The Secret Place

I had to shut my eyes for a second before they could start splitting the frenzy into individual cards. Black Labrador: I wish my brothers dog would die so I could get a kitten. Index finger: STOP PICKING YOUR NOSE AFTER LIGHTS OUT I CAN HEAR YOU!!! Cornetto wrapper stuck down with Sellotape: This was when I knew I love u… and I’m so scared u know too. Tangle of algebra equations, cut out and glued on top of each other: My freind lets me copy cos I’m never goin 2 understand dem. Coloured-pencil drawing of a soother-faced baby:

Everyone blamed her brother but I’m the one who taught my cousin to say F*** off!

Conway said, ‘“The card was pinned over one that has half a postcard of Florida on top and half a postcard of Galway on the bottom. It says, I tell everyone this is my favourite place ’cause it’s cool… This is my actual favourite place ’cause no one here knows I’m supposed to be cool. I like Galway too, so sometimes I look at it when I go past. That’s why I noticed the picture of Chris.’”

It took me a second to cop. Holly’s statement; word for word, near as I could make out. Conway caught the startled look, gave me a sarky one back. ‘What, you thought I was thick?’

‘Didn’t think you had a memory like that on you.’

‘Live and learn.’ She leaned back from the board, scanning.

Big red-lipsticked mouth, teeth bared: My mother hates me because I’m fat. Darkening blue sky, soft green hillsides, one golden-lit window: I want to go home I want to go home I want to go home. Downstairs, the same delicate curve of madrigal, over and over.

‘There,’ said Conway. She nudged aside a photo of a man cleaning an oil-stained seagull – You can keep telling me to be a solicitor but I’m going to do THIS! – and pointed. Half Florida, half Galway. Left-hand side of the board, near the bottom.

Conway bent close. ‘Pinhole,’ she said. ‘Looks like your little pal didn’t make the whole thing up.’

If she had, she wouldn’t have forgotten the pinhole; not Holly. ‘Looks like.’

No point taking it for prints; anything proved nothing. Conway said, quoting again, ‘“I didn’t look at the Galway card yesterday evening when we were in the art room. I don’t remember when was the last time I looked at it. Maybe last week.”’

‘If the teachers on monitoring duty did their job, we’re down to whoever was in the building after class. Otherwise…’

‘Otherwise, a mess like this, a card could sit for days without getting noticed. No way to narrow it down.’ Conway let the seagull drop back into place, stepped back to take in the whole board again. ‘Your woman McKenna can yap on about safety valves all she wants. Me, I think this is fucked up.’

Hard to argue with that. I said, ‘We’re gonna have to check the lot.’

I saw her think it: ditch me with the scut work, go do the good stuff herself. She was the boss.

She said, ‘Quickest way would be to take them down as we go. That way we can’t miss any.’

‘We’ll never get them back right. You OK with the girls knowing we’ve been through them?’

‘Fuck’s sake,’ said Conway. ‘The whole case was like this. Fiddly pain-in-the-hole walking-on-eggshells bullshit. Better leave them where they are. You start from that side, I’ll take this one.’

It took us the guts of half an hour. We didn’t talk – lose your place in that tornado, you’d be banjaxed – but we worked well together, all the same. You can tell. The rhythms match up; the other person doesn’t start to annoy you just by existing. I’d been all ready to put in the work, make sure this went smooth as butter – straight back to Cold Cases for me, if I held Conway up or mouth-breathed into her ear – but there was no need. It was easy; effortless. Another surge of that lifting feeling I’d got on the stairs: your day, your luck, catch it if you can.