The Secret Place

I’d never been anywhere like this before, but it felt like it took me back. It had that pull, all down the length of your bones. It made me think words I hadn’t thought since I was a young fella reading my way through the Ilac Centre library, thinking that would get me in between walls like these. Deliquescent. Numinous. Halcyon. Me, long-legged and clumsy and daydreaming, far off my patch so no one would see me, giddy with thrill like I was doing something bold.

‘We’ll start with the headmistress,’ Conway said, on the landing, when we could get side by side again. ‘McKenna. She’s a cow. First thing she asked me and Costello, when we got on the scene? Could we stop the media naming the school. Do you believe that? Fuck the dead kid, fuck gathering info to catch whoever did it: all she cared about was that this made her school look bad.’

Girls dodging past us, ‘’Scuse me!’ high and breathless. A couple of them threw looks back over their shoulders at one of us, or both; most were moving too fast to care. Lockers banging open. Even the corridors were lovely, high ceilings and plaster mouldings, soft green and paintings on the walls.

‘Here,’ Conway said, nodding at a door. ‘Put your game face on.’ And pushed the door open.

A curly blonde turned around from a filing cabinet, hitting the big-smile button, but Conway said, ‘Howya,’ and kept walking, past her and through the inner door. She closed it behind us.

Quiet, in there. Thick carpet. The room had been done up with plenty of time and money, to look like someone’s old-fashioned study: antique desk with green leather on top, full bookshelves everywhere, heavy-framed oil painting of a nun who was no oil painting. Only the fancy executive chair and the sleek laptop said office.

The woman behind the desk put down a pen and stood up. ‘Detective Conway,’ she said. ‘We’ve been expecting you.’

‘No flies on you,’ Conway said, tapping her temple. She picked up two straight chairs from against a wall, spun them both to the desk and sat down. ‘Nice to be back.’

The woman ignored that. ‘And this is…?’

‘Detective Stephen Moran,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ said the woman. ‘I believe you spoke to the school secretary earlier today.’

‘That was me.’

‘Thank you for keeping us informed. Miss Eileen McKenna. Headmistress.’ She didn’t put out her hand, so I didn’t either.

‘Sometimes we like to bring in a fresh pair of eyes,’ Conway said. Her accent had got rougher. ‘A specialist. Yeah?’

Miss McKenna raised her eyebrows, but when no one gave her more, she didn’t ask. Sat down again – I waited to sit till she had – and folded her hands on the green leather. ‘And what can I do for you?’

Big woman, Miss Eileen McKenna. Not fat, just big, the way some women get in their fifties after years of being the boss: all out front, hoisted up high and solid, ready to sail through anything and not get wet. I could see her in a breaktime corridor, girls skittering away in front of her before they even knew she was coming. Lots of chin; lots of eyebrow. Iron hair and steely glasses. I don’t know women’s gear but I know quality, and the greeny tweed was quality; the pearls weren’t from Penney’s.

Conway said, ‘How’s the school getting on?’

Leaning back in her chair, legs sprawled, elbows out. Taking up as much of the office as she could. Prickly as fuck. History there, or just chemistry.

‘Very well. Thank you.’

‘Yeah? Seriously? ’Cause I remember you telling me the whole place was about to go…’ Nosedive move with her hand, long whistle. ‘All those years of tradition and whatever, down the tubes, if us plebs insisted on doing our jobs. Here was me feeling guilty. Nice to see it all turned out grand after all.’

Miss McKenna said – to me, leaving Conway out – ‘As I’m sure you can imagine, most parents were disturbed by the thought of letting their daughters stay in a school where a murder had been committed. The fact that the murderer remained uncaught didn’t improve matters.’

Thin smile at Conway. Nothing back.

‘Ironically, neither did the ongoing police presence and the constant interviews – possibly they should have helped everyone to feel that the situation was under control, but in fact they prevented any return to normality. The persistent media intrusion, which the police were too busy to curb, exacerbated the problem. Twenty-three sets of parents removed their daughters from the school. Almost all the others threatened to, but I was able to persuade them that it would not be in their daughters’ best interests.’

I bet she had. That voice: like Maggie Thatcher turned Irish, shoulder-barging the world into its place with no room for argument. Made me feel like I should apologise quick, if I could work out what for. It’d take a parent with balls of steel to contradict that voice.

‘For several months it was touch and go. But St Kilda’s has survived more than a century of various ups and downs. It has survived this.’

‘Lovely,’ said Conway. ‘While it was surviving, anything come up that we should know?’