The Secret Place

Joanne Heffernan’s lot had been the first ones buzzing around the Secret Place: we started with them. Orla Burgess, we kicked off with. ‘That’ll put Joanne’s designer knickers in a twist,’ Conway said, when Houlihan had gone to find her, ‘not getting top billing. If she’s pissed off enough, she’ll get sloppy. And Orla’s got the brains of roadkill. We catch her off guard, we lean on her: if she’s got anything, she’ll spill. What?’

She’d snared me trying not to smile. ‘Thought this time we were going for relaxation. Not intimidation.’

‘Fuck you,’ Conway said, but there was the corner of a grin there too, bitten back. ‘Yeah, yeah. I’m a hard bitch. Be glad. If I was a sweetheart, you’d be out of a gig.’

‘I’m not complaining.’

‘Better not,’ Conway said, ‘or I bet there’s some no-hoper case from the seventies that could use your relaxation techniques. You want to do the talking, take a seat. I’ll watch Orla coming in, see if she looks for her card.’

I settled myself on one of the chairs in the aisle, nice and casual. Conway went to the door.

Fast double trip-trap of steps down the corridor, and Orla was in the doorway, wiggling, trying not to giggle. No beauty – no height, no neck and no waist, plenty of nose to make up for it – but she tried. Hard-work straight blond hair, fake tan. Something done to her eyebrows.

Conway’s quick fraction of a head-shake, behind her back, said Orla hadn’t clocked the Secret Place. ‘Thanks for that,’ she told Houlihan. ‘Why don’t you have a seat over here,’ and she had Houlihan swept to the back of the room and planted in a corner before Houlihan could manage more than a gasp.

‘Orla,’ I said, ‘I’m Detective Stephen Moran.’ That made a bit of the giggle burst out. Comic genius, me. ‘Have a seat.’ I stretched out a hand to the chair opposite me.

Conway propped herself against a table, near my shoulder, not too near. Orla gave her a vacant look, on her way over. Conway’s the type that makes an impression, but this kid barely recognised her.

Orla sat down, squirmed her skirt down over her knees. ‘Is this about Chris Harper again? OhmyGod, did you find out who…? You know. Who…?’

Snuffly voice. Pitched high, all ready for a squeal or a simper. That accent you get these days, like a bad actor faking American.

I said, ‘Why? Is there something you want to tell us about Chris Harper?’

Orla practically jumped back out of the chair. ‘Huh? No! No way.’

‘Because if you’ve got anything new to add, now’s the time. You know that, right?’

‘Yeah. I totally do. If I knew anything, I’d tell you. But I don’t. Honest to God.’

Tic-smile, involuntary, wet with hope and fear.

You want in with a witness, you figure out what she wants. Then you give her that, big handfuls. I’m good at that.

Orla wanted people to like her. Pay attention to her. Like her some more.

Stupid, it sounds; is. But I felt let down. Thrown down, with an ugly splat like puke. This place had had me expecting something, under these high ceilings, in this turning air that smelled of sun and hyacinths. Expecting special, expecting rare. Expecting a shimmering dappled something I had never seen before.

This girl: the same as a hundred girls I grew up with and stayed miles from, exact shoddy same, just with a fake accent and more money spent on her teeth. She was nothing special; nothing.

I didn’t want to look at Conway. Couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew exactly what was going on in my head, and was laughing at it. Not in a good way.

Big warm crinkly grin, I gave Orla. Leaned in. ‘No worries. I was just hoping. On the off-chance, you know the way?’

I held the grin till Orla smiled back. ‘Yeah.’ Grateful, pathetically grateful. Someone, probably Joanne, used Orla for kicking when the world pissed her off.

‘We’ve just got a few questions for you – routine stuff, no big deal. Could you answer those for us, yeah? Help me out?’

‘OK. Sure.’

Orla was still smiling. Conway slid backwards onto the table. Got out her notebook.

‘You’re a star,’ I said. ‘So let’s talk about yesterday evening. First study period, you were here in the art room?’

Defensive glance at Houlihan. ‘We’d got permission.’

Her only worry about yesterday evening: hassle from teachers.

I said, ‘I know, yeah. Tell us, how do you go about getting permission?’

‘We ask Miss Arnold. She’s the matron.’

‘Who asked her? And when?’

Blank look. ‘It wasn’t me.’

‘Whose idea was it to spend the extra time up here?’

More blank. ‘That wasn’t me either.’ I believed her. I got the feeling most ideas weren’t Orla.

‘No problem,’ I said. More smile. ‘Talk me through it. One of you got the key to the connecting door off Miss Arnold…’

‘I did. Right before first study period. And then we came up here. Me and Joanne and Gemma and Alison.’

‘And then?’

‘We just worked on this project we have. It has to be art and another subject, like mixed – ours is art and Computer Studies. That’s it over there.’