The Secret Place

Outside their window the moon is slim and running wild with streaks of cloud. Their movements as they dress are filled up with every other time, with the first can’t-believe-we’re-doing-this half-joke, with the magic of a bottle cap floating above a palm, of a flame turning them to gold masks. As they pull up their hoods and take their shoes in their hands, as they slow-motion like dancers down the stairs, they feel themselves slowly turn buoyant again, feel the world flower and shiver as it waits for them. A smile is tipping the corner of Lenie’s mouth; on the landing Becca turns her palms to the white-lit window like a thanksgiving prayer. Even Julia who thought she knew better is beating with it, the bubble of hope expanding inside her ribs till it hurts, What if, maybe, maybe we really could-

The key won’t turn.

They stare at each other, wiped blank.

‘Let me try,’ Holly whispers. Julia steps back. The rhythm in their ears is pounding faster.

It won’t turn.

‘They’ve changed the lock,’ Becca whispers.

‘What do we do?’

‘Get out of here.’

‘Let’s go.’

Holly can’t get the key out.

‘Come on come on come on-’

The terror leaps like wildfire among them. Selena has her mouth pushed into her forearm to keep herself quiet. The key rattles and grates; Julia shoves Holly out of the way – ‘Jesus, did you break it?’ – and grabs it in both hands. In the second when it looks like it’s really stuck, all four of them almost scream.

Then it shoots out, slamming Julia backwards into Becca. The thump and oof of breath and scrabble for balance sound loud enough to call out the school. They run, flailing clumsy in slipping sock-feet, teeth bared with fear. Into their room and the door closing too hard, clawing clothes off and pyjamas on, leaping for their beds like animals. By the time the prefect drags herself awake and comes shuffling down the corridor to stick her head in at each door, they have themselves and their breathing all neatly arranged. She doesn’t care if they’re faking or not, as long as they’re doing nothing that could get her in trouble; one glance around their smooth sleeping faces, and she yawns and closes the door again.

None of them say anything. They keep their eyes closed. They lie still and feel the world change shape around them and inside them, feel the boundaries set solid; feel the wild left outside, to prowl perimeters till it thins into something imagined, something forgotten.

Chapter 29

The night had turned denser, ripening with little scurries and eddies of scent, things we couldn’t trace. The moonlight was coming down thick enough to drench us.

I said, ‘You got that, what she gave us. Yeah?’

Conway was moving fast back along the path, mind already leaping up that slope to Rebecca. ‘Yeah. Selena and Rebecca go to their room for their instruments. Either Rebecca’s pissed off enough with Selena that she hides Chris’s phone to frame her, or she gives it to Selena – here you go, your dead fella’s phone, just what you’ve always wanted – and Selena stashes it to deal with some other time.’

We were keeping our voices down; girls could be hidden like hunters behind any tree. I said, ‘That, and Holly’s out. Rebecca was working on her own.’

‘Nah. Holly could’ve stashed Chris’s phone when she took Selena’s.’

I said, ‘Why, but? Say she had Chris’s phone, or access to it: why not dump it in the lost-and-found bin along with Selena’s, if she was trying to take suspicion off her lot? Or if she was trying to frame Selena, why not leave both phones behind her bed? There’s no reason why she’d want to do different things with the two phones. Holly’s out.’ A couple of hours too late. We had Mackey for an enemy now, not an ally.

Conway thought that through for two fast steps, gave it the nod. ‘Rebecca. All on her ownio.’

I thought of that triple creature, still and watching. All on her ownio seemed like the wrong words.

Conway said, ‘We still don’t have enough on her. It’s all circumstantial, and the prosecutors don’t like that. Specially when it’s a kid. Extra-specially when it’s a little rich kid.’

‘It’s circumstantial, but there’s a load of it. Rebecca had plenty of reasons to be pissed off with Chris. She was able to get out at night. She was seen with the weapon the day before the murder. She’s one of the only two people who could’ve put Chris’s phone where it was found-’

‘If you believe a dozen stories from half a dozen other teenage girls who’ve all lied their little arses off to us. A decent defence barrister’ll have reasonable doubt all over it inside five minutes. Plenty of girls had better reasons to be pissed off with Chris. Seven others could get out at night, and that’s just the ones we know about; how do we prove no one else had found out where Joanne kept her key? Chris’s phone: Rebecca or Selena could’ve found it wherever the killer dumped it, stashed it behind the bed while they worked out what to do with it.’