any questions. A suspect, you take her down to HQ, get everything on video. A suspect, if she wants a solicitor, she gets one. An underage suspect, you have an appropriate adult present; you don’t even think about dodging.

  Just now and again, we fudge it. No one can prove what you’re thinking inside your own mind. Once in a long while you keep it casual, just a chat with a witness, till your suspect gets in too deep for you, or him, to deny.

  If you get caught out, if the judge gives you a filthy look and says any officer with half a brain would’ve suspected this person, then you’re done. Everything you got, gone: thrown out.

  We were on the line. Plenty of reasons to think it might be Joanne; not enough to believe it was.

  “Witness,” Conway said. “Be careful.”

  I said, “You too. Joanne’s not about to forget that you took her down a peg in front of the rest.”

  “Ah, for fuck.” Conway’s head tossing up with irritation: she’d forgotten. “That’s me stuck in the back seat again. Next time we need to piss someone off, I’m gonna make you do it.”

  “Ah, no,” I said. “You do it. You’ve got a gift.” The face she made at me looked like a friend’s.

  In the common room the girls were neat around tables, heads bent over plates, homey rhythm of clinking cutlery. The nun had one eye on her food and one on them.

  Lovely and peaceful, till you looked hard. Then you saw. Runners jittering under tables, bared teeth gnawing at the edge of a juice glass. Orla curling in tight on herself, trying not to take up space. A heavy girl with her back to me looked like she was lashing into her food, but over her shoulder I caught a full plate of chicken pie chopped into tiny perfect squares, getting tinier with each vicious cut.

  “Joanne,” Conway said.

  Joanne threw a tsk and a disgusted eye-roll at the ceiling, but she came. She was wearing the same outfit as Orla, give or take: short jeans shorts, tights, pink hoodie, Converse. On Orla they looked like she’d been dressed by someone with a grudge; on Joanne they looked like she’d been made that way, all in one mold.

  We went back to her room. “Have a seat,” I said, held out a hand to her bed. “Sorry we’ve no chair, but we’ll only be a few minutes.”

  Joanne stayed standing, arms folded. “I’m actually eating dinner?”

  In a bit of a fouler, our Joanne. Orla was in big trouble. “I know,” I said, nice and humble. “I won’t keep you. I have to tell you, I’ve got a couple of questions that you might not like, but I need answers, and I’m not sure anyone’s got them but you.”

  That caught her in the curiosity, or in the vanity. Long-suffering sigh, and she dropped onto her bed. “OK. I guess.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said. Sat down on Gemma’s bed, facing Joanne, staying well away from the thrown-off clothes. Conway melted off into the background, leaning against the door. “First off, and I know Orla’s already told you this: we’ve found your key to the connecting door between here and the main building. Yous were sneaking out at night.”

  Joanne had her mouth half open to deny it and her outraged face half on—autopilot—when Conway held up the Thérèse book. “Covered in fingerprints,” she said.

  Joanne put the outraged look away for later. “So?” she said.

  I said, “So this is confidential. We’re not about to pass it on to McKenna, get you in trouble. We’re just sorting what’s important from what’s not. OK?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Lovely. So what’d yous do, when you snuck out?”

  A little reminiscent smirk, slackening Joanne’s mouth. After a moment she said, “Some of the Colm’s day boys came in over the back wall. I mean, I don’t normally hang out with day boys, but Garret Neligan knew where his parents kept their drinks and . . . stuff, so whatever. We did that a couple of times, but then Garret’s mum caught him and she started locking stuff up, so we didn’t bother any more.”

  Stuff. Garret had been getting into Mammy’s meds. “When was this?”

  “Like last March? After that, we didn’t actually use the key that much. At Easter Gemma met this student guy at a club, so she went out to hook up with him a bunch of times—she thought she was totes amazeballs because she’d caught someone who was in OMG college, but of course he dumped her the second he found out how old she actually was? And obviously after Chris they changed the lock, so it wasn’t even any use any more.”

  I said, “You have to realize that this puts you and your mates front and center for having put up that card on the Secret Place. Any of you could have been out in the grounds when Chris was killed. Any of you could have seen something. Seen it happen, even.”

  Joanne’s hands shot up. “Excuse me, whoa? Can we put the brakes on here? We weren’t the only ones who had a key. We got ours from Julia Harte.”

  I did dubious. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So where would we find hers?”

  “Like I’d know? Even if I had a clue where they kept it, which I don’t actually pay attention to what those weirdos do, this was a year ago. They probably threw it away once the locks got changed. That’s what I told Orla to do, except she’s too useless to even get that right.”

  “Julia says they never had a key.”

  Joanne’s face was starting to pinch in, turn vicious. “Um, hello, she would, wouldn’t she? That’s total crap.”

  “Could be,” I admitted, shrugging. “But we can’t prove it. We’ve got proof that you and your mates had one, no proof that Julia and hers did. When it’s one person’s word against another’s, we’ve got to go with the evidence.”

  “Same as with Chris and Selena,” Conway said. “You lot say they were going out, she says they weren’t, not one speck of evidence says they ever went near each other. What do you expect us to believe?”

  The viciousness congealed into something solid, a decision. “OK. Fine.”

  Joanne pulled out her phone, pushed buttons. Thrust it at me, arm’s length.

  “Is this proof?”

  I took it. It felt hot from her hand, clammy.

  A video. Dark; the rustle and bump of footsteps through grass. Someone whispering; a tiny snort of laughter, a hissed Shut up!

  “Who’s with you?” I asked.

  “Gemma.” Joanne was sitting back, arms folded, swinging her crossed foot and watching us. Anticipating.

  Faint gray shapes, jiggling as Joanne’s movement jolted the phone. Bushes in moonlight. Clumps of small whitish flowers, folded up for the night.

  Another whisper. The
footsteps stopped; the phone stilled. Shapes came into focus.

  Tall trees, black around a pale clearing. Even in blurry dark, I recognized the place. The cypress grove where Chris Harper had died.

  In the moonlit heart of it, two figures, pressed so close they looked like one. Dark jumpers, dark jeans. Brown head bent over a flood of fair hair.

  A branch bobbed across the screen. Joanne shifted the phone out of its way, zoomed in tight.

  Night smudged the faces. I glanced at Conway; tiny dip of her chin. Chris and Selena.

  They moved apart like they could hardly bear to move at all. Pressed their palms together, shoulders rising and falling with their quick breathing. They were amazed by each other, stunned silent, all in the circle of stirring cypresses and night wind. The world outside was gone, nothing. Inside that circle the air was unfurling new colors, it was changing to something that cascaded and fountained pure gold and dazzle, and every breath changed them too.

  I used to dream of that, when I was a young fella. Never had it. Even when I was sixteen years old and ninety percent dick, I kept away from the girls in my school; scared that if I went beyond the odd snog and grope, I’d wake up the next morning a daddy in a council flat, stuck to the sticky linoleum forever. Dreamed of it instead. Dreams I can still taste.

  By the time I got away and found other girls, it was too late. When you stop being a kid, you lose your one chance at that too-tender-to-touch gold, that breathtaken everything and forever. Once you start growing up and getting sense, the outside world turns real, and your own private world is never everything again.

  Chris wove his fingers in Selena’s hair, lifted it so that it fell strand by strand. She turned her head to touch her lips to his arm. They were like underwater dancers, like time was holding still just for them and every minute gave them a million years. They were beautiful.

  Close to the phone, Joanne or Gemma snickered. The other one made a tiny gagging noise. Something like that in front of them, feet away, the real thing, and they couldn’t even see it.