The Secret Place

‘I guess,’ the kid says miserably. He’s obviously still there only because the walk of shame back to his mates is too horrible to contemplate. Becca wants to curl up like a bug and pull weeds over herself till she disappears. The makeup feels like someone held her down and painted HAHAHAHA across her face.

‘Here,’ Selena says. She hands the kid her phone. ‘Take a photo of us. Then you can head back to your friends, and it’ll look like you were just here doing us a favour. OK?’

The kid shoots her a look of pure animal gratitude. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘OK.’

‘Becs,’ Selena says, and holds out an arm. ‘Come here.’

After a second Becca shuffles herself closer. Lenie’s arm wraps tight around her, Holly leans in against her other shoulder; she feels the warmth of their skin straight through tops and hoodies, the solidity of them. Her body breathes it in like it’s oxygen.

‘Say cheese,’ says the spotty little kid, kneeling up. He sounds a lot more cheerful.

‘Hang on,’ Becca says. She drags the back of her hand across her mouth, hard, smearing Fierce Fox super-matte long-lasting lipstick across her face in a wide war-paint streak. ‘OK,’ she says with a great big smile, ‘cheese,’ and hears the fake click-whirr of the phone as the kid presses the button.

Behind them, Chris Harper shouts out, ‘OK, here I go!’ To the soundtrack of Aileen Russell’s squeal he straightens, high on the breeze blocks, and launches himself up and over in a backflip against the sky. He lands staggering; his momentum takes him skidding through ragwort, onto his back in a patch of shuddering green and gold. He lies there, splayed and breathless, looking up at the cheating blue sky and laughing his heart out.

Chapter 7

The between-classes rush was different, this time round. Huddles against walls, shiny heads tucked close. Low thrumming of a hundred top-speed whispers going at once. Buzz sliced off and girls scurrying when they whipped round and saw us coming. Word had got around.

We caught a bunch of teachers on the early lunch in the staff room – nice staff room, espresso machine and Matisse posters, bit of niceness to keep the mood happy. The PE teacher had been on board-check duty the day before, and she swore she’d checked straight after classes and checked right. Two new cards, she’d spotted, the black Labrador and one about some girl saving her pocket money towards a boob job. Par for the course, she said: back when the board first went up it had been hopping, dozens of new cards a day, but the rush had died down. If there’d been a third new one, she would have noticed.

Wary eyes following us out of the staff room; wary eyes and cosy beef-stew smell, and just too soon, one step before we got out of earshot, a surge of low voices and shushing.

‘Thank Jesus,’ Conway said, ignoring. ‘That ought to narrow it down.’

I said, ‘She could’ve put it up herself.’

Conway took the stairs two at a time, back up towards McKenna’s office. ‘The teacher? Not unless she’s an idiot. Why get herself on the list? Throw the card up there someday when you’re not on duty, let someone else find it: no connection to you. She’s out, or as near as it gets.’

McKenna’s curly secretary had the list ready for us, all typed up and printed off, service with a smile. Orla Burgess, Gemma Harding, Joanne Heffernan, Alison Muldoon – given permission to spend first evening study period in art room (6.00-7.15 p.m.). Julia Harte, Holly Mackey, Rebecca O’Mara, Selena Wynne – given permission to spend second evening study period in art room (7.45-9.00 p.m.).

‘Huh,’ Conway said, taking the list back off me and leaning one thigh against the secretary’s desk to have another read. ‘Who woulda thought. I’ll need to talk to the eight of them, separately. And I want them all pulled out of class right now and supervised, nonstop, till I’m done.’ No point in letting them match up stories or move evidence, on the off-chance they hadn’t already. ‘I’ll have the art room, and a teacher to sit in with us. Whatshername, teaches French: Houlihan.’

The art room was free and Houlihan would be with us momentarily, as soon as someone was found to take over her class. McKenna had given orders: what the cops want, the cops get.

We didn’t need Houlihan. You want to interview an underage suspect, you need an appropriate adult present; you want to interview an underage witness, it’s your call. If you can skip the extra, then you do: there are things kids might tell you that they won’t say in front of Mammy, or in front of a teacher.

If you get in an appropriate adult, then it’s for reasons. I got the social worker in with Holly because I was on my own with a teenage girl, and because of her da. Conway wanted Houlihan for reasons.