This attachment was even longer than the last one. ‘Sit down for this,’ Conway said. ‘Over there,’ and jerked her chin towards the window alcove at the far end of the corridor, between the two common rooms. The window had gone a clear lit purple, dusk that looked like thunder. Fine clouds shifted, restless.
We pulled ourselves onto the sill and sat shoulder to shoulder. Started at the beginning of the attachment and skimmed fast, trying to pay attention to the early stuff. Kids on Christmas morning, able to think about nothing but the big shiny package we were saving for last. Silence drumming at us, from the doors on both sides.
Lots of flirting. Chris flattering,
Bits of drama: some girl on a high-strung high horse,
You forget what it was like. You’d swear on your life you never will, but year by year it falls away. How your temperature ran off the mercury, your heart galloped flat out and never needed to rest, everything was pitched on the edge of shattering glass. How wanting something was like dying of thirst. How your skin was too fine to keep out any of the million things flooding by; every colour boiled bright enough to scald you, any second of any day could send you soaring or rip you to bloody shreds.
That was when I really believed it, not as a detective’s solid theory but right in my gut: a teenage girl could have killed Chris Harper. Had killed him.
Conway had caught it, too. ‘Bloody hell. The
I said, before I felt it coming out, ‘Do you ever miss that?’
‘Being a teenager?’ She glanced over at me, eyebrows pulling together. ‘Fuck no. All that drama, wrecking your own head over something you won’t even remember in a month? What a waste.’
I said, ‘It’s got something, but. There’s something beautiful there.’
Conway was still watching me. That morning’s tight hairdo was wearing out, glossy bits coming out of the bun to fall in front of her ear, and the sharp suit had wrinkles. Should’ve made her look softer, girlier, but it didn’t. Made her look like a hunter and a fighter, ragged from a bare-knuckle round. She said, ‘You like things to be beautiful.’
‘I do, yeah.’ When she waited: ‘So?’
‘So nothing. Good luck with that.’ She went back to the phone.
Bits of low-level smoochy talk, back and forth:
‘Gag,’ said Conway. ‘God rest, and all that shite, but what a sleaze he was.’
I said, ‘Or he wanted to believe it. Wanted to find someone he felt that way about.’
Conway snorted. ‘Right. Sensitive soul, our Chris. See these?’
One girl, back in October, had been scraped raw when Chris dumped her. The other one got the message quick enough, sent Chris a fast
Chris never got back to her. ‘Yeah,’ Conway said. ‘Just a poor lonely heart looking for love.’
